Adam Spark

Its not dead. Its been on a snails pace towards death for about a decade, and without change, it will probably be dead in another decade or two, but its far from dead today. What happened? A couple things. Well, a bunch really - but much of it boils down to two things, in my humble opinion: 1) 2007: Simplicity is king. With an imagination and a mouse and keyboard, you can build whatever your heart desires and run a business of any kind, and collaborate in real-time with friends to get things done faster. 2020: Building anything now requires the expertise/man-hours of 3D building in Blender, and maybe lots of money if you prefer something like Maya. Sure you can still build the old way, but if you are building for something beyond whats enough for you and instead for public consumption, you'll want to learn mesh. Certainly the increase in quality has been critically important. I get that. Maybe one day they'll figure out how to pull it off in real-time without going outside of the grid to another program. 2) 2007: SL had a voice of hope and optimism for the future, even if it was decades away. It was supposed to be a game-changer. The future of the internet. It was an exciting thing to build, even if the completion of it wasn't in the cards for our lifetime. It was cool. 2020: Its just another game next to World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 and all the rest of them. Well, its not a game... But if 98% of the residents are now calling it that (due to Linden Lab's inability to show its potential customers exactly what they are signing up for, and creating a ton of confusion in turn), I'll digress right now and take that fight up another day. Don't get this twisted. I love SL (If I didn't I wouldn't even bother trying to guess what happened, much less post and be passionate in my belief). I love it for what it can be and for the many things I do enjoy about it (the relationships and music, mostly). It just no longer is headed in the direction it once was, and it disappoints me to this day.

Still as active as ever after 13 years.

Feeling awesome now that I am back home from the hospital!

Agreed. It needs a custom option, like Google Calendar has. I should be able to customize to every 2, 3, 4 weeks or more.

Why quit? Most people who "quit" are back later, I find. I've seen many goodbyes from folks who are back within weeks. Some wind up never leaving. Just log in when you feel like it and don't when you don't, I say. When you feel like logging in again is completely up to you.

Yeah, I'm glad they scratched that idea. That upset me too. I'm fine with a few features being optional for a fee or a premium payment. Just a shame when they take from the rest to try and lure them to premium.

Oh absolutely. Buying Ls is just one example. I just picked that one because I think it would be the easiest for the lab to measure and equate it to premium, since they handle the purchases of Ls. I wish there was some way LL could track and measure the contribution we make in other indirect ways and reward like they do premium payments.

I feel this way too. I feel like a certain amount of $L purchase should equate to some level of premium membership, at least for a set amount of time. Say, buying $100 USD worth of Linden Dollars gets you one year of premium.

While I'm not the greatest at initiating conversation, I'll talk to anyone. I don't get much interaction but I'll give it any day.

The problem is those that "don't pay", do often actually pay. Oh and semantics about directly paying the lab and putting money into the system don't matter much. They are still contributing to the value of the system. If basics weren't around to pump money into the system as customers, how many people would see premium price tag as worth it? Not many is my guess. Even more they provide goods and services. I was mostly basic for over 12 years. For most of that time I've worked for and operated clubs, purchased land from land barons (who directly pump money into the system thanks to the revenue they make from basics and premiums alike), worked for live singers and countless other events, volunteered for Relay For Life of Second Life, an American Cancer Society run event, sponsored by Linden Lab. I say this not to brag about myself. I say it to recognize all of the folks who are still basic. I signed up for premium over a month ago. Paid $99 bucks for an annual subscription. My contribution remains the proverbial grain of sand it was when I was buying that much in Ls a year and pumping them back into the system.

From the events calendar, its quietly been added like the fees were a week or so ago (or at least the wording has been. I don't think they are actually removing L's yet, come to think of it). Strike that. They are indeed charging now. https://gyazo.com/f0ada416281eaf9a6de939259dd9f6a9

So events have been updated again. We now have recurring events. For 50L, premium users can post their event to appear in the events calendar on a recurring basis to a total of 12 (weeks, months, or however regular the event occurs). The fee is one time per unique event. So you can now post approximately 4 months of events for a one time 50L x the number of unique events in your calendar. So for example - If you have 10 regular events a week, you can post 4 months worth of them for a cost of 500L Events can be changed free of charge, and a link to "my events" is up on the calendar for easy access.

I wonder what took the industry that long. People seriously thought those headsets would go mainstream? Virtual Reality reminds me of 3D printing. Some folks find some early (and awesome, to be fair) adoption of the tech and all of a sudden it goes viral and we are months away from creating working products in our living room. Yeah, no.

Even then it could be somebody else actually using the account.

Which removes all reason to restrict it to premium in the first place. If the revenue tied to buyers' premium accounts isn't the reason, there isn't one. It'll cut back on the number of people getting it? Nope. Not if you merely have to obtain premium and don't have to keep it.

"If you can't/won't pay for it, just don't buy it" And keep your mouth shut? Sorry, that is not how discussion forums and opinions work. If my opinion is its overpriced, that is what you are going to hear from me. Don't agree? Fair enough. My biggest gripe with the fee is that it is a premium feature. I'm already paying for those. If you feel this new one is worth bumping the premium price up, fine. Do that and let me decide. I'd actually pay 50 cents more a month, maybe a dollar (they'd eventually get way more than 40 bucks out of me), or more if it was paired with something else. But a 40 bucks up front fee that shuts out basics? Okay.... So many users wanted this and only the ones willing to pay roughly 10 bucks a month and 40 up front (roughly 160 bucks in year one and 120 thereafter) get it. Alrighty then... A lot of people will buy this. Good for business. A lot of people who wanted it won't. Bad for business.

Was a pleasure! Great photo too by the way, quite well done!

I see it differently, personally. The less prim you use, the better. I create the look I want, and the left over prim I save for any new ideas that might pop up in this head of mine. I don't use them for the sake of using them, though, as THAT, to me, is the real waste of resources. I'd rather have the 7000 on hand for when I wanted to add something, rather than rush their use and have to tear down when I got a 6 or 7 thousand prim idea.

1) Cabin 2) Victorian 3) Mediterranean 4) Townhouses for even more of a community area

We have my original camper, but the house my girl got us when she went premium we have moved from. Glad too, we are closer to some friends of ours.

I would much rather spend lindens on a new outfit on the marketplace when I log in in the morning than spend 20 minutes - or longer - rummaging through my inventory. Yes I allow my money to fund my laziness. How's that for weird? lol I don't have much of a shopping ritual but I will only cam if I'm with my girl and she is cam shopping. I'll stay with her. Otherwise I'll walk through fire AND lag before trying to creep at a snails pace with my camera - which is even slower than lag walking most times especially at great distances - and having to fumble with resetting my camera. I still change my clothes the way I did before we could make outfit folders because my inventory already looks like a bomb went off in a closet without them My girl is a saint for going on hair shopping trips with me. How I don't make her pull her hair out with my pickyness is beyond me. I will spend 20 minutes wearing a demo before spotting one piece of hair that makes me go well crap and take the thing off. Oh and don't get me started on unisex hair. 90% of it is just two carbon copies of the same thing. Makes me wonder if a couple ever went to get their hair done in RL, with the dude looking at the girls hairstyle and going "ok can you do that for me?" I've been spotted doing the Thriller dance to country music. Honestly I think "weird things I don't do in SL" would be a shorter list lol

If that is the case, then they need to realize that the event stays in the listing for the duration. Searching the calendar at halftime will show the original post.

If by halftime notice you mean in groups in-world, thats irrelevant. That has nothing to do with SL events calendar. If you get 1 tip of $100L from somebody who found your event because the calendar was cleaned up, thats 10 ads paid for if you are premium, or 2 if you are basic. Seriously. Its a small tax everyone has to pay. Time will tell if the results will wind up offsetting the cost, but it wouldn't take much. A few hundred Ls a week isn't hard to recoup. Linden Lab is a business. It is on us to figure out how to figure out our finances based on their pricing. SL getting too expensive? Tighten the strings a little. Multiple times I've no longer been able to afford the full sim I had been on. Each time, instead of ordering LL to drop their fees, I moved to a smaller parcel until a full sim was feasible again, because it was my responsibility to live within my means.

My girl Ari, as she is my world in every sense of the word. Too many others to mention. I tend to not think of SL and RL as separate. To impact my SL is to impact my RL

And I fully agree, however I do see it the other way too. If you are paying all you can afford, one more fee, big or small, will be a problem. On the flip side of that, however, is looking again at your budget and making the necessary choices to handle such a fee. Its not hard to save a few hundred Ls by moving to cheaper land or making cost effective tweaks to your club.