Prokofy Neva

I have them here in Refugio, with attached skyboxes.

Or they don't use automated systems that make all their business information available to one big vendor, and make them utterly dependent on that vendor -- plus lag up the sim and create more work having to check web sites. I use an open source script that can be fixed and updated any time. I'm not a fan of open source culture. It's dictatorial and cruel to the extreme. It has a deep disdain to copyright which I do not share at all. Some open source scripts are helpful. I pay my scripters. It might seem like a lot of work to make manual updates but in fact, it's always good to be in touch with your land and what is happening on it, not to mention the people who live on it, instead of running it like a giant Walmart as an absentee landlord.

Does anyone have more on this? I heard something about it in office hours, that there will be a new sort of premium that is more granulated to do various things. I understood that it had something to do with animesh or something. But when you go to upload a texture now, it has some wording on the interface about taking you to another form of premium account, which if I understood correctly, would then mean you could pay a higher premium, but then upload textures for less. As anyone knows this gets really expensive really fast even if you aren't some star creator, just in making signs and texturing this and that. However, it isn't hooked up yet because when you click on it, it goes nowhere, or does for me.

If you are complaining about having to pay VAT for Second Life like any other good or service, then don't brag about your free health care service and free education which you have in your European country BECAUSE of VAT, which Americans don't have, ok? And I'm not entirely sure that the socialism many idealize is achievable in America in the way they imagine, anyway. It does better in small countries and not big ones like Russia. Taxes vary all over here -- these are sales taxes, and not VAT exactly -- and some of us shop in New Jersey from New York to try to get better deals, although the transportation back with all those groceries then has to be added in. Some Internet businesses like Amazon charge you your state's sales tax because states require they do that. Linden Lab does not charge a sales tax but essentially, they build it into their price because they have to pay taxes in their state like everyone else To answer the question: I'm not in the homestead business and don't want to be; I have only one homestead and its full with long-term tenants. It's $79 at the grandfathered price, so I want to make sure that I get at least that $79 (previously $95), or divided into 3 as in my case. I have to, because I have to pay tier. And facturing in content costs and occupancy, many would have to charge more than tier to break even.

Yes, I couldn't charge that for my homestead and charge at least enough to cover the $95.

Like Rey, I would charge anywhere from US $22 for a bare platform in the sky (if I had use of the ground below) to $40 or more if it were a landscaped, furnished house on the ground. It depends also on whether it is waterfront or forest or flat or whatever. I don't think you will find that big a range because all of us have the same fixed cost of tier to pay; some have grandfathered sims or have mainland versus newer private islands, but the range is not that huge. You don't need an island to have a very full SL. Get a 4096 first which will be much cheaper. While owning land does mean you have to pay the premium cost as well, not completely offset by the stipends, you have full control that way. It's a buyer's market.

Every country is different, but in the US, I don't see that either the federal government or the state government is going to bail out virtual land or content businesses. Interestingly, for the first time this year, I saw a little box that could be checked or not on the IRS return form that says "Do you own virtual currency?" This is a reference to bitcoin. I don't own any bitcoin, and from everything I read, Lindens are not virtual currency in this definition. They are a token to be used inworld for goods and services, something like a movie ticket or a Disneyworld ticket. I report the small amount of income I make in SL merely as freelance income like any other freelance income that comes on PayPal of any kind for a good or service, a translation or a sale of a used couch. No one is going to pay your SL land bill, so don't ask them to. Lock down your RL first and secure those needs first. If you are facing a big bill in SL, tier down, reduce your exposure, be prudent just like you would be if you ran a pizzeria in Bayonne, NJ now that had to close and whose takeout service is threatened due to supply chain issues. You are not in a magical unicorn realm.

You can read my inworld newsletters and the thread on General. Answer: 1. No, I haven't given up my land business yet, but I have always tried to make it pay for itself. When it can't, it goes. 2. RL is way more important and if you are facing food insecurity then you don't spend $100 in SL. 3. LL should not be asked to reduce tier or give handouts because they have fixed costs, too. 4. I'm at ground zero for the virus in Manhattan, immune compromised, 21 days in quarantine, difficulty in getting medicines and food.

I'm sad to sea Second Norway go because I liked to visit it, and I love RL sims in SL and track them, they're great. I have some friends there, and it's sad. $3/prim isn't what I charge, and may seem excessive, but it's not unreasonable. If you rent a sim, you have to pay the tier, which is a fixed cost where no one cuts you a break -- nor should they, as I've explained in the General Discussion thread where people are demanding the Lindens to convert from a business with costs of their own and payroll to a charity giving you a handout. There is no need for that. You also have to pay for content which constantly has to be refreshed and it would be nice to pay for your time, too, you know? It can be exasperating when rentals sit empty and the agent keeps the price high, but he's doing that for valid economic reasons, which is that in a world of low occupancy which we all share and which will increase, those willing to pay more for a nice sim will carry it. You can debate whether $3 or 0.75/prim is the proper way to run a business, but you aren't the one running it and your opinion, if you have not paid its tier or helped create its value, is not really relevant. A free market depends on merchants being able to chose their level of investment and exposure. There are huge varieties in SL and you can choose another rental that is much cheaper if you want. Bellisseria did cut into the rentals businesses' of the user base, that's for sure. Not everyone has the flexibility to adjust to that and compensate for that. I don't feel it threatens my business as much as I see my tenants come and go to it -- they got tired of prim limits and lack of choice and come back to my rentals or others. This could change, and they could all flock out of my rentals and my colleagues' rentals to Bellissaria, and that would be sad but then the Lindens lose my tier when they do it because I can't afford to keep open empty rentals. At the end of the day, if the Lindens have to decide between what is good for their bottom line -- premium accounts with recurring payments -- or the ability of their user base to rent sims and re-rent them -- guess what they will chose. Hopefully, they watch the indicators and balance things out, and slow their Bellissaria if they see attrition among their large island tier payers who constitute the bulk of the rentals industry. Bellissaria is more of a threat to Mainland rentals agents like me with small parcels of that size, than it is to islands with more customized and beautiful environment. Yet I don't think it's that much of a threat. Anything that brings more people to SL and creates more premium accounts is a tide that raises all boats.

No, it's not about naming anything to my specifications, that's silly. It's about hundreds of Linden locations having THE EXACT SAME NAME SO YOU CAN'T TELL THEM APART IN INVENTORY UNLESS YOU MANAGED TO RENAME THEM. I think you and Tari Landar have never visited these Linden places so you can't understand what I'm talking about, but that's common. Anyone who explores a lot in SL and enjoys the Linden places get this, but you don't because you don't. It's a chore to have to re-name LMs especially when you deal with thousands of them constantly because you run rentals and a land preserve where they are constantly needed and updated and when you put them on servers to be issued every day. But that's not an experience you have, either, so never mind. They don't function like every other LM. Here's a good example. The label on the land parcel is "Coastal Waterway" -- like a zillion other Linden parcels. this one is actually an entire sim. Here it is: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilpatric/148/248/22 Yes, once you pull up the map after clicking on it, you see "oh, it's that one in Gilpatric". Er, what continent was that on again? There are 5000 sims and you can't always remember. Yes, you can use the continent locator. Here's another nice location near the beach I first posted -- this is a nice dock. But if you click on it, it makes a landmark that is called....wait for it...Coastal Waterway. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilpatric/14/218/25 Once you pull up the map, you see, yeah, it's in Gilpatrick, and yeah, it's not in the same location as the beach. But in your inventory, with thousands of other landmarks, it's joining a collection called COASTAL WATERWAY of which there are jillions. The dock isn't on its own parcel, although it could be, which might increase its use as people can get to it precisely easier -- if it has its own landing point and -- wait for it -- distinct name. Lindens take the time to build these things, but they sit unused often. Taking the time to parcel them and name them distinctly, even "Gilpatric Dock on Coastal Waterway" just makes it easier to find again in inventory and share around, "Here's this great Linden dock I found". It's hard to share a thing that says "Coastal Waterway" that joins a zillion other "Coastal Waterways" in inventory. The Lindens are really brilliant at naming, very creative. But on these areas, they just didn't take the time. And while I realize they are busy, I'm suggesting that WHEN they can find time to 1) name distinctly 2) parcel 3) create separate landings which really only takes a few seconds they will see more usage because people can identify it readily without clicking on dozens of landmarks in their inventory, all of which say the same thing. If you think it's just a problem of these particular sims I stumbled across, no, it's not. Here's another one. And another one And another one And another one All of them, all over the grid -- and I could give you scads more -- all have the label COASTAL WATERWAY in my inventory. If you're having trouble grasping that they all have the same name because when you click on the forums, they show a SLURL with numbers and a sim name, go there, make yourself a landmark, and see how it looks in your inventory which is...wait for it...COASTAL WATERWAY. Yeah, some of them I re-labelled on the fly because that's easy enough to do and I'm not stupid. But now I have an LM that says "Skradski". What is Skradski again? Skradski actually isn't a "coastal waterway" per se, and not a beach and not a dock. It's a little island with a castle on it which is pretty cool. So while I could name it "Pretty cool little Linden island with castle on it," quite frankly, so could the Moles as they build them. They will get this, even if you won't, so that's why once again, on the forums, I walk around the robots.

Yeah I know. I've been in SL 16 years. Again, when you take these landmarks, they are generic and don't help you remember where they are. If you are flying around and taking landmarks, and not stopping to edit them. Now, why is this? It seems to me the Lindens could make them work better so that no one has to edit them. Yes, if you click on them, you go back to that place, but again, there is nothing to make it have a unique name like every other place in SL.

The best thing about these sims, really, was the names. I go visit them mainly once a year. I guess because "jungle" isn't what I want so much as "northwest". I've been going to these docks and rez areas and beaches not even so much around Bellissaria but the other continents. One problem with them is that when you take their landmarks, you are left with a generic name that doesn't help you remember what it was.

I was once fortunate enough to go and hear the great poet William Stafford speak in real life in a university where I was taking a course, and where he talked about writing and also read his poetry. And he said a great thing I have remembered many times since: "To get started, I will accept anything that occurs to me." Too often writers censor themselves, become convulsed about what other people think, or try to be relevant or try to be popular. Just write what occurs to you and take it from there. Also, don't worry about how many people see your blog or if they write nasty comments, just keep writing. Another great artist I know says about how children should be encouraged in art: it doesn't have to be good; it has to be a lot. That is, rather than forcing them to learn some arcane and difficult techniques at an early age, it's more important that they just keep sketching and painting happily and making a lot of works. Skell's tutorial is excellent and could be put up on a knowledge archive somewhere to be used. I personally cannot do all the things he recommends, like take excellent pictures, but if you are doing fashion, this is important and worth studying and learning.

I learned something from what you outlined here, but I still can't get used to people who speak of themselves in the third person and also render commentary about their actions in italics as if they are in a novel. It's odd. I also don't know how they do it.

Um, no, because you prefaced it by saying "there are a lot of reasons not to rent from Prokofy". Whereas if I happened to be searching for some gadget and the search engine turned up your product and it had good reviews, I'd see no reason why I shouldn't buy it. I think it's good when marketplaces are like that. Of course, there are extreme times when people behave very badly inworld, or when their product is very destructive in some way, then you might conclude it should be avoided. But to not buy somebody's house or gadget or hair just seems silly to me. That brings me to another point not quite on topic here so I won't dwell on it but there are people who that if you don't like what someone's political profile is, or what they say on the forums, or you don't like their blog, you should boycott their products or business inworld. And some go so far even to block me from buying their products; their vendor enables them to do that, which I think is a pernicious feature introduced into the Metaverse that ultimately can have devastating consequences, as oligarchs ban whole swathes of people they don't like -- people of colour, people with positive virus test status -- whatever. If you don't think that isn't coming some day, think again, and think about your own role in setting the groundwork for it. BTW this is the same vending company that put me in all of their teleporters as an "example name" for a griefer you would ban -- which then had the effect of banning me from many shopping malls or stores, as merchants who didn't necessarily want to target me or even knew me, put out teleporters that I was banned from. This isn't because I am a griefer who spews particles or crashes sims, someone deserving of a ban in a teleporter. But because I have a critical blog. There's one resident who apparently has carried a grudge for 10 years since the time I once wrote a blog post about how his wares were featured on the Linden's front page not just once, but twice, and even in three places. Some people get lucky that way. I was telling the truth about a situation, but maybe this merchant thought no one would notice his coddled status. Another one has locked me from purchases -- as well as my alts, which means she is using the kind of technology which is supposed to be banned from SL. Yet a third has me blocked on the marketplace as well. Once there was a merchant who actually rented a store from me for years. She moved on and I maintained friendly relations and bought many of her nice wares. Over and over, I posted tweets or other social media praising her products. One day I expressed frustration with trying to texture a full-perm product of hers. The context was clear that this tweet was about my amateur building skills, not the merchant, who tried to provide tutorials in her product and groups. But through some sort of thin skin, she took umbrage and blocked me from buying her wares. When I wrote to her she finally climbed down when she grasped that this wasn't an insult. So she took me off ban inworld and at fairs but kept me banned on the MP, which is of course an inconvenience, because then I have to sort through vendors endlessly. I personally think that the whole point of a free marketplace is to enable people to trade with others who are strangers, or whom they don't like. This is the ancient heart of human society -- the marketplace. The liberal democratic society depends on the idea that goods are traded freely without having to have access to the king or a royal status.

Yeah, it's not a grasping one-way transaction with me, either. Because unlike nearly all rental agencies, I don't have automatic processes. When a rental box expires, it now turns into a "grace period" state for 2 days with the "Remain Calm" meme on it. When it expires after that, I contact the tenant to find out what's up. Sometimes they are dealing with the chronic problem with Europeans -- buying Lindens. Sometimes they have some other situation. I do not hasten to return their prims, but in most cases, leave them. If someone else comes along by that point -- this is now 3 days after expiration -- they can rent the place and the other person's prims will be returned -- unless my judgement of the situation is as follows: that a long time tenant who has been there for 5 years, and normally pays on time, would only be replaced by someone who isn't intending to stay for a week, or who I know from past rentals doesn't pay on time or leaves early. It's a human judgement, not a robot. That's why I have many long-term tenants. I have some that pay way ahead; some who have been years; but also some who are new and casual. One new tenant refunded. Whenever someone refunds, I IM them and ask them if they had any problems. Sometimes people don't understand they have to join a group. They can join a group and you explain that they now have the power to set a landing point or paste in a stream, and they can't grasp that, often due to the fact that English is not their first language. I explain these things and sometimes then they can overcome their frustration. I return them the cancellation fee, and they start over, now armed with the knowledge that they can have music -- which they didn't understand. The single greatest problem I find in rentals is the belief by people that if they come and pay a rental box where the previous tenant's items are still there, that now they should be able to return them. You can't do that in any rental in SL anywhere (that I'm aware of) -- join an OPEN group, then return prims. Perhaps if a bot sends you an invite to a CLOSED group and has awarded you the power to return group prims -- because you will not make your OWN group on a parcel set to sale to you on an island to "buy," that can happen, but honestly, I don't see that use case play out much. But in an OPEN group on the MAINLAND, that expectation -- that you paid and now you can return someone else's prims -- oh, and the rental box too LOL -- is misplaced, sorry. This particular renter explained to me two days ago that she refunded because she broke up with her boyfriend. A sad story that happens all too often. Sometimes this might mean TWO rentals for me if they split up and each takes a separate rental -- and sometimes they do -- but often it means a refund and NO rental because often that partner was paying the rent. So this former tenant asked if she could use the parcel she was renting as a sandbox now. I said no, because you can't use my rentals as a sandbox. Especially when I provide a sandbox on one sim, and have all these free hangouts. Your rental you can't pay for anymore has to be opened up to the next person who will rent. It might not rent, but it still has to remain open, without you using it as a sandbox. The idea that you should get to use a rental as a "sandbox" -- that you are no longer paying for, or that your boyfriend is no longer paying for, because you had a hardship which involved a break-up, is an example of the grasping entitlement psychology that actually dominates the rental field way, way, way more than any grasping land baron.

Fortunately my customers don't think as you do, and the reason not to rent from Prokofy is generally that they prefer to pay more and have lockdowns where they can have orbs on the ground and/or as many breedables as they like put out on a sim whether it lags it or not. Most normal people -- and there are way more normal people inworld than on the forums -- don't care what someone's blog says, or what their political beliefs are, or even bother to check them. They care whether a rental is cheap and whether there is good customer service. That's why I've had customers for 16 years in some cases -- truly that long. That's why there are many as long as 5-10 years, imagine. Many long term customers because they aren't like you, they are not on the forums. Some might read my blogs or not -- it doesn't matter. Some tip me for my blog, imagine. The rest of the world outside the forums is not your world. To be sure, there are always a few that are prima donnas, special snowflakes, just selfish, etc. that become wildly crazy or something like your return of their overprimming, or your refusal to let them have an aggressive orb on their property when these are not allowed on the ground level, only the sky, or your statement to them that no, they cannot put their house in a certain area that requires houses to be "in theme" of a certain type -- because their set-up looks like a Texas fish camp. Now, I cried a little, too, the first time a casual visitor told me that what I thought was a beautiful fairy grove in my land preserve in Carlisle (and still do) looks like a Texas fish camp. I wasn't even sure what a Texas fish camp *was*, since the fish camps in Canada and upstate New York where we have fished are not quite as...how should I say...fish campy as in Texas. I really don't mind the Texas fish camp look and even have deliberately put it in some places where people want it. If it drives away other neighbours, if it makes everybody refund all around because it doesn't look like Martha's Vineyard, the theme on that particular place, then too bad. Refund, move on, get over it. SL is a big place. The iron law of SL -- and I mean absolutely iron, unimpeachable, without exception -- is that those in the cheapest, most subsidized places, who have had the most extra help are the ones that complain the most, although they should complain the least. It's amazing how those in rentals just a tad bit more expensive, with perhaps a tad more difficulty like no English even as a second language, complain a lot less. It's a marvel. And that's why you learn that you do not set your degree of customer service to always endlessly serve someone complaining who is in the cheapest rental which actually had more help than others; you do a certain amount, and then you say that if they are unhappy with their SELF-SERVICE, and can't learn how to switch a title in a group, and can't learn how to join a group on their own and will not get an invitation, then they are unhappy with THEMSELVES. They can go pay more where a rental agent has time to hold their hand, send them invitations, and generally be a chump. I have not sent an invitation since 2005 and I don't plan to because it's amazing how many of them get lost or ignored by the people who just asked for them and then go AFK. Anyone can join a group by clicking and finding a link in chat or using search/groups. They do that for their shopping and hunt groups without complaint. They can do it in a cheap rentals. The end. I've watched various newbie helpers, low-cost or subsidized rentals or themed communities over the years, where one very dedicated person, usually a middle-aged woman, often with a partner and children or elderly relatives to take care of, utterly burns themselves out by endlessly sacrificing for others in SL to the point of loss of their own income at the worst, or loss of their time and sanity and the best. They mount incredible feats, with beautiful sims and content which they pay for themselves, reaping perhaps only a tip now and then or some return from low-cost rentals. They utterly subject themselves to the needs and wants of others. Then they burn out, quit, and leave SL in the end or shrink to some completely small thing or go on an alt. I've seen certain people in SL, who spent years wearing themselves to a nub in the welcome areas helping, who spent years making free content and so on and generally trying to give to the community, utterly flame out, and turn to RL politics in their country which is really less frustrating than SL in terms of "giving" as hard as it may be. I frankly don't see the point of that "giving back to the community" -- the community that never gave anything in the first place -- in SL, and those demanding it out of this insane idea of the need for altruism from others -- while they get to be as selfish and crazy and high maintenance need to get a pushback. And there are just far too many of them in SL. I do my part to create a culture of community where one person doesn't have to heroically shoulder the burden while others endlessly drink from the well. I like group rentals on the Mainland because they help you do that. You learn you can't put out 1000 extra prims because you can't take them from other. You learn that your desire to make your little 1024 parcel a bunker with aggressive orbs means the people in the little 1024s next to you have a miserable life and can't fly back and forth to their homes from the road or waterfront. Etc. If you can't deal with these restraints in order to have a cheap rental, then go on the islands and pay more, they will give you your own group and lock you down on a separate little flat, white pancake on an island.

I think that works for some people. I find that if my avatar is standing for a long time, my RL leg that was injured begins to hurt. Funny, eh? It's psychological. I have had customers who are wheelchair bound or housebound in bed with hospital tables with their computers. I know what that is like as several times in my life I have had to be utterly bound to bedrest with only that tilted hospital table which is hard to see a laptop on but tolerable. Some of those customers chose to represent themselves in SL in a wheelchair, too. It makes them feel normal, and it is part of other people accepting them as they are fully, in the way they wish to represent themselves. Others who are wheelchair bound prefer not to put that representation into real life. So there have been some times when I have found customers who told me they had been in a wheelchair for years, and had met a partner in SL that made their life meaningful and had spent many happy years, that it came as a surprise because I would see them flying or jet-skiing or whatever and never knew. So I'm glad I could be part of that. I've had customers who told me they were ill and dying. There have been a few cases when people told me that were lying, and after 16 years of SL experience I have gotten pretty good at telling when people do that -- if someone says they are dying and can't pay their rent, and I see that person a year later dancing in a disco, I know that they've lied. Mostly the people who told me they were dying did die; some I could check with RL obituaries. I find that the people really dying in RL don't ask you to pay for their US $1.50 per month rental, you know? Because it's not necessary. I treasure some of the things they made inworld or their thank-you notes to me which they sent before really dying. In some cases people dying want to log into SL to the very end -- you hear of people texting until minutes before death. Others have other things that they need to do urgently and log off. Some die suddenly, like a good friend I had starting in the Sims Online, and continuing to here. His girlfriend and he in SL had finally made the decision to live together in RL. She went to his city, and he didn't meet her at the airport. She was bewildered and texting people and we couldn't find out what happened. We didn't think he got cold feet. Eventually the brother answered his RL email to say that he had died in his sleep in RL of a heart attack. This was checkable with a RL obituary for some of us. Very sad. But that's just it. SL is connected to RL in the most intimate way and it cannot overcome sickness, plagues, death.

Then don't? If you can't pay for an SL rental, then don't pay for it, the end. That's very easy to do: you stop. You can move to a free account. There are so many free places to hangout and explore in SL that you can still enjoy SL to a large extent. Why you should expect someone now to pay for you in a global endemic everyone suffers from is beyond me. And SL is a big place. Go and find another agency where maybe someone is wealthy enough to let you have a rental space for free. I can't. I run a small rental business -- I'm not a land baron and not wealthy in real life but a non-profit worker. I'm someone who is in midtown Manhattan with a rare immune disease who has already been in quarantine for 20 days and had trouble getting medicines and food. Even before this, I couldn't afford to subsidize someone else's Second Life, and generally didn't, although I do subsidize some "newbie" areas and free areas which I think is the right thing to do for any landlord. I can't turn my entire rentals into a freebie for everyone. Why would I pay thousands of dollars in tier to keep other people's Second Life when I don't have that money in real life? The systems has to pay for itself. This kind of psychology is what I'm trying to battle, because it's insane, it's totally lacking in awareness of what the numerous rental agencies in SL are really about. They aren't remote, wealthy slumlords who are on their yachts somewhere. Maybe there are a few like that. But most of the rentals agencies -- even very large ones -- are run by dedicated people who work night and day and already sacrifice enormously for their customers. I know a guy in SL who has some of the most expensive Blake Sea rentals who hasn't had a vacation or a weekend off in years and makes a tolerable RL income but can't be expected now to pay for you to have a second life if he can't feed his family during the pandemic. Yes, the point of this post is GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Which is ESPECIALLY BAD in San Francisco and New York, like it or not, whether you think these people are rich, undeserving white people in the First World. GLOBAL PANDEMIC WHERE THEY ARE AT THE EPICENTER. So why should Linden Lab or me or anyone in SL business pay for you to have fun? That's a luxury. And you need to learn that and stop putting your hand out for a handout.

But they did, and God bless them, because thank God, they aren't the technocommunists that many of you are. They are technolibertarians and have a semi-belief in business, at least their own. They did it tastefully and effectively which is more than I can say for some of you.

Let me tell you what I have seen in the last month in Second Life as the owner of a small rentals agency mainly on the Mainland, mainly with small parcels. I realize that on the forums, there are always people to find that a landlord is some kind of self-interested vulture trying to hustle sales or simply a clueless prat, and that's fine, but I assure you that I don't make a living from SL and would advise anyone doing that to create alternatives especially now, and I really have no stake in somebody renting for me OR in the Lindens offering reduced prices (which I don't think they should). Currently the population in 14 land or event groups is 1,923. Some of the members overlap or have alts. These are mainly rental land groups with active members who log in because if they don't log in and aren't paying after 30 days, they are removed due to group fees. Two of the groups have members that stay for exploration/events/hunts etc and may not log in. It's hard to know the exact population because many join the group and leave after they set prims because they are open groups that charge small fees to remain with resident powers. So imperfect or not, this sample of 1500-2000 avatars is a useful one, I believe. As I have seen in the past with crises ranging from 9/11 to the Japanese tsunami, some people are going to drop out and not be heard from again because they are dead or got sick or lost Internet connection and it's very hard to keep in touch. For the zillionth time I wished LL would have a policy in place that would enable them to respond to queries from anxious people about their virtual loved ones while keeping their privacy and issues like account payment form private. They could develop a protocol where they could answer with a status: "A" = account in good standing, i.e. that person or somebody is still paying for it; "B" not known to have logged in since X; "C" - does not respond to Linden Lab messages/mailings or they bounce; "D" confirmed terminated account. It would be nice if LL could use their RL information from accounts and Google around and see if they learned that person died of the coronavirus, but they won't do that, nor should we tax them with that now. If someone has not told you their RL information in SL, respect that, and don't make the Lindens compensate for the lack of it. Virtuality is not a sealed unicorn realm somehow existing in some free-standing cloud server in a magic Metaverse realm that is never affected by anything on earth; it is DIRECTLY tied to servers, Internet performance, electricity, and at the end of the day, those old-fashioned organic beings called "people" who don't show the resilience of robots to viruses -- who frankly have not shown themselves to be terribly robust at resisting the computer kind of viruses which will only increase. So: 1. The first thing I noticed just as I myself was going into RL quarantine on Feb. 28, observing clues in my RL environment (I'm immune-compromised) in New York City, was a stream that steadily increased of people joining and hanging out in the SL Public Land Preserve I maintain. These are places to hang out in a tree house or ride a horse or float a boat or just chill and look at various recreated things from RL or wander around doing various activities like hunts. I recently doubled the membership fee from $5 to $10 Lindens to set prims -- which is not even required to enter of course -- because this project is a labour of love and donations, tier, content etc only covers maybe 15% or less of the costs (you can see the annual expense reports in the tree house at Botany's Grove). In January, as I looked over the year's accounts, I figured this doubling of the fee might see a reduction of memberships but it's actually proof that people will pay a little more of a very small cost like that, not even the $75 or $250 they pay to be in a shopping group. I didn't really focus on why they were doing this streaming to these places now -- but I hadn't advertised them any more than usual. From their "gestures" as some in the industry call it, I could see nuch more use -- the saddles from the free horses return; somebody picks up the $0 freebies; they ride the boats and they return; they find a prize in a hunt; the traffic numbers go up on them, etc. I was really surprised that this increased and was glad that years of trying to provide this space with mixed results now had some use. I had two RL groups ask to use spaces there for RL meetings, which is free. And this began before the newspapers began to get scary and before, say, Gov. Cuomo's lockdown orders in NYS. 2. Next, what I expected to happen did happen -- refunds because people cannot justify a virtual rental at a time like this. People imagine there will be more flight to the virtual and more willing to spend on virtual entertainment, like people went to the movies more during WWII and the Depression. Don't. Refunds come from a variety of levels but mainly not the cheapest and not the most expensive but mid-level. What was interesting is that some of the people refunding in fact had 3-5 such rentals around the grid I hadn't known about, so they just wanted to cut one of them, and actually the cheapest one. These are mid-level rentals. 3. There was no more demand that usual on the very cheapest newbie rentals that you expect would be in demand in a time of trouble, and few refunds of something that cost 50 or 65 cents in RL. That's because people's ideas and illusions about newbiedom and cheapness are based on premises from RL that may or may not be true even in RL let alone SL. Newbies aren't necessarily desperately poor refugees; they could be IT guys with 6 figures. You don't know. Or anything in between. 4. Overprimming, taking of more than one in areas where I say "one per customer"; griefing of other tenants or of me; bad behaviour; squatting all increased *somewhat* but not at all to epic proportions as I've seen in the past actually during flush times -- the average college spring break week most years would see an upsurge in griefing but now we don't see that. Watch my son's film of the "hood swarm" if you want to grasp this behavior. People are not at their best in times of trouble. They ought to do X, Y, Z but they don't. I had to admire the sheer testicularity of the trio that set up a neon lighted disco with their own wares for sale and even a Returns kiosk in the sky above my rentals, but you know, I can't give places out for free. Linden Lab has not reduced my costs, and I don't want them to. 5. I saw an increase of rentals of the larger parcels, sometimes for months in advance. Some people have to work from home or do businesses in SL or whatever much more, and they are hunkering down. They may panic and flee in two or three weeks as they see that even spending US $25 a month is maybe not warranted now. 6. I see an increase in purchases of used gatchas, and even the little things I make myself. I always encourage newbies to put something they've made out with at least some kind of price tag on it because it will sell. Everything sells in SL. It's another matter whether you can find that spot between a willing buyer and a willing seller given the dysfunctional advertising in SL, but it more or less works in places and people are shopping more. 7. Many more people are taking part in hunts, quests, treks that I have set up around here and there and actively asking me for them. I have some Experience hunts now with mixed results because Experience can be buggy but overall it's a great thing to keep people engaged. I can't really keep up with that beyond some self-service and landmarks and re-route them to the big hunt companies. 8. Some people who have been away from SL are back; some who stopped renting years ago because they couldn't justify the expense or turned to other interest have re-rented. I would not say they are *pouring* in (yes I realize it can feel like a flood when it's a dozen "solutions providers" who are your friends who abandoned SL 10 years ago in 2007-2008 downturn), but there are some. "Pouring" to me is defined not by a dozen FIC who have talked on the forums the last few years but never logged in, but ordinary people who despite these times now think a premium account or an inworld rentals is justified. 9. I did a newsletter urging people to cease paying for rentals they cannot afford and to think of their family first. I urged them to tier down to cheaper rentals and some have done that. I urged them not to deal with coronavirus symptoms by nervously chatting with girlfriends in SL and trying shopping as a therapy, but to reach people in RL who can help. I told people they cannot expect free rentals from me because my concern now is to buy food and medicines in quarantine, something very difficult. But that I do have a lot of free hangouts or half-filled subsidized areas they can consider now. The Lindens have a far better handle on these sorts of figures or categories than I possibly could because they have tools I don't have to measure log-ins and see whether increased activity involves alts or actual stand-alone new people. They will not inform us of this. Linden policies *already* changed because a significant drop in users and brought us cheaper tier, faster turnaround of abandoned land to those who want to buy it and tier it; and the surge in Linden Homes. The sale of Sansar was likely a strong signal of a company "refocusing" because of the pandemic. Watch to see what further signals like this there may be. I'm really, really proud of my tenants that in the last month, not a single one has asked for a free hand-out or told me a hard-luck story and hinted I should not remove their prims after they expire (I have two-day grace periods). They know I already provide a lot of subsidized and free stuff with a lot of generous policies. They are troopers. They will go the distance. So can you.

Sometimes there are good reasons for these things, sometimes there are not. What I find already sadly being duplicated is the way businesses and educational institutions come into the SL situation dooming themselves to failure. They insist on buying a full, stand-alone island that they can lock down and secure against griefers and intruders and just simply sexualized beings and furries. They are over-afraid of this, but you will not get them to get rid of this. They insist on having Lindens or Moles build infrastructure for them (I've seen this already) or on hiring expensive "solutions providers" to build expensive replicas of RL buildings. They start putting demands on being able to override copyright in order to serve their own narrow interests because they are in systems of brutal bureaucracies with self-interest served by Soviet-style gigantism. They insist on putting 4 regions together to have 200 audience seats available because they think in terms of mass stadiums, often like frankly Hitler or Stalin did. The masses. Who aren't even in fact there. They are adverse to simply buying a 4096 parcel on an island or even on the mainland and just putting an existing prefab from the open market on that 4096 and having their office or meeting there, which is really enough in 90% of the use cases. They could stream a Zoom available on that 4096 or 4096 x 10 or 20 or whatever scattered around SL instead of on 4 sims pushed together in a laggy slagheap, but they won't do that. Because they are too clutchy about the individual conversations that happen outside their controlled stream. They keep clutching and controlling as institutions to control the experience and that dooms them to failure. This can happen because they either have a heavily ideological meme-pushing regime of the type you see on TED talks (where there aren't Q & A or if they are, they are heavily scripted and censored) OR they have bureaucratic protocols from businesses or universities that are devoid of imagination. This is a time when they could walk around the robots and do things differently, but I think once again, we will see them not do that for all the reasons I cited, and all the reasons that govern your own ideological world. The security of data flow -- secure even from LL eyes -- is not unreasonable because LL is a rich stew of people who used to be in other big industries from IBM to Cisco to Facebook to whatever and they leak. But big businesses have pages on Facebook or Twitter without anything near this unreasonable insistence on locked-down data flow that they demand of LL. Facebook doesn't grant a special sequestered page to big corporations that have to remain open to the public if they are to have customers.

Yes, they should entice more people to come. Maybe not with ads that are that crude, certainly, but stressing education, art, culture as they have been doing, and also socializing and data which they do anyway. I do not believe they should offer any cost reduction, and their reductions in cost over the years have not been in response to any crisis like 9/11 or Hurricane Sandy or the London metro terrorist attack and so on, but a steady policy they can do as servers get cheaper. There is always the question of whether offering more sales for less is a prudent . To be available for all of us, they need to secure their own business first, and providing handouts now to the needy is not effective even to the needy if they cannot stay in business. I'm here to tell you that handouts and freebies and subsidies -- based on the tiny mirror image that my rentals company is to Linden Lab and SL at large -- are not effective, either for those who provide them but still have to stay in business, or ultimately those who benefit from their generosity. You can take large parcels, reduce them to small ones, and offer them for less, even subsidize them, as I have done for 16 years, offering newbies "a chance" -- even if those newbies are IT people who earn six figures and utterly dwarf my own RL income. I've always done this, but there is a real down side to it, and if you can't understand, I'll explain, but suffice it to say: the people in the cheapest places complain the most and also violate the rules the most and make it pretty impossible to run cheap "newbie" communities effectively. Those in slightly more costly rentals that are not subsidized and at least pay the tier complain the least and conscientiously pay their rent and don't whine. There are all kinds of socio-cultural reasons for this. But that it is an unshakable fact, I can tell you based on vast experience. I have many free places to hang out in my land preserve and urge people to use those existing free places rather than ask me to pay their rent, essentially, when I need to get my RL groceries and medications, more and more difficult to do as I am at the epicenter of the coronavirus in NYC and immune-compromised. Lindens aren't made of steel; among them are people who are vulnerable in various ways both economically and culturally -- their workforce is not made out of fancy Facebook and Google engineers who get fantastic salaries and a special bus to work; their work force has a lot of very dedicated people of the type who work in non-profits and volunteer because they believe in the cause. The people who run LL are not on yachts now in the Hamptons; they're running your servers. I do wonder how their colo is doing and how much access they have to it. I would not like to see the Lindens release the homesteads for $79 tier into the wild again. I'd benefit if they do but the problem is that this concept doesn't work as you imagine, just like Air B&B doesn't work as you imagine. It's not that single owners who want a home maybe with a partner, or little old ladies who only log in on Sundays to hold their book clubs are the ones who get the advantage of these servers, like grandma or mom & pop renting out the spare bedroom to survive on Air B&B. It's land barons who can buy them in bulk and flip them with almost zero customer service and trouble shooting, just like in NYC it's slumlords who create entire ghost towns of B&Bs that they rent out to big corporations who buy them just in case and don't use them. That you aren't in this category is besides the point because the overwhelming number of cheap homestead servers purchased in an open plan as you suggest will be essentially slumlords, and they place more demand on the Lindens. If you weren't here to see the mass flip of these flat white pancakes cut into cheap slices overloading the system back in the day, well, I was, and I know what will happen to this. I would not want to see Lindens, who are a precious, non-renewable resource, deployed to the welcome areas. They did that in the old days, where top designers and programmers were worn to a nub put on that sort of insane and stupid duty that doesn't work to increase retention and only wears them down needlessly. I don't even want to see "helpers" or "guides" of their friends deployed because those systems are instantly corrupted. It's key to remember that newbies aren't necessarily helpless creatures like refugees being turned away from our border or arrested -- those are people truly in need of your help, concern, and charity. They are affluent Americans who have at least some kind of job or gig. They are well--paid IT guys often. They aren't as helpless as you think, and there are already a lot of helpers like Caledon Oxbridge out there to help them. The Lindens need to secure their own staff and premises. They are a business that relies on reputation and trust and so they won't scare you now with their harsh realities but they do exist. They are in a lock-down city where I'm not sure all their staff can come in as they are not a "crucial" or "mission-critical" business. It doesn't matter if they are "100% working from home" because it's not like "home" is a magic unicorn realm that won't have its Internet cut off or slowed soon. Some staff may have the virus already. I don't know whether they were able to fit themselves under "media" or "IT services" that are listed in city and state protocols as "critical". They are and they aren't. So don't place unnecessary and selfish demands on them. They have a lot of remote workers and so on and they can strengthen that but they need their own war chest now to survive, not to waste it on people who in fact have resources -- their users. Somebody who can't spend even US $5 on a rental in SL without a premium account is someone who likely shouldn't waste their electricity playing on SL.

1. You don't need to literally read a Chomsky book to read Chomsky as it has bled into much of college courses anyway in various forms, shaping your concept of "The Man" who is out to get you and suppressing all your freedoms. 2. There isn't any such thing as "everybody knows" anymore or "The Press" precisely because the media is so diverse now. The last time I remember everybody watching the exact same television show called "Huntley Brinkley" was when I was riding my bike down the street in Niagara Falls, NY in 1961, and a teenage boy rushed by and warned me that "Huntley Brinkley" was starting and I saw the dads coming home from work in time for Huntley Brinkley". By 1962, Ramparts magazine had started and -- oh, never mind, history is lost on the ideological such as yourself. 3. This is just a crazy, wild-eyed idea -- but maybe you can't find any unbiased news sources because...you're biased yourself. 4. Twitter has a great diversity of truths and falsehoods and the wisdom is to know the difference. 5. You're welcome to have the last word as debates with anonymous people in SL even if they went to college 30 years ago are seldom rewarding.

I'm in NYC, and I simply can't take a wild statement like that seriously, especially as I work in journalism. We have an enormously diverse, wild and free media, including even "oligarch" owned. There are enormous numbers of totally scrappy independent outlets that exist either on volunteer contributions or meager subscriptions. There are Twitter accounts with hundreds of thousands -- millions -- of viewers that function like media, like radio used to. That you can write something like that lets me know that you cannot read anything except perhaps the Noam Chomsky books on your college reading list or perhaps you only read The Intercept. But if you even read just the Intercept, funded by an oligarch who used to be on the board of Linden Lab (Pierre Omidyaar), you'd grasp that your claim that we need to "pretend" USA is "still" a democracy is a wild exaggeration. But Good Lord on a crutch, you could at least listen to Amy Goodmann on "Democracy Now".