Madison Heartsong

How? I'll do that if it's fairly inexpensive.

No, though I don't mind some additional income for LL if it's done in a way that isn't bad for committed players. They'll take some extra profit one way or another when they want it and can get it, as with the increased Linden transaction fees, which did hurt, slightly, more committed players. Committed players wouldn't feel this. Even those who don't get premium accounts end up paying much more than $5 worth of Lindens (including those who earn that with an in-world job, but still do spend more than that much if even if they never convert it). But this would harm griefers, as much as possible without ruining gameplay for others testing sl out for free.: Non-confirmed accounts could be banned from a few griefer-like things like particle effects. But mostly it would be in the option to ban non-confirmed accounts in any way one chose to. As a parcel owner I can see myself hitting "ban all non-confirmed accounts from my land." I could also ban non-confirmed accounts from iming me or even seeing me. I wouldn't do that for all non-premium accounts, banning the majority of people including many on sl much longer than I've been who are great people, but everyone there 90 days would have paid the $5, so I'd feel fine doing that with newbies who hadn't shown that commitment. They could even be banned by a user from finding them in a search, if a person was looking to stalk or harass them. A committed stalker would pay the $5, but a lot of them wouldn't find it worth it. A lot of sims, etc., would ban from their parcels avatars of accounts people didn't pay the $5 for, and I have been on a sim where new accounts, whose users I imagine would never have paid $5 for the account, griefed people. The having paid the $5 would be a credential that shows it is probably not a throwaway account, and it could be used to, if very imperfectly, tell the difference between throwaway accounts and legit ones. If you admit that it's a non-awful credential of that, then the only case against it would be if a decent number of people who'd otherwise become good community members would refuse to even make the one time $5 payment. Given how much such people spend, even over their first 90 days, I don't think a one-time $5 fee would deter more than a tiny number of them.

Actually by law if I missed my rent my landlord would have 10 days before they could even initiate an eviction...but even if they could evict me the first day, I'm saying go ahead and evict me from my land in SL if I were to ever fail to pay the tier fee. I'd be barred from using my land (what is it on it, I should get something like the same notice and 10 days I'd be entitled to in real life before it was all returned, so if I did pay within the 10 days it would be there where I left it)...but don't evict me from SL. I might even lose premium status until paid, but could still log on, as if I'd always only had a free account-- as I wouldn't have paid. The analogy if I couldn't log in at all would be to putting me in jail if I were behind on my rent. Then it wouldn't even be "pay it late, no consequences" in that case, even though I'm saying not to touch my stuff for 10 days. I'd fully expect that it wouldn't change my due date and to get my land back without everything thrown back into my inventory I'd be paying for the time I wasn't able to access the land and couldn't use it as part of the payment. I once had identity theft happen to me, had to cancel my bank account, etc.. For a short time period no payment method would have worked, as I had to change bank accounts and my cards. I shouldn't be locked out of SL if that happened again. It's disproportionate, an incentive not to have a premium account and to instead rent, because if I were late on rent to a private SL landlord I'd probably lose access to the rental land, but would at least still be able to log in.

First, I agree with most that it would do more harm than good to eliminate or give significant disincentives to non-premium accounts. From the fact they're the majority on SL and overall certainly improve the experience to the fact that real estate barons who make money from renting would be put out of business, to the fact that if it cost everyone money, paid every month or paid less often or more at a time, from the start to play, there would be a lot less people starting to play. Some of those will end up buying premium accounts or spending money and the others will mostly quit. What one can get for free isn't worthwhile. The closest anyone comes is working at a job on SL to be able to afford things that aren't free. More people ought to be on premium accounts, but mostly they should be incentivized to do so, by being given more goodies. 1024 sq m of land instead of 512, as suggested, is a good idea; or maybe LL could partner with some sellers to give premium account holders a 10% discount in their stores 10% of the 10% discount would be reimbursed by LL (1% of the total purchase price), but merchants' main gain would be being on a list where premium account holders know they get a discount. The discount would be in-store, not on MP, so they'd get extra visitors to their in-world store, and that might lead to at least a 10% increase in the gross value of their sales. If enough merchants did it, it's like a small stipend increase that LL only pays a small fraction of. But while I'm defending non-premium accounts, I'm avoiding defending free accounts, supporting an idea I saw upthread. There would be disincentives to accounts where nothing has been paid at all (buying Lindens not counting). Those are the ones that can be throwaways. They have to be allowed to exist. Some people won't pay anything to start. They can't be made so awful that no one could have a good experience in one. But those are the ones that are more likely to be used for nefarious purposes, from griefing to spying. They should not have to go premium or ever pay a monthly fee to avoid restrictions. But I agree with Rhonda Huntress' idea: They must pay a one-time $5 fee, within 90 days of creation, to make their account permanent forever (or being premium for even one month would do the same). Heck, maybe if they never get cited for a TOS violation, then one year after they pay the $5 fee they get it back in its Linden value. But meanwhile, those who never paid the $5, people would have the option of excluding such players from their land, and everything would have an option not to deal with those who were "unconfirmed" accounts (meaning they'd neither ever been premium nor paid the $5 fee). Those would include many anti-griefer, anti-stalker options, including being totally invisible and unsearchable, if so choosing to anyone unconfirmed. Some would be disabled to them by default, though no one would have to keep anything turned off to them (outside perhaps of commonly used griefer measures like particle effects). Once they confirmed the account by paying the $5 (or going premium for even a month), all restrictions would be permanently dropped. Someone might be deterred from starting if they had to pay even a one-time $5 fee to start, but within 90 days (or sooner, to get restrictions dropped) if one liked SL enough they wanted to play it, paying a one time $5 fee wouldn't deter much of anyone-- unless they were totally not serious about their account, the way a griefer would want to use a throwaway. If they didn't confirm the account with the one time $5 fee in 90 days, the account would be discarded. Finally, wow about the tier fee. You can't log in with an unpaid tier fee? Not even, say, to sell the land? That's way too harsh. They should let people log in in that spot, just not use the land at all except to have a way to put it on sale.

I'm glad this topic was re-"awakened." I wasn't even on SL a year ago when it was discussed at length, and I only occasionally get on the forums, but I happened to now; and I feel strongly about this issue. This way I get to rant, as no-copy items, especially, drive me nuts, and no-mod as an option can be annoying and I feel is generally bad for sl. I'd really love to see people start boycotting items that are not copy/mod (with few exceptions that were noted in the early posts of the thread), because particularly with mod, many item types it greatly restricts the selection if one only buys mod. But if half the SL users who currently buy no-mod items stopped buying them, their creators' losing half their sales would push most of them to open up mod permissions. Some wouldn't. Some create for the art and any money they make is a bonus, and that's fine; just expect to make less money then, and if your main reason for building is artistic expression I'm really okay with that if you accept that tradeoff. Those creators would get a lot less revenue, but they wouldn't care much. Those who care significantly about the money they make would all go to moddable, and that would open up many more options for those of us who want to buy moddable items. Those who don't plan to mod anyway, don't get hurt. It would be a win for everyone except those who wanted to have artist ethics but wanted businessperson profits. They'd have to choose one or the other. Unfortunately, no boycott at that level is going to occur, but that's a shame and while I'll buy no-mod items at times, though generally only if they at least have things like huds to change things like textures and size, I give preference to mod and always will encourage others to do the same. If enough items were mod, and in some categories enough are, I'd never buy no-mod. The more people who at least give strong preference to items that can be modified, the more choices there will be for those who want them-- and by the way I choose that strong preference even if I don't plan to modify the object, just to use my money to discourage refusing mod permissions. No copy is even worse in most cases. There truly is one good reason to make an item no copy (instead of no transfer as protection against someone else selling one's content), and that is that there are things I've both put in my home and put a copy in a sim I'm a member of as a group. I'm getting double value for it, maybe more if someone asked me to put a copy in their home too or something (on the other hand, multiple copies on the same lot I think creators should just factor in and charge more for a copy version if they want; and if it's an inventory item like clothing or a hud, there's no excuse for no-copy at all). But that is very much outweighed by the fact that I've learned in my 7 1/2 months on SL, that: Stuff. Gets. Lost. (Sometimes, maybe usually, it's my fault, but sometimes it's because like any program SL is not bug free). I bought my last expensive no-copy item, ever, when I rezzed it, somehow did something wrong and lost it, and had to buy it again to have one copy; I found a copy version that time or might have had to write it off completely. I've lost at least one other item that way, for which I never bought the replacement. Then it was Lindens thrown away. With Copy, I can reopen the box if I lose something, and that happens at times but with Copy it's no big deal. Fortunately, few enough items aren't available in Copy versions that I'll never spend more than maybe 100 Lindens on anything no copy anymore, and I give up the option of very few items to avoid those potential losses. If someone's excuse for no-copy is that, like a Gacha, it's meant as a collector's item, that only makes sense as a reason if the creator limits the total copies they'll sell well below potential demand. I still don't want it because I could lose it, but okay then. I can get what you're going for. "Only 50 people in all of sl have that item." Then there's a truly direct decision to sacrifice profit for the vision you have, and I can respect that. But don't claim that if you'll sell as many copies, no copy, as you can. It's no collector's item if you'll sell as many as people will buy. And there's almost never a good reason to buy a no-copy item, with as many good items without that restriction as exist. "No copy" may soon almost cease to exist outside of Gachas and true collector's items, and that would be great for SL. I still get frustrated when I like something and then see it's no-copy, and then I realize I'd go to a "skill gaming" region if I wanted to take a bad gamble like that. I wish "no mod" might be on its way out soon, but that seems very unlikely given how many creators use it (outside of legit reasons like demos and scripts that could be modded to cheat a game or sim in some way, as was mentioned early in the thread; I don't think that many are creating a lot more for artistic rather than revenue purposes, such that they'd stick to it if it were costing them enough revenue; though I will repeat that if someone would keep their items no mod even if they'd only sell half as many I can respect their reasons; it would just be nice if they had to make that choice). One last thing before I end the rant: I read of a feeling of "entitlement" to copy/mod that was claimed. My strong desire for Copy isn't a feeling of entitlement to have more than one of something. It's a desire that if I buy something, I should never lose it short of screwing up even worse than I think I have at times-- certainly not, as can happen, due to a game bug, or a minor screw up like rezzing mesh on mesh. Mod, as someone mentioned, is an entitlement in real life. If I buy clothes in real life and want to make alterations, I can. If someone buys a car and enhances the engine, no one will stop them. If I pick up a hot dog and decide to cover it with chocolate pudding, most people (including me ) would see that as silly, but I can't be stopped. Modifying what has become one's own property pretty much ought to be an entitlement, as it is in real life, unless it's a demo or rigging something to cheat a sim or game or something. Now, I can end my rant.

I can't log in. There's just an infinite hang on the login screen. What's happening?

Okay, I'm glad to know the problem isn't on my end. Thanks.

I get "failed" on my dashboard, and my viewer hangs indefinitely at "logging in."