Locking Attachments on Avatars

You're an idiot.

Did you ever *look* at my in game profile as I suggested in one of my posts? I happen to have a submissive of my own, and a long history of participation in the BDSM scene my self, not only in SL but IRL as well. My objections to 1229 don't stem from some sort of "Oooo...bdsm is *wrong* and *evil* bullshit moralizing, which you would perhaps have known if you had actually *read* what I said rather than making a knee jerk, "Mee too!!!" post.

I'll reiterate. You're an idiot.

HTH HAND FOAD

If this are your prejudices about what you think are the prejudices of people who don't know BDSM then you just exposed yourself. I simply over done of how one can reach an unsuspected person simply by a few words in a forum.
No more, no less. And how the actual way of a certain desire of a person is, is something we don't know both before we don't know the person him/herself. And neither any ressource nor any book will help with this.



I haven't seen any lock in rl that asks the creator or other persons to unlock it, sends email to people associated with it or does something by itself. And I haven't seen anything in rl that doesn't look like a lock but actually is a lock. So any comparison with a rl lock and a locking avatar software feature in sl is misleading.
In fact a software locking feature without further functionality is malware and introduces a huge annoying power to anyone available who want's to (ab)use it and is more risk for all the people unaware of this built-in functionality on their desks.
And i personally don't want this feature built-in on any software on my desktop without getting any additional functional in reward that makes it really useful for the overall functionality and controllable by the user himself.
And if a crippled version of one-use or other byproducts of what 1229 suggests is the reward than this is simply inacceptable software design.
And if people who propose this design are not able to take enough care or state of security concerns by themselves than these people don't show enough responsibility with their creations at all.
Regards,
Leff.

No prejudice on my part at all, simply a reaction to BDSM Linden


Because in RL it involves technology that's either not reliable enough, too expensive or simply unpractical. If it wasn't for those restrictions, be sure there would be locks like those.

Very simple example: You want to prevent an accidential removal of a laptop battery, so you put two latches on it. one to unlock it, the second to make it fall out. While not entirely the same, it's a simple analogy to proposal 1228 and very real.


I disagree. A lot of jewelry locks are intentionally designed to look like a part of the piece itself. My car has it's trunk lock built into the vendor's logo, so you wouldn't notice there is one if you don't know it. And I'm sure there are a lot more examples you can find if you just look for them.


No risk, you can always delete the item. No unawareness, since it tells you exactly what it is / why it's locked and how to open it.


You are free not to use any item that's marked "lockable".


This is open to discussion. I wouldn't want to use 1229 for this purpose myself, too.


Not what I proposed, so I don't comment on it. I simply would love to have lockable objects with an optional key that can be given away Security for the sake of the object itself was not my point.

I want you to know that I'm extremely happy to see this post.

My original stand against 1229 was never based on an anti-bdsm agenda, but a strongly felt feeling that it was something that could potentially be be misused to make it more difficult for more vulnerable submissives to simply walk away from a bad relationship.

I know that this conflicts with the image we would like to have of everybody being a strong-willed, decisive individual who can make their own choices and decisively walk away from any bad relationships and never look back. But unfortunately, this conflicts with my own experience as to what people are actually like, both IRL and in SL. That's not the way people like to look at it, but I'm afraid that that's the way that it is, in my sad opinion.

I'm very glad that you seem to understand these things. The reason that I bowed out of the discussion perviously is that I felt that these concerns were either something that people either "got" or they didn't, and I in the meantime, I was not interested as being painted as having some sort of moralizing, anti-bdsm agenda, which was never the case.

As for my statment that if the proposal went through, I would take my objections to the mainstream media, I never viewed that as a threat of, "Do it my way, or I'll sic the media on you," but rather as a case of, "You're willing to stick up for this here in SL, but are you willing to do so to the wider world as well?"

Which I must say, was answered with a pretty unequivical, "Hell yes!", which I respect, and which is why I never withdrew the statment.

Finally, after reading the other objections to the proposal, and looked at the capabilities being voted for in this proposal and examined it outside of the bdsm context, I realized that it had *tremendous* potential for misuse as a griefing tool, (As in, "Here newbie, put this box on your head." and as such, was probably doomed from a perspective of the Linden's implementing it anyway.

As for 1228, all I want is something very simple. I want to be able to click a check-box or something, so that with certain attachments it's possible to get a pop-up dialogue of, "Do you want to replace attachment, "Sexy Hair" with attachment, "Box On The Head". "Yes/No".

The topic here is only about locking active objects with arbitrary scripts in it to avatars.
So any laptop or car example doesn't really fit here. As we don't talk about lockable doors in sl as well.
And jewelry, if it is a necklace you can at least assume there is a little lock in it. But if a lock in sl might lock like a nice and powerful HUD and exposes itself as a complete blindfold every few moments and bugs you with its annoying shit and was handed out as a freebie to a user who doesn't really know about sl locking functionality I would feel really pissed off by this sort of junk.

An alternative can be an exit_state that is run during exit of a program and allows arbitrary cleanup mechanisms. As no sl objects need a cleanup during exit this should be disabled by default and only enabled by the user if he wants to use these routines. Something like this can be a more general alternative to locking that still keeps the users control.

Regards,
Leff.

Leffard, abusing a newbie is possible right now, without the need for any locking mechanism. Any script can contail malicious code, there's no way to check upon that unless it is full-mod. I can imagine a number of ways to annoy newbies with funny pushing scripts, no need for locks at all.

Whether the object has active scripts in it or not has no effect whatsoever on the topic "lockable objects" in general.

And again, the lock would not prevent you from simply deleting the object if it doesn't do what you want. No harm done.

Fire doors which sound alarms when opened from one side, yet are locked from the outside.
Remote alarm systems of various kinds send out alarms when power is lost, or they're turned off incorrectly, tampered with, etc.


Please post your address. I will send you a chineese finger trap.


You really don't understand - Locking is not inherently malware - it has good uses and by providing a clear exit mechanism, potential abuse is drastically limited. I have doubts that real malware (which is rare anyway, I've never been the victim of malware in SL...) would use this feature, because using it would throw up a big warning to the wearer and strongly suggest that the item was up to something since it diddn't explain clearly WHY it needed the locking (why on earth would, say, a griefer item need to lock on you? they creator doesn't want you to take it off when the Lindens come hunting for you or something?).


You don't want this feature on any software you use? Ok, just don't buy software that states that it uses this. If you get software that does use it, and doesn't tell you, tell everyone you know not to buy from that company, and reject the request to gain locking permission.
1229 was not designed for one-use items, they're just a consequence, I originally thought of it as basically a feature for BDSMers to have fun with. As I already said, I no longer support 1229 for use to implement single use items becuase there are better proposals to do that out there.
Also, creators/proposers are not omniscient, we depend on feedback to find the faults with our ideas just like everyone else. It's why I created this topic. If people were only allowed to produce perfect products, very few products would ever get made - let alone prototypes for new products!


I agree.
1) I don't see much newbie abuse happening. Report Abuse / Live Help / Support@....
2) Scripts can indeed contain malicious code already and you can indeed only check it with copy acc to the script... locking doesn't make newbie abuse potential worse, it just requires them to click 'delete' instead of 'drop' and agree to 'are you sure you wish to permenantly delete item X?' by clicking a box.
3) I still don't quite understand why some people seem to think that locking items mean such a dramatic loss of freedom for all SL residents.... c'mon... an obvious 'delete' button? It takes 3 seconds to del a locked item you don't want (move mouse to av, right click, select delete, agree to delete, gone).

We are talking here about locking objects on avatars. Not locking in general. I found it amusing that you are jumping back and forth with your arguments, change topics, deny without any argument.




We are still not talking about locking in general. Locking of objects on avatars where the lock is controlled by a 3rd party. You should really know what you are proposing and not just stating something without sticking to the topic and providing an argument
What you have proposed is not really usable in general.
Just stating so in an off-topic stating because a misleader and a BDSM lobbyist states so is just junk as well.



Where are they? I see only collar, nothing else. And the other usecases you suggested are simply wrong.



What? Have I missed something. There is not a "clear exit mechanism" at all. Either a bugging window or calling some jerkheads for giving approval. This is not what I would call a "clear exit" mechanism. This is just junk. And why do we need a clear exit mechanism? No SL object needs to clean anything up during exit.



OMG, still no arguments? Your empty phrases are simply boring and lousy. You come up with statements that are totally useless.



The more malware functionality there is the more people are able to do it.

would use this feature, because using it would throw up a big warning to the wearer
[/quote]

Really? I haven't seen anything like that in your proposals. You must have forgotten this at all. But still you state it's safe. Must be safe by definition.



Oh, the scripter is allowed to state anything during locking. That's funny. What about the statement:
"Just press yes here, it's needed for the implementation"



Why should Lindens come and hunt anybody. If your own tool abuses yourself, then there is no abuse and therefore no Lindens.

I think it's funny how you define your suggested proposals 1228 and 1229 even crappier during this thread. There is a huge difference between crapier and cleaning up this shit.



If it is in SL, than it's already on my desktop. I am pretty sure LL will put a huge button on their homepage and will make a press conference to announce a now-with-bdsm-lock-ware-builtin and a worldwide life video announcment with Philip in a BSDM slave dress with his newly created shiny collar and announce that SL now has a collar functionality built-in.



Then why do you state this. You produce crap because you want are just a apple pollisher who wanted to hide the actual use behind a nice general usecases.
But unfortunately you are still wrong. They are not a consequence. One-use items don't inform their creator. Can't be changed after creation. And what about scripting. Can you tell me were your brain is?
They are only a crippled byproduct.



What about electric schock devices controlled by xml-rpc or email. No Linden would even need to move a Hand for that.

So you are a collar implementation manager as you suggested a feature with a functional description, use cases and implementation suggestions. That's half way of a collar implementar. And what's so wrong with it that you must deny it? Don't you like your own shit?



But you still support it or what. Jumping back and forth with your statements without arguments, statements and positions that change from post to post. Can't you stay a hard and clear position or what?



A creator is no proposer. A creator works hard and is realistic.
A proposer can just be every butthead who jumps into votes because he has a desire.



I quote you out of the first post


So you are still a lyer and put arbitrary reasons together that have nothing to do with the reality stated here in this thread.



We are here not talking about anything perfect. And this isn't the approach.
Your idea is basically a hardcoded locking functionality only accessible for 3rd parties. How an owner itself can access this isn't actually stated. If you can't count to three that your proposal does only half the job, don't even state how an object owner can use them and don't state anything about security then they are just lousy shit.



You are a junk talker. Here is nothing to agree because there were no arguments. Your talking just hot air. If an object abuses it's owner than there is not much of a "Report Abuse" possible. No delingent, so no abuse. You know. You are still talking only shit.


Don't even that. It is possible to exploit avatars for other users to inject arbitrary scripts as you might know.



And exactly that's an additional building block to make things worse without providing any real functionality and any security. Your proposal is just a byproduct of your stinking arse.



Why do you want it then if the functionality isn't worth a dime, does not much, isn't under the control of the user, instead of a scripter who doesn't even really know how to use it for general objects.
You just stated that your suggested functionality is so minimalistic useless. So we do you better forget it then at all.

You have no arguments. Your argumentation is just empty reasoning, minimalisation without arguments and other plain crap.
Go somewhere else with your hot air.

Have you asked Lindens in Secondlife Answers if they wanna implement a junky 1228 feature or a collar as in 1229. Or are you only a babbler without a real neck to go there and get a real answer.

Regards,
Leff.

Having read over most of what was said, including the attacks by various "do-gooders" who feel that adding new features to LSL is bad and can be abused I need to ask them one thing. How much LSL do you know? It has many possible abuses not including some which havbe been plaguing SL for some time now. Its up to the informed user to know what they clicking yes too. If these functions were implemented much like the safeguards Premssion Debit has in place. This means a dialog box saying "Object X would like to..." and give the user the option to attach and detach. This functionality can be simulated already with the current commands available (though with a bit more difficulty) (very careful use of premission attach, llDetachFromAvatar and llDie on rez).

While I appreciate the views of some of the more... vocal opponents (though I disagree with the manner in how they expressed themselves). This can be easily summed up as "delete on detach" For things like SL drinks that have a counter in them on how many drinks you can take, this would save inventory clutter and expand the power LSL.

Angel I hope that by reading this you will deside to take up this fight again. This is a valid and useful function of LSL I would like to see.

And for the bullys of this topic, feel free to critiize me, I don't care. What you say is just words and in the end, you only have power if I let it. You have the option of not using the function, or buying anything with it. There is no more chance of abuse then any other.

Angel, perhaps change the wording again on the purpose to what is truely is meant to be, but "delete on detach LSL premission"

(my applogies for the horrid spelling, but frankly as long as I am understood it doesn't matter if I make a few typos)

Gola, I agree that 1228 is useful and desirable - it's just a small extension of what we have already.

As for 1229, I agree this feature would be useful and even desirable on its merits, however, the things that keep me from supporting 1229 are:
1) I cannot justify it as being good for all SL residents, because there are better possible implementations of 'rented' objects (such as "Do you wish to give this object permission to debit your account for X L$ for each minitue you wear it? - or similar) and LL have so much work to do on fixing existing bugs (my SL still crashes the first time I run it since last boot... only times 2 and subsequent are usable) that they might be better pressed into implementing lots of the small, quick things, like :
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=999
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=134
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=703
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=966
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=984
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1178
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1349
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1378
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1376
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1288
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1186
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1185
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1164
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1089
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1069
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1033
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1055
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=997
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=998
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=984
2) I worry about some poor people who might get abused by it.
Granted, the risk is small.
Granted, there are other features in LSL that are much MORE abusive (pushing someone a few million m into the air, anyone? how about the ability to teleport someone home with no warning? or the use of repeated shouting to spam?).
Granted, there is a clear opt-out method.
Granted, 1229 is pretty safe, as far as abuse potential goes - much less so then many other features in SL.
Still though, ethically, I wonder if it's ok to do something you know may well result in some vulnurable people being harmed, for a large net gain overall. I think it might well be (capitalism is usually considered fair, despite the fact it necessitates a large class of poor people).... but for the moment, I'm holding off on advocating it as strongly as I used to.
I have exams on atm, so I spend most of my time IRL on that and don't really have time to waste chatting with people on forums when the result isn't productive.

I might return to backing 1229 after my RL exams are over, and when I'm sure that the gain to everyone of allowing truly locking items (in your words : delete-on-detach permission, controllable via the script, so if you wear a scripted object it can delete itself during detaching without the wearer being able to stop it by, say, using the 'reset' button)... is definately worth the inconvenience it causes to some people. I'm pretty sure it is, but I want to be *certain* before I change my mind and back the proposal again, and start lobbying for it again.

It is true, 1228 and 1229 are no "can't live without" things, and of course, there are much more important things to fix (sim crashes, LSL performance ect.), but this is a "Feature Suggestion" forum, so we do exactly that

I have my personal list of features I'd love to see on my homepage, still have to get around and order them by significance.

This would be a great feature, however, the dialog needs to be optional. I for one change avatars and prims around a lot, a continously popping dialog would eventually ne annoying.

Ah, but to finally be able to keep my glasses/overrider/jetpack on while changing my whole avatar/clothes, now that would be cool.

1229 has been rejected by LL
Proposal 1229 has been marked "can't do" by LL because they say it violates the principle that each avatar should remain in control of their own SL experience. Their marking it this way means that it is very unlikely to be implemented. I'm not sure if they're right that it'd violate that principle to a significant degree, but that's their call, not mine. I also have some reservations about 1229 and the potential for abuse - in the psychological sense - whereby one person uses locked items as a way of enforcing one person's dependence on another person financially via forcing them to destroy items that cost them money in order to get freedom back again. I think many people could handle that strong form of consent and trust, but realistically I know there would also be people who abuse that. So, due to my worries about the abuse potential of 1229, I'm not going to complain about its being rejected by LL. I'm not certain about it either way, so in the absence of certainty, I'll leave it be

LL have said, however, that voters for 1229 should switch their votes to 1228. If we want any form of locking items or even prompt-on-remove functionality in SL, we must transfer our votes . Here is how.

Shameless bump to encourage people to transfer their votes.

1228 is simply a common sense proposal that I think of as the, "Please ask me before replacing my hair with a box on my head!" proposal, and would be usefull to just about everyone. Supporting it is a *good* thing.

Bump. Please transfer your votes.

676 votes/151 voters, and still no comments from Lindens. It's been months. I know Angel's given up on this, but clearly a lot of people have voted and left votes. I hope at some point we hear from them on this proposal so we can either give up and move our votes to something else they are willing to consider, or use them for other ideas for improving SL.

After discovering the voting mechanism I began to read thru the various suggestions. Upon discovering this controversy I realized that there is a significant problem here. This is undeniably one of the most requested features for the game. So why would you possibly not want to make the gameplay better?

Apparently there are some (including people at Linden Labs) who disapprove of certain behaviors consenting adults wish to engage in, based on 'principal'. You are using the "Grand Theft Auto argument": this behavior is wrong in the real world, therefore it is wrong in a video game.

- - -

SL is a game, therefore it should be governed by the rules of fairness, not morality. If morality is the test to which we are going to hold the makers and or players of the game I for one argue that they should all be put in jail.

1) SL includes slavery, which is not only illegal worldwide, but possibly the most morally reprehensible behavior man has ever known.

2) Sex in SL is taken to an extreme not allowable nor acceptable in any country I am aware of. Besides the strip clubs and fetish communities, there is open and rampant prostitution; in fact there is an entire sex industry in SL that is certainly one of the most lucrative aspects of the game.

3) Extreme violence such as killing with guns and even nuclear weapons is perfectly acceptable in SL.

I could go on.

If you play the game (indeed if you are passionate enough to involve yourself in an in-depth discussion of it's intricacies), or develop software for it, or sell it, or in any way promote it then you condone what goes on in it. And as a fantasy world - a video game - things that are normally beyond any question wrong are perfectly acceptable, even commonplace. You cannot pick and choose what adults playing a video game should or should not be allowed to do so long as it is not hurting anyone else. If you do, then you are, by deduction, condoning everything you do not oppose.

If it is, in Linden Labs' judgement, or anyone else including the many people here arguing against these proposals that it is somehow "wrong" for the the rules of the game to allow players to cede control of their character to another character or object, then I would very much like to know how you justify slavery, prostitution, gambling, especially in light of the recent legislation passed by Congress, and murder.

The only acceptable argument is that it is a game, it is not real; the rules of any real world society does not apply. Therefore, unless there is some technical reason why these features cannot be implemented I recommend you people put down your Bibles and step back off your soap box.

- - -

I also heard the "Evercrack" argument - people might be getting themselves in over their head, therefore we should ban or limit the game.

If people want to lock their character (fictional, virtually NOT real character) up in a collar or a cage then I, not being their therapist, have no evidence to determine if their behavior is psychologically detrimental. You are arguing about the well-being of an avatar - are YOU prepared to have your sanity questioned? Let's leave people's psychological welfare to their doctors OK?

And again, grown ups get to make their own decisions in our society. Leave your business card with the secretary and we'll give you a call when we start interviewing for the position of dictator.

- - -

Look, people are paying money to enjoy themselves in a virtual *fantasy* world, let them play out their fantasies however they want.

.

There are two reasons I'm no longer pushing for 1228/1229.
First is that there are more useful feature requests (like LSL functions, privacy controls and security stuff) and bug fixes (e.g. fixing the images time / sim crashing bugs!) that I could be pushing for. Given that my goal is to help SL, it makes sense for me to push for the things which do the most good overall. I might have created 1228/1229, but ultimately I can't justify giving them priority when there are other, more helpful, causes out there.

Second is that I've learned it's pointless to go against Linden policy announcements. In my experience, once the Lindens make their minds up about something they will not change their minds no matter how much popular support gets behind the idea. For example, people screamed till they were blue in the face about open registration, but LL basically said "we've made up our minds, tough" and went ahead anyway. Similarly, the island price increases. LL defused some of the anger by delaying them, but fundamentally they're still coming. I've yet to see a case where residents getting together and trying to talk to LL has actually resulted in any substantial change in LL policy. If you know of any cases, feel free to mention them here. I don't mean things like reversing the positions of "take copy" and "wear" - technical changes. I don't mean things like removing the policy of each person only being allowed 5 verified alts - which was changed due to the arguments of (IMHO) one very clever person I saw on the forums. Those happen. LL does sometimes listen to arguments. I'm simply saying that when they reject your argument, no amount of popular support will change their minds. I'm saying that if they have a problem with the idea, popular support will not do anything. If you have any examples where simple popular support has got LL to make a change in their *policy*, then I'd love to hear about them
Basically though, it seems 1229 (and possibly 122 go against Linden policy, and I've learnt from experience it's futile to fight against Linden policy because the policy never changes no matter how many people speak out against it.
I'm not saying that LL are or are not justified in working this way. I'm simply saying that, on a practical level, popular demand for a policy change is pretty much useless, in my experience, at getting that policy change put in place. Therefore, on a practical level, it's pointless for me to keep encouraging 1229 as it seems it conflicts with some LL policy somewhere (or is seen to) and thus won't happen no matter how many people want it or how good the arguments for it are. Practically, pushing for 1229 is futile because you're going up against a LL policy and LL never change their polices in response to resident opinion. They may try to explain them. They may even try to justify them, but I cannot recall a single case where they have ever changed them.

So, given that 1229 is dead, and 1228 is very clearly not as important as the other things LL is working on, I've backed away from both and am concentrating on other projects which I think are more helpful to SL as a whole and don't clash with any LL policy I'm aware of.

I'm not arguing 1229 which was declared no-go. I'm simply pointing out there are still *hundreds* of votes on 1228. I'm wondering if Lindens will at least comment on this and say "no", instead of letting so many votes languish with no response.

I think they will get around to it eventually, they're just very busy right now.

We are saying two different things. What you are saying is fine, I don't argue against it and I understand your position; it is based on the practicality of getting the changes implemented by LL. My argument is purely philosophical, although it does have real-world consequesnces.

My argument is that I don't like people dictating morality to me, especially when they are running a world in which there are immoral practices going on everyday. That is pretty condescending, and it just rubs me the wrong way.

Furthermore, I don't see why they think one is wrong and the other acceptable. Maybe to them there is a stark line between the two - from my perspective there is no distinction. I wouldn't mind an explanation other than "it's our policy". From a large bank or multinational Fortune 500 company I can accept that policy is often more difficult to change then getting a Constitutional Amendment passed - but that is due to the size and complexity of their organization. From a small, privately-held venture like Linden Labs that sounds more like an egotistical challenge, and I love to challenge people with big egos.

- - -

As for your concerns: If I were you I would not be too concerned about changing their minds, because in this case their policy is ultimately unsustainable.

Apparently there is a strong - make that overwhelming - interest in this capability. Sooner or later someone will find a way to profit from this. Heck, I have been learning more and more about SL scripting and I certainly wouldn't mind first-mover advantage into the market. Unfortunately that would put me in competition with XCite who already has a virtual lock on the scriptable collar product (no pun intended). Nevertheless, someone will bring these products to market if there is demand.

Seems to me this is not the only example of LL not heading the call of their customer base either, and if LL is determined to play God then eventually they will find their customer base moving to a new online arena where people don't have to listen to their sermons. The Goreans, for instance, seem to provide a market big enough to sustain a lucrative venture, especially since it would cut out all the SL stuff that infringes upon their roleplay. If they want to lock up their avatars in cages and LL has a problem with it someone else will come along with a Gorean-centric 3D cyberverse and steal away LL's customer base. That's capitalism, and LL cannot change that dynamic.

When LL made the decision to let the genie out of the bottle they should have realized that their concept of what an online society should or should not be is irrelevant to what will appeal to their customers. If they do not provide, someone else will, whether it be within the confines of SL or a totally different company with their own 3D platform. So if you are upset that LL is not listening to you, and you think they are too pig-headed to listen to reason, don't buy land because you'll just want to sell it when the next 3D-sim company comes along. However, from what I've read about the company they are savvy businessmen and are fully aware that ultimately the customer is king, and they are not going to be profitable unless they live up to the expectations of the people paying the bills.

There are some pretty smart people at LL. I think they will respond if the market shifts. And I'm sure that they know this is a possibility. Certainly their corporate leadership does know they will have to be flexible to survive, so I doubt you've completely lost your battle; BTW that goes for a number of features they have refused to implement - not just 1229 and 1228.