Anisha Rae

My first or second blog post (cant remember lol) I will try to be impartial. Might be a long post, hence read at your own risk. I was reading an online article, in which a quote by Warren Buffett was stated which goes like, "Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business." As much as my knowledge of common sense (highly uncommon though) economics and finance helps me, there is no second thought that SL economy is in decline. However, it is still one of the most productive economy compared to other Virtual Worlds in my opinion. SL was not supposed to be open for public, but Linden Lab opened it for public. For people to enjoy, and develop it and if you are lucky and have skills, make money from it. It started as a platform for people to enjoy and develop. For sure some of the products Linden Labs have launched have failed to deliver, the management decisions backfired and as a result highly glitched unstable SL. Linden Lab is not supposed to provide any new supporting service/product, and they can continue to develop the existing product, i.e. Second Life. But they are providing the extra services and products to its residents no matter how much they are charging for that particular product or service. I would like to take up few services/products provided by Linden Lab to try to explain my point of view. Premium Membership: I have seen many people whine (yes I mean it) over the premium membership costs and how that should be reduced, while they either completely ignore the benefit provided of the following: The weekly stipened (and if my information source is correct, some older accounts receive L$400-L$500 ) The free 512sqm (for which of course you need to pay initial cost of purchase) or the free Linden Lab home (no purchasing cost, and the homes are actually decent) The extended support in terms of Live Chat The number of tickets which can be submitted compared to basic account. They are not forcing you to pay for the premium membership. The SL platform is still free. There are sandboxes to build and develop. You are paying it because you want to avail the extra benefits provided in lieu of Premium Membership. If we deduct the real money value of the benefits from fee we are paying, the actual amount we are paying for membership is meagre. But defenitely, they need to improve the response time to the complaints. Question: Can we do without Premium Membership? Answer: No XStreetSL: Though LL purchased it, there was no need of it. They purchased it and provided the residents the psychological satisfaction that yes, it is a product/service by Linden Lab and not a third party service/product. Question: Could we have done without XStreetSL? Answer: This answer is undecided. Not sure of how many residents were aware of Xstreet before it was officially brought under the Linden Lab management, but it definitely is one of reason for success of many merchants. Marketplace: LL launched the marketplace closing XstreetSL. There was again no need. But as far as I can understand, it was a good intention, and one must agree that new marketplace looks more classy and chic than XstreetSL (it need to improve its categories of products and also the land listings procedure though). I would like to assume that marketplace has been a strategy by Linden Labs to attract the new client. I am sure once Marketplace issues are fixed, all will be in praise for the marketplace. Question: Can we do without Marketplace? Answer: A Big No. With XstreetSL closed, marketplace is the only official non third party medium to render the merchan services and products. No service or product is perfect. The catch is in making the imperfect things perfectly and improving the short-comings rather than blasting them and being a mere spectator. Mainland: Not sure how to go about it but, mainland is cheaper than the private estate. No need of adding the new mainland regions and Linden Lab could have left its resident to pay high costs to Private Landowners or nice tier fees in the form of private regions (worse if you have to pay VAT) and could have had last laugh by collecting money from residents. However, one can not rule out the fact that mainland are poorly maintained with terrible lag and possibly 100 meters high structures in paltry 512sqm of land. Question: Can we do without Mainlands? Answer: No. For the people who can not afford to pay high tier fees to private land owners or VAT included tier fees to Linden labs, a mainland at cheaper price is anyone's dream. And if mainland maintainence is improved, many people would shift to mainland. And no one can rule out free 512sqm land/ linden home. Finally...... Beta Advertising: Like some of the posts earlier stated that Linden Labs could have easily minted the money by giving the ad space to other advertisers (which I am sure would have been a big hit) they are offering it to the residents. But of course, we know as much as others. They might have tried it and it might have failed. Nevertheless, they are offering this facility to YOU. You dont have to buy it, you are not being forced to. You will buy it, only because you want to and because it is a medium to increase the reach of your product/service to the clients. Linden Labs is just giving you another facility which is upto you to accept it or reject it. Question: Can we do without Beta Advertising? Answer: Time will tell. You might be spending 100s of real dollars in-world in terms of classifieds annually. And the money is going to LL only. So why offer Beta Advertising, and like a post stated, share the income with another company when they can easily keep all income through classifieds? A point to think upon. To conclude, I would like to apologize for a long post and some issues totally out of the line with main post. But I think I will learn with time And I can not resist to say that, no matter how much we bash the Second Life, in the end, we are still here and that too every day =)