resource usage pricing

Asbestos suit on. If Linden Labs considers SL to be a hosting service, like a webhost, why isn't the pricing for resource usage based on -real- resources used, the way a webhost would do it? Why aren't we charged on a monthly plan for bandwidth used, disk space used and cpu time used? Webhosts do this and do it well. Why this nonsense of charging for "prims" and "land"? Could it be because charging for real resources would expose the arbitrary pricing of "virtual real estate" as a money-making scheme? Charging for real resources would expose the price of SL "hosting" to the prices of a very competitive hosting market. Check www.findmyhosting.com. For $5 a month, you can find a webhost who provides 500 MB of disk storage, 10 GB per month bandwidth, unlimited email accounts, full database and scripting support, mailing list support, shopping cart support, and "three-nines" (99.9%) uptime. These are HOSTING ASSURED companies. The Hosting Assured Trust Mark is an ethics process. A host that displays the Hosting Assured Trust Mark has agreed to a code of ethics. If they do not act in accordance with the ethics, then they lose the ability to participate in the Hosting Assured program. Is Linden Labs considering applying for the HOSTING ASSURED mark or a similar mark?

You can argue that Linden charges more for SL than a webhost would charge for resources alone, because SL provides "extra value" in content, server-side code and a client app. That argument has some merit, but only some. The majority of content is user made and you're paying THEM for the privilege of making it. If SL is a hosting provider, as claimed, then paying for server-side code is like paying for the webserver software that hosts your webpage. As for the client, browsers are (mostly) free.

Interestingly, despite repeated statements by Lindens that SL is, or should be considered, a "hosting" service, no mention at all of "hosting" is to be found in the TOS. Look: http://secondlife.com/corporate/terms.php

Instead, in section 4.2, Linden Research claims to act as "a venue and an Internet service provider." Strange. What's the legal definition of a "venue?" WWW.legal-definitions.com defines it as "a place where a trial takes place." I don't think that's what Linden had in mind. Merriam Webster defines it as "the place or county in which take place the alleged events from which a legal action arises." That doesn't seem likely either. Probably, Linden meant something like this:

"The Service is Only a Venue. Linden has developed SecondLife to serve as a venue for participants. Linden's role is strictly limited to that of a venue provider."

The venue claim is cya, I imagine. It removes Linden from any liability or responsibility to meet "fitness of purpose" obligations. Although venue providers in the real world do have certain obligations to public safety, those obligations probably don't apply to a virtual venue. Is SL a venue, like a concert? If so, the pricing may make some sense! With concert tickets, it's pay-as-you-play, with convenience fees and transaction fees abounding. Too bad for lifetime members.

The "Internet service provider" claim is just strange. Linden is not an Internet service provider, obviously. In fact, the TOS contradicts itself. Section 2.6: "No Internet Connection. Linden does not provide Internet access..." Boy, I think I would drop an ISP who didn't provide me any access to the Internet, wouldn't you? The only "out" I can see there is that Section 4.2 says that Linden "acts" as an ISP. We're not a real ISP, we just play one on TV.

Though I could find no definition of "Internet Service Provider" in California Law (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html), I think Linden would find it tough to defend itself as an ISP that doesn't provide Internet access. So, is Linden charging what an ISP would charge? Well, AOL - the premium-service ISP (which provides extra service in addition to Internet access) - charges a flat rate. If you view more webpages, you don't pay more.

Some clarification would be nice. Is Linden an ISP? Dubious. A hosting provider? The TOS doesn't mention it. A venue provider? Not really. Some new type of service that hasn't been attempted before? Perhaps.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, here. I'm not asking for something for free (am I?). I don't want to see the Linden staff go broke. I'm just looking for clarity, not marketing hype. I'm arguing for fair and realistic pricing. I'm saying that we might want to stay grounded in economic reality (many of us are WAY grounded. we have no choice) and not get lost in this idea of a "world" where value is arbitrarily set to our disadvantage.

Lindens, what say you?

Linden Labs is aiming to become the provider of the "Metaverse". They don't think we're there yet, but they have gone ahead and laid the legal groundwork to get us there.

Second Life is supposed to eventually evolve to the point where there are simulator servers all over the place and the SL client will become almost as standard an app as the web browser.

Quite a vision!

"Prims" and "land" are abstractions that simplify the pricing. Actual resources used are hard to compute, and would probably make pricing so complicated as to drive away all users.

The basic resources used by a SecondLife player are bandwidth, storage, and CPU time, and the amount of each used by a player varies greatly based on activity. Some examples:

1) A player in the Cardova sandbox usually won't use much in the way of bandwidth: that's used mainly when you're moving around or in a rapidly-changing environment. However, if they're doing something complicated with physics, they can easily be using most of the sim's CPU resources.

2) A player flying direct from Oak Grove to Chartruse will use a great deal of bandwidth, as their scenery is changing rapidly, and a moderate amount of CPU time, because of the physics involved in moving around.

3) A player teleporting from Chartruse to the Oak Grove telehub will use less bandwidth, and almost no CPU time, because they don't need to load any of the scenery between the two locations.

4) A player with a jukebox in their home: They aren't directly using any bandwidth if they don't visit, but anyone wandering near will use a lot of bandwidth preloading the sounds in the jukebox. The owner will also use a lot of storage for the sounds in the jukebox. Almost no server-side CPU time will be used.

How are you going to assign pricing to each of the resources? How are you going to make things predictable enough that people can make reasonable estimates of their monthly bill? Who do you charge for bandwidth costs: the creator of the content, or the consumer?

There's another huge difference. Web hosting services aren't charging people monthly fees to be able to view the sites they host. The two models aren't comparable.

Why do you put extra value in quotes to imply that it is not true? This is exactly why SL costs more than a web host. There is tremendous extra value in SecondLife as compared to a generic web host running Apache. SecondLife is one-of-a-kind software which requires a full staff of programmers and support personell to maintain. SecondLife is not something you buy out of the box and setup. I hate to say it, but if you don't like the pricing model...

LOL you're joking right?

Yes, I was joking I changed my post to be more serious

hehe, phew! It's much clearer now

I'm glad that line was quoted before you changed it, thats classic and may have a place in my sig.

What you pay the premium for is the set of developers to maintain and continually develop the service. Its like paying a web host not just to host your site but to design, build and release new major versions of apache/IIS/cgi/perl/java/etc to suit your whims and needs, on a quick schedule too (2 major updates within 6mo of release).

Wow, when you think about it that way, we are getting a great deal. Go Lindens.

** deleted **

Another crucial difference is that Second Life is a communications medium. Part of the provided service is the ability to communicate with other users of the service, like on a telephone network. Users don't get a discrete, seperate space to build content on. They are part of a contiguous space occupied by other users. (One effect of this is that the Lindens act as de facto advertisers for user content; we get a lot of free click-through.)

It's impossible to objectively calculate the value of being in a communications medium with other users. And many users who have more powerful 3D tools at their disposal have mentioned that this is the primary value of SL to them.

More generally, I think what people are willing to pay IS fair and realistic pricing. I think it's important to keep in mind that, although the Lindens have been very innovative, they are not the only ones who see the potential here. If not previously, definitely now. If SL doesn't expand, it will most likely be forgotten in the wake of more successful competitors. Expansion requires new investment which depends on profit.

I must confess. I'm in love with SL. I think the attraction is more than an affair. It may be indecent, but, there, I've said it. This love sometimes causes me to react strongly when I feel the relationship is threatened. We've all had these feelings for software, right? I'm just so afraid that these changes will mess up the SL I love. I need reassurance that everything is alright. Someone hold me.

Well, things are changing, and in all actuality, I believe they are changing for the better. Things are always changing, things in world ecpesically. I was looking through some old snapshots i had taken, and most of the stuff that was there, is no longer around in world. You may not even realize how much changes in the world in one day, new things being built, old things being torn down, etc. This was a drastic change though, it effects how people will build, and live in SL. Instead of being more buisness oriented, where you can get ahead through buisness ventures, buying and selling land, or hoarding resources, people are forced to look at what they build, and figure out how to do it using as little bit of resources as possible. Alpha channels, texturing, all of the things that people could do to optimize thier builds, but don't simply because there is no need to in their eyes. No more prim hoarding, excessive prim builds, or anything like that. While alot of stuff looks a lot prettier with the excess prims, they can look, if not as good, but pretty close using optimization techniques.

Let me throw in a wrinkle to Carnildo's arguement. Land is pretty much constant, but is now being used as a way to regulate prim usage. However, every prim that a user generates, increased the bandwidth and processor usage required for every other user that passes by. In addition, each prim uses a certain (though trivial) amount of storage space. So, prim usage is not quite the abstract pricing convenience that you have described.

Paulie, I can help answer a few of your questions.

I'm certain that if different online worlds start to merge and dominant open protocols are developed that meet everyone's needs, we will see www.metaversehosting.com pop up to help us find servers to connect to. Since the service we provide is not a 'commodity software product' yet, it cannot be compared with commodity services such as web and email hosting.

Land cost is about as close as we can get without sending everyone an indecipherable bill describing bandwidth. Each region is a 256x256 meter area, and thus, maintaining a plot of 128x128 meters will on average consume one quarter of that box's overall resource usage. Some objects, events, and actions cost us more money. But, as part of an entertainment service, we felt it detracts from the fun to have to be a penny pincher over every action.

The content users make is not for us. It is for their own use and enjoyment and the ability to share their content with other users of the system. The content users create is also their to exploit in or out of Second Life. We reserve the right to delete or debug content as necessary to ensure smooth system functionality, and to use content in marketing material.

We use the word 'venue' in the traditional sense - a place. The legal definition given is to explain motions for a change of venue.

By 'internet service provider', we mean that we are providing a service over the internet, but not providing internet connection services to our residents. The term internet service provider is used to define both activities, though the populace at large has mostly only dealt with their immediately upstream internet service provider.