Stopping Developers Incentive?

Well, um, not quite. Tier on a 512 is actually about US$3, because to own that 512 you have to take out a premium membership for US$9.99 and get about US$7 back in extra stipend. Now while it's possible that some people will be prepared to pay US$5 a month to rent a 512, we hit the micropayment problem again - the difference between $0 and $5 is much more than 1c bigger than $5 and $9.99. That's why, AFAIK, most barons don't do 512's - the tier discount trick doesn't work.

You base it any way you like, it doesn't have to be precise, it could be maximum balance over the last week, average income over the last week, average *spending* for the last week, whatever. It's going to hit the ceiling fast, in any case, because the spending it's modelling in the real world hits a ceiling, too. If Bill Gates is in town, he might eat at Brennan's for $100 every night, while I eat at the hotel restaurant for $20, and someone else eats at McDonalds for $5. So it doesn't matter whether his net worth is 100 billion, 10 billion, or "only" a million, he's not spending hundreds of thousands of times as much as I am for food. Or gas for his car, even if he has a REALLY BIG car.

And the numbers I'm using are all pulled out of thin air. I don't have Linden's figures. They can undoubtedly come up with better numbers. But you want a curve that looks like this:

L$50 activity .. 0.2 dwell (so your most basic of basics are at least counted)
L$500 activity .. 1 dwell.
L$5000 activity .. 2 dwell.
L$50000 activity .. 3 dwell.
L$500000 activity .. 4 dwell.
L$5000000 activity .. 5 dwell, and cap.

Or maybe even:

L$50 activity .. 0.2 dwell.
L$500 activity .. 1 dwell.
L$5000 activity .. 1.8 dwell.
L$50000 activity .. 2.2 dwell.
L$500000 activity .. 2.4 dwell.
L$5000000 activity .. 2.5 dwell, and cap.

Or 20 people with a 4096 or 20 people (Basic or Premium) who spend US$20 a month on Lindex. And getting 10 businesspeople to spend ALL their time at the event for that night (remember, dwell is shared among every place you spend your 5 minutes) is going to be much harder than most folks, because they're making their money by doing stuff.

Transfers between avs on the same credit card, or transfers that are refunded the same day, could be ruled out.

If these figures don't work perfectly, change them, the point is that dwell needs to reflect the value *to LL* of the people whose dwell is being counted.

Have you ever been to Yadni's Junkyard? There are so many cool free items that this is just silly.

I want people to be able to get extra income through productive activity not because I think they need taht income, but because of the productive activity (even if it's just being nice to people to get a little reputation bonus) it produces.

Alternatively, you could say that first 512 costs you $10.00, because you don't actually need to pay ANYTHING until you go for that 512. So you just doubled the amount your Basic would be paying for his house in SL in US$ by upgrading t a Premium account instead of renting from the community.

And because this is a themed community, your renter doesn't have to buy up the land around himself to avoid the giant toilets. In fact, he can get by with even less than 512 and take advantage of the common areas... because he knows the parkland next door isn't going to get a giant toilet plopped down on it next week.

So the basic paying L$250 a week in rent for a 400 is getting a nicer house in a better neighborhood than the Premium with his 512. And he's paying the same rate for it.

It works fine in the Islands, maybe because they're run by landlords, not Land Barons. It should work for communities as well.

I have better things to spend my money on... Like FOOD

Yes, Second Life is a luxury - you don't have to take part in it.

You forget the Sims that depend on Dwell to pay the bills will go under also, and all that will be left are sims ran by the FIC and Star Chamber

This is harassment. and I ask that you stop this now.

Ah. So FIC/Star Chamber = people who can afford to pay the tier for the land they choose to own?

Ok I give in, I will bite. What the hell is the Star Chamber?

lemme help. I know WHAT it is. I just don't know WHO it refers to.



oh. and fun fact: The Court of Star Chamber was named for the star pattern painted on the ceiling of the room at Westminster Palace where its meetings were held.

FIC? I could care less. Until I see evidence that normal people have at least a chance to have their opinions taken seriously, I will say the Star Chamber/FIC is behind this.

Then spend it on that and stop moaning here. Your sense of entitlement concerning SL shows a distinct lack of any understanding of the big wide world.

Are you a minor? Seriously. Your thought processes don't seem that mature a lot of the time. You don't seem to have a grasp on the world, be that reality or virtual.

I agree with you. If you don't enjoy it, don't play it. However, I don't agree that SL's entertainment hinges on being able to buy things. SL is a lot of different things to different people. Personally, I rarely purchase anything preferring to make it, tease my partner into making it, or barter with friends. My second great pleasure in Sl is chatting with my friends, many of whom live a long way away in RL.

I'm sure it is pleasant to be able to buy whatever you like. If that's what you enjoy, then more power to you. What I don't agree with is the idea that anyone should expect me to pay for anyone elses pleasure but my own. That mindset baffles me as it does not reflect any aspect of real life.. at least not for adults. This strange idea that someone is entitled to the results of my hard work because they exist.

Ideally, I think premium accounts should come with a larger stipend. But that has to be balanced against how much that $L can be converted to in $USD. We've already seen how that gets gamed.

For free users, I think if you want to buy stuff, you should expect to spend at the least the equivalent each month of $10 to buy $L. That's about what it would cost you to play a mmorgh where all content is provided. I'd consider that as a cost of playing SL if I didn't want to make stuff.

Until you stop talking rubbish I will say about 1 1/2 brain cells is behind you.

Perhaps Linden Lab will have to start depending on their employees to make compelling content, rather than their customers.

What Linden Lab is effectively doing with this move is further divesting themselves from the "partnership" relationship they've been trying to push since they opened. "Come to Second Life, build things, and we'll share a portion of our monthly revenues with those of you who make the most 'popular' destinations to help offset your costs" now appears to have turned into "Come to Second Life, don't forget to pay on the way in."

Who are normal people?

What constitutes a normal person, Magnum? Each of us has input and an opinion. Your opinion doesn't get taken seriously when you blame some illusionary group, and demand things you aren't entitled to just because you think you should have them. Beyond everything else, Linden Lab is a business, and it has to do things that allow it to continue to be profitable, or else there is no SL at all. Is that what you want? If someone cannot afford to own a sim without a subsidy from LL, then they should never buy a sim in the first place.

Exactly my point all along. My thought (which from your other posts, I know you disagree, but we are to tegether in principle, if not mechanics). Is that a basic membership does not allow people enough money to live on. Thus they go to money chairs. Hell even $500 linden a week is not enogh to live on, not if you want to upload anything like enough textures to make a business work, or but textures in game. The market , as it is forces participation in the money chair. Yes its not the best activity, but people want money enough to do it.

My suggestion to compbat money chairs is to give the people a high stipend. If you want people to upgrade from basic accounts to land-holding, up the stipend. And tie this inot a scaled amount refelctive of tier. And take away the ability to pay tier in lindens. People can seel thier lindens at lindex and pay tier out of theat amount.

And then invest heavily in infrastructure. If money chairs are not the sort of products LL wants people to make, then they should put up some coherent guidelines for what sort of projects will get LL' support for development. It seems silly to have a give the people what they want attitude and then pull the plug on the program because it is not doing what you want. Unfrotunately LL seems to have the same problem everyone on the forums does, and that is that we don't know what exactly SL is for. You don't like money chairs? Fine, but what do we want instead? What kind of content do people want to see in SL? What kind of content doe LL want to see?

I know its a double shot. Sorry about that. But look its all fine and dandy to say if you don't like SL don't play it. Or its a luxury, if you can't afford it , don't play it. These are very true facts, and reall are inarguable.

However, if enough people don't play it, then SL goes away for lack of profitability. Also we will be like a tourist town of limited population in the off season, a few of us picking over each others bones. We need growth and we need residents. The debate shouled be how to make SL better for all people who want to play or participate in this.

I thought we had the answer to that? They want everything free!

That doesn't compute there, Jake. The very people who aren't willing to treat it as a luxury want everything for free, want subsidies, don't want to even pay for a premium account. How does that benefit LL's bottom line? It doesn't at all. They have zero effect on their profitability. You don't just need growth for growth's sake - you need growth that will bring in income - and the flood of free accounts with people unwilling to spend a dime extra isn't helping SL, it's only hurting it. That is the attitude that needs to go away - there has to be at least a baseline of spending on SL by all residents of it for SL to be profitable. I think they need to get rid of basic accounts altogether and make premium accounts more valuable.

there is some value to simply having more people on SL and making it feel more full, vibrant etc but you also need real customers not just window dressing

I've re-written this post about five times and I can't quite grasp the tone of what I want to say. So very frustrating.

Magnum,

I can hear your anger and frustration at your situation clearly. It sucks to be disabled and it sucks to be poor. I've been in both situations, and a single mom at the same time. I wonder how much of the anger you display towards all of us has more to do with your situtation than with anything going on here. I have seen your posts become angrier and less coherant over time.

We all make choices. We may not have the same spread of options to choose from, but no one has everything they want. And the choices may be between SUCKS and SUCKSALOT. One of the hardest things about life is that it just isn't fair at all. Most of the time, you can't control what happens to you. All you can control is how you respond. People have the capacity to be happy even in shitty situations - it's mostly attitude.

You have to make the best choices you can in SL with the resources you have. If SL doesn't make you happy, then maybe you should think about doing something that does.

Good luck!

Jake, the way I see it is that subsidising through the developer incentive isn't something that can be sustained long term. I was thinking this over last night and realised that, in fact, LL are subsidising twice from their income:

1. The free accounts.
2. The developer incentive.

Now, doesn't there come a time when LL says, "Well look, we're providing the growth, that's our job, getting more people in-world which in turn gives the developers a greater market in which to ply their goods, services, events etc." Surely they need developers that can self-sustain in the long run. I know that's going to go down like a lead balloon with a lot of people, but really we need LL to provide a big enough market and for us to use that market. It's not like that's an unusual way to think about it though, as LL have always said that the users build the world.

Of course, both sides are interested in stickability. So you have to keep the people that arrive, but isn't that really the job of the content developers? Maybe, in the short term, the number of attactions shrink because of this change but maybe, just maybe, in the longer term the attractions that remain will provide more visible quality to the "tourists" (I hate that word, but it seems as good as any to describe people who come here to socialise etc. rather than build or host etc.). And maybe they'll be more professionally run.

Seriously we have to move away from the sense of entitlement that seems to be pervasive in SL. It's not sustainable, but the problem lies in how the transition is made from 100,000 who think they should get free money every week to 1,000,000+ who don't have that attitude.

Millions upon millions of people pay $9.99 a month (at least) to play online games with limited scope and no currency value - they don't get free currency handouts, they don't get access to the wealth of user-created content that they can do here. We need to remove the dross content and get people used to a world where things don't come for free. It costs nothing to join SL now and yet people moan that they're broke in SL when they could actually get access to more Lindens every month for the same price as playing WoW. That's the attitude that LL needs to instill in people, as it will be for the benefit of all.