Telehub Land Values

Hi all,

I just read this thread in the Linden announcements confirming that telehubs are almost 100% definately on the way out. I guess that in light of this, we're a bit past the point of discussing whether this development is good, bad or indifferent. I wonder though, does anyone else out there find the cited plans for "minimizing" the change in value (I guess "compensating" the change in value would be a better way to put it) a little bit silly?

Am I all alone in this? I was shocked to see that there is no thread about it yet. I was just curious as to what 5% of the community thinks about these plans.

i don't know if it's silly. LL has benifited immensly from the value of hub land. hub sims have pocketed them thousands of dollars a piece rather than just a thousand and change. parcels used to often auction for 40L$/m2 and USD equivalents.

i think that added traffick bonus is a good way to return that money back to players.

Well, I have to agree with you here. To be quite honest, I feel like this is a bait-and-switch routine. LL has sold telehub land owners one thing (rare, high traffic 3D content space) at an unrealistic price. Now they're going to turn it into something completely different (low traffic 3D content space, like the rest of the grid) which has a much lower value. In other words, through telehubs, LL has created a false value for something that simply wasn't there.

Some might call this a fraud. I mean really, are we buying the metaverse here or a used car?



I have to respectfully disagree here. I don't think that rezing a stage or a picnic table and calling it a "public meeting place" is going to prop up traffic values to what they were in any way, shape or form. Thus, they could increase dwell (traffic, whatever) bonuses 100,000% in telehub regions and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

What's happened here is that LL has made themselves quite a bit of money auctioning these sims under false pretences, leaving their paying customers holding the bag. I think that a little bit more than a picnic table and a dwell bonus is in order here as compensation for the lost value. Frankly, I think that LL should say "I'm sorry I deceived you", to all telehub land owners, to the tune of at least L$50/m2 or it's USD equivalent. In addition, I think that they should offer, at the owner's option, to take the land back as part of this compensation (to eliminate recurring billing for this land). Any telehub region land that the owners elect to give back during this process should be used for the "public meeting areas" mentioned in their announcement, never to be sold again.

Just my L$5.1 (I guess that's around 2 cents at the moment).

Yes, bait and switch. Not first time.

But we have seen Ponzi schemes are legal in Second Life. So why not bait and switch?

I guess the business community just has to adjust to this fact. I hope we will soon see one platform where investors are protected from both bait and switch and Ponzi.

Until then we can only say: in one dictatorship it is the natural right of the dictator make the rules as he fit.

I especially like the "LL has created a false value for something that simply wasn't there" in a discussion about "land" (?) in a virtual world. ROTFL

And I think its a little bit simplifying to just look at the dropping prices for telehub land and say this is all a fraud (or politely questioning if this could be called so).

For one thing you could argue, that while telehub land will fall in prices, other land faraway from telehub will rise in price, now that it is more interesting to set up a shop or club there. A land baron which has both types of land might see no great change at all. Those who specialize in telehubs will suffer, those who never bid for telehubs will profit ...

Furthermore: any change introduced to SL will have some economic effect. This is just unavoidable. Some of these effects are easily foreseeable, others not. New features in new releases will open up new business venues - and bring old ones to a grinding halt. Khamon Fate somewhere said that the Speed Tree Technology will bring down his business with trees and plants maybe, once it is rolled out. Maybe ... Would you say Lindens should never implement Speed Tree?

And many little shop owners might profit from P2P because it means you don't have to fly through lag ridden areas for minutes to get to their shops ...

As I said: Any change the Lindens implement (or any weakness they introduce with an update) influences the SL economy. Some win, some loose.

This time, for the first time - at least that I am aware of - LL is suggesting a kind of compensation for those who loose. I find that rather extraordinary. (Even though I am sure, no land baron will be satisfied with the proposed solution - any solution; LOL)


BTW: I don't like this change (to P2P) at all and oppose it because of other reasons. I don't believe, this opposition will have any effect, though

You're perfectly entitled to your opinions. My opinion is that this is a bait-and-switch routine and a scam. It is unacceptable, in Shaun Altman's book of ethics at least, to court paying customers with "make money" advertising, all the while creating a false value for the land on which the best sales can supposedly be made, and in the process reaping huge cash benefits. It is clear that the Linden book of ethics differs from my own, as does yours. That's fine. I stand by everything I've said.

Without turning this into a mini war, I have to say for the most part I agree with the change. I never really understood the value of telehub land myself. If your land is worth going to, people will go to it. If not, then people won't. I'm not going to buy goodies just because it's closer to the telehub. I do understand however, why people who own telehub land might be upset. The paid for higher prices for their land.

That being said, this is no means a bait-and-switch tactic. It is a change for the better for SL.

Watched a show the other day about a business community in NYC that thrived because the bus stop was there. Land costs were high. Rent high.

Bus stop was relocated. Businesses failed, land costs plummeted, rent lowered. Did the city or the transportation system OWE them ANYTHING? No. They chose to locate their business where they did. They chose to spend ungodly amounts of money for their "incredible" location.

One only had to look at the history of Linden and their past, drastic changes to come to the conclusion that NOTHING is set in stone in SL. That is why I never bought telehub land. The astronomical costs were silly.

Finally. Time to level the playing field a bit.

When I bought my second plot of land in SL, located in Isabel, it was a nice, isolated peninsula consisting of priarmially residentail builds. This isolation from the hustle and bustle of commercial builds and fly-by griefers wa a perk to me and I wa happy to buy land in this sim. However, within a month, LL placed a telehub in my sim and suddinly my land was surrounded by shops with constant phantom light prims and other lag traps. Isabel was no longer a residential sim, but a commercial sim with my house in the middle.

One could say taht since LL didn't have a telehub in the sim when they released land for public purchase, that when they added the telehub, they changed the chareterisitics of the sim and thus raised (or in my case lowered) the land value of the sim.

LL has never stated that telehub land is inherently worth more than other land, at least not in any post I have seen. Rather, it has been the residents and the free market that has risen the cost of the telehub land to the highs of a few months ago, and with new conditions being introduced to the market, will inevitibly bring the price down some. That is the risk of purchasing land, as you always have to assume that you cannot count on your neighbor, whether they are LL or a private owner, to maintain the status quo. As such, you need to make your investments with that in mind, or at least that is how I have always approached the market.

In short: What is here today may not be here tommorow, or vice versa. Plan and invest accordingly.

--BL

I hate telehub malls. I hate 'em. I hate having to fly up and over them, and often not going high enough and getting caught in some slowly rezzing architectural horror. The metaverse is very unstable and shifts are common. Place to Place Teleporting is going to be one of those shifts. I'm stunned that LL is looking at ways to somehow compensate the owners of telehub land for their "loss". If LL puts a new sim in and blocks my land's beautiful sea view, will I be compensated too? How far out will this compensation reach? I have land that was advertised "close to telehub" when I bought it. I paid a little more for that. Will it be compensated too?

P2P will be a boon for well advertised businesses. It will harm the ones that depended on proximity to travel routes. The sooner I don't have to fly through some hideous shopping monstrosity to get anywhere on the mainland, the happier I'll be.

Quit beating the horse - it was dead after your *third* thread on that topic.

lol! I got this vision of a large Cthulhu-esque build rising from the deep...

hmm. Bait and switch? Or just giving us back a feature we've been asking for the return of since it was removed? I don't remember the bait anyway. Or was the bait just that you could see a way of making money off people by forcing them to buy/rent from you at artificially inflated prices due to a deficiency of SL's transport system?

For every one person unhappy with this move, you can be sure there are plenty more that are very happy indeed. I don't personally know anyone outside of the obvious people who have much to gain by keeping their land artificially inflated in value who DOESN'T want P2P.

If you've blindly invested in your ASSUMPTION that telehubs would remain valuable for ever... too bad. Maybe you should have listened to what the residents have been asking for for over a year and had the foresight to see that LL might just actually listen to us at some point.

I've never bought a telehub sim on auction, and I've only rarely owned any telehub land at all. I think Cyberland has probably owned about 10km in it's history (none at the moment), and I've probably owned about 3/4 sim in my personal history (1/4 sim at the moment, which I purchased at a deep discount to what you term "artificially inflated prices". In your attack I also see that you've confused me with not only someone who rents telehub land to others, but also someone who forces others to do something against their will. I don't rent telehub land, and I don't force anyone to do anything either.

This isn't really about me, it's simply a question of ethics. Perhaps you could use some yourself, after using false assumptions to attack my character. If you wish to respond to me in the future, I would appreciate it if you would ask questions about things that you don't know to be fact, or at least have the decency to substitute the word "people" for the word "you". Thank you in advance for adjusting your attitude.

Well, actually, I wasn't referring to YOU at all. I was referring to people LIKE YOU. As it happens I didn't read either of your posts at all because I have a tendency to skip people's posts when I've found they never say anything worth reading. I mentioned bait and switch because I read Anshe's post.

So (a) it's not about you. (b) Ethics is not something I associate with Land Barons (c) as paranoid as you may be, I was not attacking you in any way.

Thank you in advance for your continued condescending attitude.

Look ma!!! I'm investing thousands of dollars in a computer game I have no control over! I'M A BUSINESSMAN!

So your personal attacks were directed at people LIKE me? But not at me? I'm not in the group of people LIKE me that you're attacking? I thought I'd also been pretty clear in stating that you've stereotyped me into the wrong group. I will restate. I don't belong to a group of people that rent telehub land to others, nor do I belong to a group of people who force others to do anything against their will.



So your personal attacks were in fact directed at Anshe?



Understood. It's either about people LIKE me, or Anshe, or both.



I am not a land baron, and I find this term a little nasty. Is this personal attack also directed at people LIKE me, or Anshe, or both, but not me?



You continue posting personal attacks, yet you continue to insist that you aren't attacking.



Anytime, it's available on demand.

Can I remind everyone that you're off topic? The topic of this thread is not about whether telehubs are good or bad, nor is it about whether p2p is good or bad. In LL's announcement, they have proposed compensation to telehub land owners for the alteration of it's value.

This thread is actually about whether rezing a picnic table and adjusting dwell payouts for a little while is fair compensation for turning what they sold into something completely different. Personally, I don't think that ship holds water. Whatever your views, however, if we're going to have a constructive discussion, we must all endeavour to remain ON TOPIC rather than going off on tangents.

I'll admit that I'm guilty of this myself for even bothering to reply to this Kris Ritter character, but as I request of all, I will also endeavour to walk the thin line of "on topic".

Tell me where there is a personal attack anywhere in this? You keep saying it over and over again? Show me? Because all I said was that if you invested in something without seeing the future risk given that everyone wanted it changed, then it's your own fault.

Does it feel like a personal attack because it rings true? Or are you just really really thin skinned and think that everyone is out to get you?

I've got no interest in continuing off topic. If you insist, I will AR them and let a third party decide.



No, and no.

On topic, then.

I don't think anyone should be compensated by LL for anything. Land is land is land. Telehub land HAD a perceived 'additional' value because of traffic, and that was exploited by people. That's no longer the case. So... tough!

Right. So I make a comment about telehub land owners, you take it personally, accuse me several times of personal attacks, but won't show me where or what they are, and now threaten to AR me for said fictional attacks?

Ok, I'm putting you on ignore now. So be advised that if I ever reply in a thread you started/participated in... ITS NOT ABOUT YOU. Though it never was.

I didn't threaten to do anything, I just did it. I'm going to sleep now. I hope that I will wake up to an on-topic thread, although I guess the odds are slim.

On-Topic:
Land has no value. Linden dollars have no value.
SL is entertainment software. Every cent you put into it could very well be put into a slot machine. You do not put more money than you can comfortably lose into a slot machine, and you do not put money into it with the expectation to ever have a ROI.