Adam Spark

The problem with this is that you don't need to be premium to be pumping money into the system, which in turn makes the product more valuable, thus making premium more valuable to those who pay for it. Linden Lab is a business propped up by premium AND basic users.

Lots of people say basics are freeloaders. LOTS of people even vouch for doing away with basic and making everyone pay a monthly fee. Its been an ongoing argument for years. And taking things away from basics does feel like punishment for our lack of interest in premium. Its not entitlement or anything of the sort. Its just an opinion of a strategy that in my opinion could use change.

They should aggressively advertise. There should be feature changes periodically to make it worth paying for. Here are my beefs though. They need to be careful with a couple things. They need to stop punishing basic users for not being interested. Waving a proverbial carrot in my face is one thing. Telling me I can no longer do a, b, or c, whether altogether or to the extent I previously could, needs to stop. Like, yesterday. Decide on (and update, obviously) a baseline for basic users and commit to not scaling back on it. Even if I get an improved service at a slower rate. Just stop depreciating my service. They (and some premium members) need to realize also that there is much less disconnect between a basic user and a premium user than it seems they believe. Basic users are not entirely freeloaders. We buy Linden dollars. We put them back in the system when we buy goods and services in-world. We work for Linden dollars and provide goods and services. Not patting myself on the back by any stretch here, but I host events, run a venue, and sell clothing. I've been earning Ls and putting them back into the system for over a decade. Basic users are contributors to the economics of Second Life, and dare I suggest SL would be dead without us. They also must realize that the way we are treated indirectly impacts premium users. Take their recent plan to reduce group space for basic. They went back on that, and any premium user who owns a group designed to attract the public at large should be thankful they did.

I use multiple programs. For shots with SL serving as the backdrop (or a backdrop prop), I use a very old version of Photoshop I got years ago for layer manipulation, and PhotoScape X for tremendous adjustments, effects and filters. Its free but incredible. There is also a pro version. For green screening and post-producing a background (either in-world or otherwise), I start out with paint.net, and use from what I can tell an unparalleled chroma key plugin.

Ok it must have automatically detected I'm in Canada and sent me where I needed to go. So yes, Americans do have to agree to yet another document of legal mumbo jumbo. LOL

Perhaps. It was Tilia's webpage. Even their privacy page https://www.tilia-inc.com/legal/privacy/ is linking to the LR privacy policy for me. And I googled Tilia Privacy Policy. Perhaps its being consolidated?

I was reading the Tilia TOS and their privacy policy link sends me to the Linden Research Privacy Policy, currently dated May 25th, 2018. LL Privacy Policy is a document every one of us has agreed to already. Which would make perfect sense, since Tilia is Linden Lab. To not trust one is to not trust the other, and if you don't trust Linden Lab, why are you doing business here? And if you are not doing business here, this doesn't concern you. Collection of SSN and/or other identifying information has been happening in business since the dawn of such documentation. The practice predates SL by decades at a minimum. I would be more terrified if I knew Linden Lab WASN'T doing this.

I used to feel that way, too. While I still don't understand it, child avatars are not necessarily pervs, and that is why the policy won't (or shouldn't) change. Many adults in child avatars want nothing to do with sex. But I get your angst, and I sure understand your skin crawling.

Yes, many places are listing as Adult now just to play it safe. There were/are also some misconceptions that lead to places moving to Adult designation, such as kid avatars not being allowed. Owners that did not want to allow kid avatars assumed that such a designation meant that kid avatars being there was a violation of Lab policy, when really the Lab, contrary to popular belief, has no anti-kid avatar policy aside from them engaging in certain adult activities.

Its entirely possible that they don't even know. Prices change for a variety of reasons. They have said for quite a while now that escalating fees is a way of decreasing land costs and that they are not done finding a balance there. That is a pretty good clue that we should not be surprised to see more hikes, regardless of Tilia. It may be something they are still determining.

Its been an ongoing annual trend, without exception, since 2010. The grid peaked at just over 80K way back then. Today, peak times struggle to reach 50K. With Summer starting, numbers will go down again. Numbers will likely inch upward in the winter, but not to last years numbers if the 9 year trend remains.

Correct. The inactivity fee is no different than the same clause on the back of many gift credit cards. After a year or so, a nominal amount comes out of that card. But if there is nothing left, you won't be charged a dime. It is only applied to unattended to funds in that account or on that card. And unlike the credit card fee, simply checking your Tilia balance once a year will negate any money loss. Consider it a bank fee for holding onto your money. I will say this, however - Linden Lab needs to do a better job at communicating these things upfront. We do lose people when these things happen. I know the gut reaction is to tell those people good riddance for their fear mongering, but anyone doing anything of consequence in Second Life should loathe the sight of any resident departure.

Linden Lab, as they own Tilia.

No middle man. Linden Lab is doing this. They have just created a subsidiary company. Just the way they are handling it and has now bearing on how it works for us.

The only people affected negatively by this are people who have a distaste for being who they say they are when doing business. If you are using Second Life for income, whole or in part, you are doing nothing different than somebody who operates a brick and mortar business. As for accepting the TOS to use SL, it makes sense. Tilia is a portion of Linden Lab, thus a portion of Second Life's operation. You are merely agreeing that should you need to use it, you'll never violate its terms, and that you'll never decide to use it maliciously. You need to also agree that should you do so, your account will face sanction and you have no recourse. Anyone expecting to be allowed to use Second Life without agreeing to such terms really doesn't get it.

They have survived doing things that in comparison really should have been death to SL years ago. This won't affect a large portion of the grid. Even those who cash out won't really be affected unless they have a distaste for doing business and being who they say they are at the same time. Heck, I've NEVER cashed out and they know my real identity. They've known it for years and I am not impacted negatively in the slightest.

Correct me if I am wrong @Linden Lab. I believe this only concerns those who cash out, and we can only continue to use Second Life if we agree that should we use Tilia in any way, we will play by the rules. Nothing is being forced on us. There is plenty in the Second Life TOS that has nothing to do with certain users. We just have to pledge not to break it, and agree that we have no recourse for being sanctioned should we do so. My only question, due to lack of understanding how all this works... If Tilia is wholly owned by LL, what was LL previously not doing that creating a separate entity (versus just playing by the rules as Linden Lab) corrects?

Groups, subscribos, Facebook are all important too. Leave no stone unturned, I say. If I'm hosting an event, I won't spend much time retrying, but I would ask for help from the venue and make every effort to make sure it gets there, because quite frankly, it may not help but it certainly cannot hurt. But that is just me.

Absolutely many do. Almost everyone, I dare suggest. I just was referring to the ones who clearly do not. The system is far from perfect, but which sounds better - unreliable advertising or no advertising? I would understand if it took a lot of effort, you could then call it wasted effort perhaps. But it takes two minutes to post an ad. I know my ads probably won't get seen by many reliably, but I post them because if it gets 1 person to my venue every few shows, its worth the little effort required.

I'm not talking about product events but live music events.

So a question for venue owners. Why is it that some of you don't seem to want your events on the SL events calendar? It is probably the easiest part of doing events, and you are not just doing it for the artists. You are doing it for yourself too! Business 101 - advertise, advertise, advertise!

Another pet peeve of mine! Venue owners that don't post events to the SL Calendar. It takes 2 minutes and increases exposure to the event, and thus to your venue. Most performers and their management if they have it are beyond willing to walk you through doing so. It helps everyone involved and it is one of the easiest things to do in pulling off an event.

I have a RL relationship in which SL is our medium (long-distance, separate countries, physical and other challenges temporarily keep it that way right now). I have outlets I never had before. I have discovered things about myself and my people skills are improving. So yes, SL has improved my life tremendously.

When Linden Lab went looking for investors back when they were initially proposing Second Life, I wonder how many times they were told some variation of this.

True, but most of those are probably either going to be alt or new accounts of those who have been around, people who know a bit more about the grid going in, soak it up faster, or just in general are less likely to cause problems typically (if unfortunately) associated with newbies.