Will land ever be priced fairly?

[BJoyful]

32 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

They are in the business of making money off land

LL has changed their policy to a fee-based income rather than land fee income stream a couple of years ago.  They will continue to charge fees for land use as they do have to pay AWS to host the land, but they won't need to incorporate the cost of all the current Abandoned Land because someone else will be paying for those costs.  If 200 or 2000 Regions covered in massive skydomes rezzed in a stack from 4096m down to the ground on Mainland just disappear and sell or Abandon Land I will cheer uproariously!! ♥  Let any and all who don't want anything to change but never cease to complain dump all of their Mainland in favour of... what else?? (not really... I'm just imagining what if) and I will be in support morally and possibly financially, of any enterprising idea I like... just because I can and I have that right ♥  There can certainly be guidelines created to prevent misuse, but I know of many places for sale (even a couple of 512's we own on Zindra) which are completely decorated and furnished, set for Sale and used/tested/misused by actual land shoppers or for a 'quickie' and that doesn't bother me at all.  Sure there will be some who manage to hack anything to get something for cheaper or for nothing... but at least some portion of that land will be paid for by a Landowner rather than solely by LL (and accordingly charged to us land Owners as a cost of operating contiguous Abandoned Land).

Change is inevitable and necessary for everything to evolve... or it will cease to exist.  Nothing will ever change unless someone changes it no matter how much complaining is voiced.  This "Reduced Tier Land For Sale" proposal could be accomplished by a private (non LL) Land Group, but I certainly couldn't do it by myself.  It would also be a longer term investment before any significant profit would be realized... but an LL supported (even if just by LL's donation of some tier to said Group) Land Group would provide a much quicker return of investment and profit for all investors, plus another possible reduction of Land Use Fees for all... so we'll see what happens... or doesn't happen and we can all simply Keep Calm and Carry On ♥♥

Edited October 31, 2023 by BJoyful
sp

[Zalificent Corvinus]

4 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

LL has changed their policy to a fee-based income rather than land fee income stream a couple of years ago

No, they didn't "change policy", that would imply they don't care about getting payed for land, what they did was change emphasis, and TRY to move away from land revenue. but they haven't done that yet, or else we'd be paying 50% sales tax on the MP by now.

 

6 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

If 200 or 2000 Regions covered in massive skydomes rezzed in a stack from 4096m down to the ground on Mainland just disappear and sell or Abandon Land I will cheer uproariously!!

Another wrong assumption, mainland rentals do not consist entirely of "skydome stacks", the majority are just modest sized parcels, available for less than you'd pay in tier, to non premiums. A friend of mine IS an actual "land baron", they own a fair number of parcels in Horizons, all of which are on "sale or rent" terms, and which bring in a modest profit, as well as recovering the original purchase price over a couple of years, and covering tier.

 

10 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

Let any and all who don't want anything to change but never cease to complain dump all of their Mainland in favour of... what else?? (not really... I'm just imagining what if) and I will be in support morally and possibly financially, of any enterprising idea I like...

Somehow I doubt you will compensate some 200 region sale or rent business, when your plan puts them out of business, especially out of your own pocket, unless you are the secret alt of the Zuckborg, or MarsMusk.

 

13 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

but an LL supported (even if just by LL's donation of some tier to said Group) Land Group would provide a much quicker return of investment and profit for all investors, plus another possible reduction of Land Use Fees for all..

Sorry but that is complete nonsense...

What you just said is: "If LL give us a discount on our land, we will make more money while LL lose hand over fist, and LL can then lower our tier even more and increase the rate at which they go bankrupt!"

They are already running Belli as a loss leader. They don't need more "lose money bribing people to stay" projects.

 

[BJoyful]

46 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

A pro rata tier system would destroy the Barons profitability, and he'd dump the 200 full regions faster than a hot dog turd, and there certainly would not be a 200 regions worth uptick in privately owned parcels to match.

Pro rata based on actual time owned land per square metre (in 16 m2 increments) can still be discounted on a scale (more m2 owned = less cost per m2)

[BJoyful]

17 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Somehow I doubt you will compensate some 200 region sale or rent business, when your plan puts them out of business, especially out of your own pocket, unless you are the secret alt of the Zuckborg, or MarsMusk.

LOL   I currently pay tier for 1.25 Regions of Mainland (1/2 Region is a G Rated Destination I donate tier to support) and I have paid for up to 3.75 Regions of Mainland at most for a while, so I guess I'm a micro-Baron classed Land Owner.  I've never made a profit using SL because that has never been my intention, but I could have if I really put my mind to it.  I'm retired (since age 46) but did have a nicely profitable RL Real Estate-related career which currently allows me to enjoy a lovely leisurely RL and SL ♥

Edited November 1, 2023 by BJoyful
1.5 s/b 1.25 Regions

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 minute ago, BJoyful said:

LOL   I currently pay tier for 1.5 Regions of Mainland (1/2 Region is a G Rated Destination I donate tier to support) and I have paid for up to 3.75 Regions of Mainland at most for a while, so I guess I'm a micro-Baron classed Land Owner.  I've never made a profit using SL because that has never been my intention, but I could have if I really put my mind to it.  I'm retired (since age 46) but did have a nicely profitable RL Real Estate-related career which currently allows me to enjoy a lovely leisurely RL and SL ♥

My friend is a "micro baron" too, but she does make a profit, which she uses to fund a full region sized hangout for herself, friends, aquaintances, and casual visitors. She also owns one of the two "best 1024 parcels" in SL, Adult rated, 2x prim, protected road  or protected water on 3 sides. That's one plot she has NO intention of selling.

[BJoyful]

1 minute ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

My friend is a "micro baron" too, but she does make a profit, which she uses to fund a full region sized hangout for herself, friends, aquaintances, and casual visitors.

Finding out about or meeting people like your friend is one of the nicest reasons I love SL ♥  I know of many micro and macro sized Land Barons in SL and I appreciate them all, however I don't admire them all, especially the anything-for-a-possible-L$ variety 😉  I would whole-heartedly support any good business plan proposed to me in any form as long as I can envision it being beneficial to SL because I believe SL has an important place in the current RL world and its future.  I feel LL is doing a very good job in keeping SL online and evolving.  Nothing and no one is perfect and that gives us all something to do and work toward but never achieve... the joy is in the process, in this moment.  What has happened or may happen is largely irrelevant to this moment.

[Lewis Nerd]

18 hours ago, BJoyful said:

Bellisseria provided a stunning example of extensive contiguous beauty and infrastructure some of the people who are ready to move up from the Bellisserian 'starter home' (according to its original purpose) are making those Mainland improvements. 

Tbh this "Bellisseria" place sounds more like a HoC which is probably one of the worst things in America, which thankfully seems to have stayed there and not gone round the rest of the world.

I guess 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and Bellisseria is not something that appeals to me.  I have no issues with some basic restrictions particularly when parts of builds affect the neighbours but I do like the freedom of mainland.  But I've always been a considerate builder and whilst some may think using prims to build an attractive 'parcel outline' could be considered a bit of a waste, it's something I've always factored in and it seems to have been appreciated - and if a neighbour thinks it's too high, if they tell me, we work out a compromise.

[BJoyful]

6 minutes ago, Lewis Nerd said:

Tbh this "Bellisseria" place sounds more like a HoC which is probably one of the worst things in America, which thankfully seems to have stayed there and not gone round the rest of the world.

I guess 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and Bellisseria is not something that appeals to me.

Bellisseria changed my Second Life in countless wonderful ways and I think it was the most brilliant major thing LL (and especially Patch and the LDPW) has ever done since I've been a Resident on this account (since June 2015).  I do understand its not for everyone and I don't think it was ever intended to be something for everyone, just Starter style Homes for Premium Members, new and old.  My partner and I Owned a 4096 on the South Coast of Corsica while watching the SSP Regions for daily progress and managed to get a Houseboat on April 15, 2019, the first day they opened.  We've never left, but we did Abandon my original Houseboat when my Partner got a stunning Houseboat location in Carden, so I snagged a Camper 800 m South with a river nearly door to door between our places  

I don't think we'll ever leave them because we love the water, roads and especially the SLRR rails, we're not much into air travel except by hot air balloon.  We LOVE the communities which formed, the amazing Community Centres and most of all the parties!  ♥♪

[rasterscan]

23 hours ago, Lewis Nerd said:

Shoreline definitely, hills I agree to an extent.  There are some bits of land that you'd have to be really creative - or just build a platform to build on - and of course the 'rocky' ground texture isn't necessarily that aesthetically pleasing for many build scenarios...

 

Joy turned this hill ...

into this ...

[Lewis Nerd]

1 hour ago, rasterscan said:

Joy turned this hill ... into this ...

That's a very nice transformation - but have a look round the Warmouth region and see if some of that land is so easily beautifiable!

[BJoyful]

45 minutes ago, Lewis Nerd said:

but have a look round the Warmouth region and see if some of that land is so easily beautifiable!

Okay... challenge accepted we'll pop over and take a look!  

 

[rasterscan]

Somebody likes it there

[BJoyful]

I'd use the steep grey rock in a way similar to this:

but with small alpines like juniper and cedar rather than succulent plants and set a house like this:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/House/23189497

for a very modern, minimal environment, spindly trees like the pines from Bad Katz and any bonsai twisted trees also would lend themselves to a rocky place, use sharp angled rocks with any trees tucked in to where a patch of soil might have caught long enough to let a tree survive and a path of black or bleached sharpish step stones or stairs:

what do you think?  I spotted an Abandoned Roadside parcel about 1024 (I think?)  if you want to try and decorate to sell on that parcel, I will contribute tier for you to try it.

 

[Qie Niangao]

On 10/25/2023 at 2:21 PM, animats said:

Current tier pricing.

[...]

Somehow I'm wired to see these axes swapped, even though it shouldn't matter, so I stared at it a long time trying to "feel" the step function the same way the Land Use Fees tier table feels. Eventually I realized that part of my difficulty was that the amount of land covered by, say, a full sim tier at US$ 166 / month (the final vertical line) doesn't start at a full region but rather, as the graph shows, it ends there, starting instead at 3/4 region. (Also, the slight upward curvature corresponds to an almost negligible "quantity discount".)

Anyway, I intended to use the steps to make this point: Whether or not we perceive it as "fair" it does have some marketing significance, I think, luring landowners to larger holdings than they'd have if every additional m² cost incrementally more. I mean, sure, the step-function pricing also means hesitancy to cross the threshold into the next tier, but then once crossed, adding more land up to the next tier is an easy decision—indeed, it seems imprudent to not get all you're paying for, so why wait? And then, before you know it, you're up against a hurdle again, weighing another gateway decision. If instead the monthly fees were per m², personally I'd never make all the incremental low cost decisions to get that far.

This isn't to defend discrete tier pricing as a customer, just to suggest the Lab may have good reason to stick with it, despite all these years of complaints and all the convoluted practices we've dreamt up to work around it.

[BJoyful]

@Qie Niangao  I'm sure there is good reason for the current billing method and I have been forgiven for temporary step ups a few times when I went into the next tier bracket for a few minutes by accident, for which I'm very grateful.  The current method did take a few of these 'accidental' overages until I better understood how and why to do things in a specific order. ♥

Edited November 1, 2023 by BJoyful
sp

[Love Zhaoying]

I lost track - since Land is sometimes as low as "1L$/sqm", I assume the complaints are about "tier" pricing.

So far, I liked the idea best proposed by Animats. If you're going to charge us, charge for what we actually USE. Not some "tier" representing some artificial level which could be significantly above what we use.

"Oh noes! I went 1sqm over my allotment! Now I will go broke and quit Second Life, because they will charge US$100 extra per month."

[BJoyful]

14 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I lost track - since Land is sometimes as low as "1L$/sqm", I assume the complaints are about "tier" pricing.

So far, I liked the idea best proposed by Animats. If you're going to charge us, charge for what we actually USE. Not some "tier" representing some artificial level which could be significantly above what we use.

"Oh noes! I went 1sqm over my allotment! Now I will go broke and quit Second Life, because they will charge US$100 extra per month."

Yes, the way tier is charged and also the increments. If you have 0.75 Regions and want to purchase an additional 512 m2, you must pay for an additional 0.25 Region.

If you have a different 512 of your land (out of the 0.75 Regions) for Sale and a 512 beside your home comes on the market which you would like to have , you must either Abandon your 512 for Sale and lose the profit... or pay an additional 0.25 Region at least until the original parcel for Sale is Sold or Abandoned.  Also important is that if you do go up by a 0.25 Region in order to purchase the 512 and later the same day the original 512 is Sold... you pay the extra 0.25 Region until your tier date arrives.  I believe OP wants to be allowed to pay for only the extra 512 until his tier date arrives instead of the whole extra 0.25 Region.

OP could pay for a Plus (come with 512 free tier but no Linden house) Alt month to month until he no longer needs an extra 512 from the Alt's tier donation to the land Group.

Qie points out there is probably a benefit to LL which we don't know.  Perhaps like their accurate stats prove that this encourages more Land owners to acquire more land to use up the available tier in the extra 0.25 as opposed to my wish... that we could own 15,625 m2 and then buy an extra micro of 44 m2 and pay for exactly 15,669 for as long as I own that amount, billed monthly on my tier date.

Edited November 2, 2023 by BJoyful
grammar + typos

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

Yes, the way tier is charged and also the increments. If you have 0.75 Regions and want to purchase an additional 512 m2, you must pay for an additional 0.25 Region.

I keep forgetting that yes, that's what the OP complained about ("tiers") because of course, this thread got off-topic after a short period.

[BJoyful]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

I keep forgetting that yes, that's what the OP complained about ("tiers") because of course, this thread got off-topic after a short period.

I didn't notice it go off topic? (Grabs my Men In Black pen and flashes it in the eyes of the Mod who may shut down this thread for meandering)

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, BJoyful said:

I didn't notice it go off topic? (Grabs my Men In Black pen and flashes it in the eyes of the Mod who may shut down this thread for meandering)

An example of going off topic IN MY OPINION is all the suggestions of using the group bonus to increase the sqm of land you can use.

That is not the same at ALL of fixing the general "tier vs. L$/sqm" issue raised by the OP, which some of us agree with. 

[BJoyful]

Oh wow, we are hacks!  Finding back doors and work arounds to circumvent a clever marketing strategy...like Pinky & the Brain (I'm not even thinking about a silly P&TB meme!)  😉 

Some days reading the Forum is like herding cats by using chickens

 

In all fairness, there is NO Cagey Linden.  I imagine this issue/complaint/suggestion about Land Use Fees will be addressed (or maybe is already being addressed) according to its priority in the BIG virtual world picture.  The Lindens are professional, friendly, fun-loving and very hard working extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, every day ♥  I've never met a Linden who doesn't love their job.  In the real world, that's more rare than finding an antimatter cache.

Edited November 2, 2023 by BJoyful
afterthoughtfullness and lack of coffee

[diamond Marchant]

Will land ever be fairly priced? No. They may continue to tweak around the edges but the strange tier system will remain.

Second Life offers no set objective or manufactured drama. Rather, aspects of our world that would be made very easy in a "game" are challenging in Second Life... perhaps on purpose. In a "game", they want you to get on with the "game". Not so here.

In Second Life, all this weirdness IS part of the "game".

We are challenged and must master just about everything. Picking a viewer, getting dressed, walking, shopping, managing inventory, operating a vehicle, not crashing, acquiring a desirable Linden home,  acquiring a place for permanence, building/texturing/scripting something, managing LI, rent vs. buy, managing tier, etc. etc. etc.

For some reason (I have no real clue), Linden Lab under private ownership is still operating Second Life, so whatever policies they have in place about all this stuff must be yielding a sufficient ROI to keep the lights on.

They not gonna mess with such a fundamental revenue generator as tier structure.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

On 10/31/2023 at 3:33 PM, BJoyful said:

LL has changed their policy to a fee-based income rather than land fee income stream a couple of years ago.

On 10/31/2023 at 3:50 PM, Zalificent Corvinus said:

No, they didn't "change policy", that would imply they don't care about getting payed for land, what they did was change emphasis, and TRY to move away from land revenue. but they haven't done that yet, or else we'd be paying 50% sales tax on the MP by now.

Yeah.

Bit stream of consciousness here so I'm probably off in a few places. My general thought on this though is as follows:

LL possibly did change their main source of revenue, but it's still related to land.

A few years back SL was held together by a small handful of massive land barons renting out land in various forms:
Users buys L$ ---> User pays land baron or buys stuff from User B who then pays land baron ---> Land baron pays LL
 

Now it still has that, but direct premium accounts seem to have grown a LOT:

User gets linden home ---> User pays LL.
User gets mainland plot ---> User pays LL.

These two methods have always been around (well, mainland has, and old linden homes have just over a decade), but since 2019 they appear to be become more and more often the norm rather than the exception. Bellisseria is HUGE - At a glance it seems to be about the same as all the rest of mainland. But it's also more occupied (and often by people like me who ALSO have some mainland).

- So the income stream for LL is now more dispersed, and they have more flexibility to set policy regardless of the whims of "power users". Hopefully setting policy to match a majority of users, but they're free to not do that also.

Belli is not so much a threat to mainland - I suspect it actually helps mainland (do I use my excess tier for a small plot on mainland, or for a linden home - amount depending) - but I suspect it is a threat to estate land. If you go premium, you CAN use that stipend to get an estate parcel - but then you're just wasting your tier. So you also get a Linden Home or Mainland plot, and then start to question why you're renting on an estate unless that estate is really high quality.

 

That noted, for the past decade or so they have also been gaining revenue from marketplace - and SL has become more and more 'shopping focused' in that time as well. And nobody knows just how much they get from that. It's rather indirect too... it's a "gold sink". The "tax" on items forces people to keep having to buy more L$. It's small at the individual level, but it adds up over scale.

 

Now... all the way back to the OP complaint.

I can see one reason for land tier to be "unfair" - it's not in LLs interest for people to scale up too high. Mega land barons have outsized influence. Better to keep users at a smaller scale and gets lots of individuals instead of a few power brokers. But this "scale" is way beyond even owning a couple of regions. That's a concern when you start putting multiple 0s on the end of how many regions you own. Still, making it harder to scale early on just helps to discourage the idea.

Edited November 2, 2023 by UnilWay SpiritWeaver

[Lewis Nerd]

19 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Now... all the way back to the OP complaint.

I can see one reason for land tier to be "unfair" - it's not in LLs interest for people to scale up too high. Mega land barons have outsized influence. Better to keep users at a smaller scale and gets lots of individuals instead of a few power brokers. But this "scale" is way beyond even owning a couple of regions. That's a concern when you start putting multiple 0s on the end of how many regions you own. Still, making it harder to scale early on just helps to discourage the idea.

Yes, sorry I probably wasn't as clear as I should have been that it's about how tiers work - land prices are, generally, down to market forces, location and desirability which in general I don't have an issue with (unless it's someone pricing neighbouring land extortionally, having built a 'griefer built' and hoping that you buy it at an inflated price to get rid of something that's within the rules but unsightly and annoying).

Land barons serve a purpose, I guess - although mostly to new users who don't want to commit yet to paying a monthly fee) but what may or may not affect them doesn't bother me, only people like me whose creativity is stifled by what seems a bit of a nonsensical 'tier system'.  Yes, paying to upgrade a free alt may work out a cheaper option... but should it?

[Prokofy Neva]

The Lindens need to end the tier jumps. Despite all the workarounds people suggest -- and which you know as this is not your first rodeo -- the jumps kill you if you have less than a sim. There is no technical reason that I can see that they need to maintain this archaic system. There should be a standard per-meter cost.