Beth Macbain

lol... thank you. And I've finally got some responses from the vendors, though still no resolution.

You know what, you're right. I'm not going to delete my last post because that's bad form, but yeah. You are frustrated. I get that. I do disagree with your assertion that you're being treated unfairly by LL and aren't getting the same benefits others get, but that's my prerogative to have that opinion, same as it's your prerogative to have your opinion. You are frustrated, and so are the rest of us, for different reasons. We see this argument popping up at least a couple times a week and yes, it gets frustrating seeing it over and over again. Let's just agree to all be frustrated and agree to disagree. I do apologize for being a complete butt, though. I've got people on other threads being butts to me and, no, it doesn't feel good.

I would have felt like an idiot for not giving the forums a cursory glance to see that this topic has been beaten to a bloody pulp repeatedly over the last 2 months on multiple threads multiple times and then crawled into a hole to get over my embarrassment because I added absolutely nothing new and just stirred up old arguments and resentments all over again. And that has, in fact, happened to me before. Lessons were learned. Maybe.

There's nothing wrong with creating avatars of any gender for any reason (except children for ick reasons), as long as you're honest with people when you start to grow close to them. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been stung by developing feelings for someone and then finding out that they were not who they presented themselves to be. If you're RPing, that's cool as long as the person you're RPing with is aware that you are RPing.

If posting a gif of Christopher Walken is harassing, well... y'all are free to harass me day and night! BRING ON THE GIFS!

Would you like to be harassed? I'm on my way into a meeting so this is the best I can do for now.

Did you actually open a ticket with support to request this answer? It seems very clear to me. Don't advertise on your Bellisseria parcel. It would cost you a hell of a lot more than 1 linden to fly your flag on my houseboat. And it is direct business... you are paying people to fly your flag. And if you create a group, and somehow coax Bellisserians or anyone else into joining for whatever reason, then bombard them with advertising for whatever it is you sell, you're nut if you think your business won't suffer. The very fact that you're pushing this envelope leads me to believe that you are, in fact, considering shameless tactics such as these. I have no idea what you sell, but I have every confidence that you would resort to shady tactics to sell whatever it is, and that's convinced me to make sure I never buy whatever it is you sell because if it was a good product, you wouldn't need to resort to littering Bellisseria or SLB16 with your flags, or whatever it is you're trying to push.

Are you intentionally trying to make this way more complicated than it actually is, or do you truly not understand it? Or are you simply looking for some sort of loophole that would allow you to sell whatever it is you sell from your Bellisseria home?

Your behavior has shown that first line to be less than truthful and you can quote anything you want that I've said. I stand by it. There are limits to how much people who aren't making one single cent from SL (and who are also paying LL more money now) can stomach listening to people who are making money complain because they are expected to pay LL for giving them a platform, as well as the tools, resources, and customer base, to make that money. Those costs that LL has to pay to give merchants that platform, tools, resources, and customer base increase in the real world along with every other cost on this planet and they pass those on to the merchants as any sane business that wants to stay in business would do. Telling someone, anyone, for any reason to shut up is beyond the pale. For all your perceived insults from me, I never once told you to shut up. I have differences of opinions with a great many people and I can and will debate them until the horse is dead, reincarnated, and dead again times infinity, but what I could never conceivably do is tell another person, especially a woman, to shut up. I even offered to show you how to block me so you don't have to read my annoying responses. You are just as guilty of doing what you accuse me of doing, with the added insult of repeatedly calling me annoying and telling me to shut up. Go self-actualize on that for a while.

And I called BS on all of that. From a business viewpoint, the adult industry, or industries, make billions of dollars each year. Billions. From a business standpoint, dipping a toe into the adult waters is very wise indeed. You also negated any viewpoint you may have when you said SL allows rape, and put it in the same category as BDSM. Both of those assertions are unequivocally false.

You said you believed that us naughty deviants shouldn't be allowed on the grid with all the normal people. I'm not sure how that could possibly have been misconstrued.

I don't know why I respond to you... something about you telling me to shut up, perhaps. Anyway, are you aware of who is president in this country? And how many (temper your words, Beth) sycop-, moron-, deplor-, villain-, idio-, people who support him believe him to be the bestest, smartest businessman who ever existed and that they should emulate him? Do you think he, or they, care about anything other than themselves and making money? Do you think Walmart cares about pleasing their customers for any reason other than to keep them spending money there? Amazon? Target? Noooooo... They singularly want to make money for themselves and their share holders. LL, I hope, has people who don't hate their jobs. Philip is long gone, and he was the visionary behind the dream. Make no mistake... LL is a business, period. Pleasing the customer makes it so they can make money. They do not make money in order to please the customer.

I guess I'm all alone on this but I would LOVE to pay boutique prices if it means 10,000 other avatars aren't wearing the same thing I am. I might even actually wear things more than once if I'm paying a higher price AND not seeing clones of myself everywhere I go. I'd pay quite a lot for that, actually, since I wouldn't be buying all the disposable clothing everyone else is wearing. Some people seem to want to make real world profits, though. It seems insane to me, but I'm not a creator or merchant so I have no real idea if that's even possible outside of a couple merchants that I consider the Walmarts of SL. I've been in SL long enough to have gotten pregnant and raised a teenager (I didn't, thank god, but I could have... lol). It would absolutely kill me if SL went away... that's a big part of the reason why I don't object in the slightest to LL raising prices and charging more in transaction fees. We're all just putting on a very brave face every day, in SL and RL.

I would be more sensitive if I saw any discussion about finding solutions - product improvements, store improvements, group benefit improvements, social media and marketing improvements, advertising improvements, education campaigns about prices and fees, etc., etc., etc. - thinking outside the box and being creative about ways to work with what you have in order to offset the new fee. Big changes require big ideas. No one is making anyone give up their dreams. I see people choosing to by not coming up with, or accepting any, ideas for ways to overcome an obstacle that absolutely can be overcome. I see wallowing, which is fine for a minute, but then there is a choice to make. Throw in the towel, or pull yourselves up by your bootstraps? Adversity is part of life. It's up to you to choose how you deal with it. I know I'm going on a lot of lists by speaking out about what I see, but I'm the one with the pocketful of lindens I'm itching to spend. You guys don't even want to give me a chance to spend them. shrugs

"Whining" being the operative word. No one made you buy any apples... you chose your apples. Yeah, you only took the bad apples because there were no good apples left... and this is a terrible analogy. LL says you can have a Linden Home. You have one. They are building new homes. No, not just new homes. They are building an entire continent from the ground up and releasing the new homes as they are finished. They are working out the kinks and bugs (and there are plenty) and taking their time to do Bellisseria properly instead of doing a cut/paste job and throwing down 40,000 homes to 40,000 people who are going to have the same 40,000 bugs and file 40,000 reports and JIRAs. In the meantime, you have a Linden Home. It's not the one you want... but the contract doesn't say a thing about having the one you want. And hopefully when you do get the one you want, all the bugs and kinks will have been worked out, because you will get the one you want. The Lindens and Moles have promised that they won't stop building until everyone has one, and they are working as fast as they can and juggling multiple projects at once.

Premium benefits do not say anything about having access to a newer Linden Home. It says you can have a Linden Home. And you can!

I'm not really a crunchy granola, kubaya kind of person, but wow, the negativity just flows through some of you. There are no solutions, there is nothing that can be done, everything sucks, the sky is falling, and we're all going to die. Er... good luck with that.

There are plenty of retail stores that are not chains that do, in fact, do all their own product research, design, development, branding and marketing. That is the nature of small business. Even SL creators have their blog rolls to help them. It costs far more for a small business owner to send actual products to the Instagram influencers to get a little help, not to mention paying them cash. The real difference between SL and RL retail are the prices. SL retailers expect to make real world size profits on SL merchandise. I don't see that as being realistic except in a few very exceptional cases, and I don't think those are sustainable. It might be different if SL had zillions of active members actively spending thousands and thousands of lindens but... hell, I don't know how anyone could expect to make a living wage selling things in SL. That's a terrifying thought as LL could pull the plugs on the servers anytime. Do they have backup plans or are they just going to crash and burn?

Yes, that is what they are. Many people don't have their offline IMs set to be sent to their email.

I checked... it's delivering the wrong item, and even showing the wrong item. If I didn't have my transaction information showing what I purchased and where I purchased it, I'd think I accidentally bought the wrong thing.

Who's not getting the same benefits?

Shrink in RL retail is a massively huge deal, and is a large reason for price increases over the years. Not only the cost of the stolen merchandise, but surveillance cameras, security and loss prevention employees, lawyers... millions and millions of dollars are spent on stolen content and one only has to look as far as Craig's List to buy things that have fallen off the back of the truck. Missed a part about SL merchants selling cheap. Why do you think big RL retailers are killing small businesses? They sell things below cost because they can afford to, and small business suffers, just like SL. The two aren't so different.

Yes, SL retail has far less overhead.

The average retail profit margin is 1%-3%. What's your profit margin after paying all those fees and tier, and premium (which you don't need to be a creator)?