Telehub Land Values

ZOMGZ! PERSONAL ATTACK!

/reported

So more on topic, are you trying to say that LL's proposed compensation plan is too much, or just enough? And why?

Like Kris, I don't think you should expect any compensation. LL did not create the inflated telehub prices, the market did. LL has certainly been very accomodating in the past, but if you think you deserve any compensation then what about the people who were raped from behind with L$20/sq. m. snow land prices?

Sound principles for every resident who wants to sleep good and not worry much about anything in his or her game.
Even though not exactly what Linden Lab is selling us - sometimes verbatim, sometimes between the lines ...

I guess I didn't do a very good job of going to sleep. At any rate, I wasn't here when snow land was rolling out, so I'm not sure of the specifics of that market. Were snow sims created and sold by LL as high traffic transit hubs and then altered?

My thoughts exactly. Thank you for summing them up in a sentance. When taken individually, their actions over the past several months have been only marginally hard to swallow. When evaluating those actions as a pattern, however, I'm just reaching a point where I'm finding it hard to continue buying what they're selling.

The proposed change concerning telehubs makes me immediately think of the recent firestorm over military base closings in the U.S.

For the benefit of our non-U.S. friends, the United States recently went through a process of selecting military bases for closure, in order to save tax money. For those who've ever seen an Air Force, Navy or Army base, the bigger ones have a huge impact on the local economy.

The U.S. Navy Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut was one proposed to be closed, and its operations moved to Virginia. Tens of thousands of people have jobs either directly or indirectly supported by the Sub Base and the private Electric Boat complex on the other side of the Thames River, and land values are impacted by all that "traffic" generated locally.

The decision was challenged on economics ("You didn't consider all the facts" and politics ("The administration is punishing 'blue' states and favoring 'red' states) and ethics ("We bought property and built our lives around having the sub base here".

In the end, the Sub Base was 'saved' (this time). Some other base was killed to make up the needed savings.

But ultimately, the Sovereign has powers above those of mortal men, and when the elephants dance, the mice stay in the corners. ("Please, milord, I'm poor and have a family to feed ... don't take me ... take ... take HER!"

On claims of fraud: If LL actually told people that "Telehub land will be worth more than other land, so bid more for it," you might have a "bait and switch" argument. Remember that "fraud" requires a *knowing false representation*. If there was no LL *representation* as to value, and no LL *representation* that "telehubs are eternal and will never move, Amen," I fail to see where "fraud" is a legitimate complaint.

Your speculation does not equal my representation. Something more is needed to establish the basic elements of fraud.

The world is full of changing circumstances, and SL is like that. Adapt. Move on. Diversify, so that if the local situation changes, you have interests elsewhere that may benefit from that change.

Frank

Snow sims were heavily hyped by LL as the new and cool place to be. Their initial scarcity and marketing hype lead the land barons to mark them up to insane prices that drove the L$ up to record values. LL responded by flooding the market with so many new snow sims that it quickly became the lowest valued land on the grid. People bought land for L$20/sqm and later had to sell it for L$1/sqm

The military base did not sell the land as a high traffic transit hub with intentions of switching it into something different. This is apples and oranges. Both situations are lousy, but they're definately two different situations. I don't think that the comparison is valid.



At what point was just THE most recent telehub sim auctioned, and at what point did they know that they were going to switch them from a high traffic transit hub into something different? I'll bet you L$1 that the two situations overlap considerably, by a lot more than one sim. LL is fully aware that these sims are valued higher on their USD auction (and by later residents in expectation of higher resale values than surrounding land) simply due to the fact that they are high traffic transit hubs. I'd also be willing to bet you L$1 that after they decided to switch these high traffic transit hubs into something different, they didn't bother to inform subsequent bidders.

In my opinion, this is, at the very least, gross negligence. Speculation? Fine. Can anyone who has bid on a recent telehub sim auction confirm that LL informed them that they were switching these high traffic transit hubs into something different and allowed them a chance to retract their bid? If so, then we're out of the realm of gross negligence and simply into the realm of secret elitism. Can LL honestly say with a straight face that this decision was arrived at after the most recent telehub sim auction? If so, maybe that story can be sold to some others on this thread, but I'm not buying it.

But LL was just telling people that they were cool, and not delivering avatars into high traffic transit hubs (which were later switched into something else) within those sims. I've seen the snow sims though, and I can't argue with the stance that they are cool. Devoid of value, yet still somehow cool.

How do you know? Do you have special insider information? I would say it's very likely that the idea has been considered for some time, and that as soon as a decision was actually made, an announcement appeared.

I find it very unedifying when people make accusations of fraud without evidence to back it up.

Oh I'm open to being wrong. I've stated such.

Well, just to summarize alittle. LL made the hubs, the dwell, the developer bonus. In return those three things created the high value hub land. It is how the system was designed. And when removing one of theese the current economy will crash before it ajusts so i se no reason why hub land owners should not be compensated.

LL could offer to pay the current owner the amount paid for the land when he/she purchased it. Just like the government does when they buy a house to create a new highway Simple and effective. Even if it doesnt compensate for loss of income atleast you get back what you paid.

Where does LL promote telehubs as high traffic or whatevar?
IIRC the person who started promoting telehubs and taking advantage of them was Anshe.

This is the best news I've heard in a month!

Way to go LL!

-Ghoti

I've read most of this thread, tried to filter the drama and rants but I'd like to ask one question...

I thought LL's "customers" did the bidding at auctions. Therefore how can LL be selling land at an "unrealistic price" ? Surely it's the "Land Barons" and those who buy from them who create the prices? If a hub sim comes online does/did LL set the start bidding price at a higher rate ?

For me this is the best news since I've been in SL.

honestly i gotta say while im in favor of some form of temporary 'compensation' i do not think a 'permanent' raise in 'traffic' is really honestly wny way to do things...

the whole purpose of traffic is to reward people for providing entertaining or interesting content, and its already been pretty damn well chipped away, to sort of 'offer' permantly 'fixed' high traffic to some places but not others, totally undermines the purpose of the traffic system at all.

People are supposed to be given a boon for helping LL make SL a great place, not get free rides because they paid 'x' dollars more than someone else (and theres no guarantee they did, plenty of people have paid quite a bit for remote land if its been land they needed, and plenty more people got telehub land dirt cheap)

i would say some kind of bonus would be in order, just don't kick the last semblance of fair out of an already taxed system..

remember, traffic is graded on a 'curve' of sorts, so if someone is given a permanently higher multiplier than you its going to come directly out of yer own pocket, which is hard enough for people jus tryin to make ends meet with their dev inventives as is... ESPECIALLY if they are not that near to a telehub currently...

especially since assumably this is a one time 're-adjustment' of traffic, its pretty much going to just boon some existing mall operators, at the expense of pretty much anyone actually trying to create social spaces in SL...

traffic is already hurt enough by people gaming the system, don reward them further for it... (ooh an island owners, keep in mind this is going to hurt YOU directly, since you aren't gonna be elgible for this bonus, so your share of dwell is going to go proportionately down while the mainland mall owner's goes up)

Apparently the answer to my question is yes they did.

But as someone who owns hub land myself I'm pretty certain the prices are greatly inflated by the time people like me got around to buying them. I can't find any sympathy at all for any of us including myself, we bought land that probably fall in value that's tough and that's all. I bought hub land to put my stores on, my stores at hubs have done fairly well but nowhere near as well as my 2 main stores which are nowhere near hubs. So many of the arguments about the value of hubland simply don't stand up for me. P2P will probably benefit my business as people will now be able to get to my stores quicker So really it's swings and roundabouts.

Until we know how much traffic payments will increase, we don't know the financial impact.

My suggestion though is that they increase the payments starting NOW or at least let us know what that figure is exactly and how long it will be up for so we can do the necessary calculations.

It's bait and switch and pay (some or all of) the difference as far as I can tell. It's also coming out of the L$ which is good, because the economy should pay for this change.


However, this all being said, doesn't anyone find it a bit scary that they are doing a 180 here? Are thse desperate moves for desperate times? Why not slowly migrate to no telehub?

Just like in the Ginko threads, and well restated here ... people are free to invest in whatever they want. Whether it is in Ginko, or telehub land, or whatever else happens along.

Did LL specifically tell you that the electronic bits comprising telehub land were more valuable? NO. People just bid them up higher cause they wanted the telehubs. LL doesn't even make a note on the auction page distinguishing telehub sims from other sims.

If you bought telehub land for an inflated price, or you invested in telehub land hoping for leasing profits, it really doesn't matter. LL doesn't owe you anything. They have the final right to do whatever they want to with THEIR system, including shutting it down tomorrow without any recompense to anyone. Telehub land owners made their investment decision, and it just didn't work out. Welcome to the wonderful world of finance and investments.

LL has a TOS policy that covers this all. Sections 4.3 & 6.4 are below.

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4.3 All Data On Linden's Servers Are Subject to Deletion, Alteration or Transfer. When using the Service, you may accumulate objects, items, measures of virtual wealth or experience, scripts, equipment, or other value or status indicators ("Accumulated Status". THESE DATA, AND ANY OTHER DATA INCLUDING CONTENT (AS DEFINED IN SECTION 6.1 BELOW), ACCOUNT HISTORY AND AVATAR NAMES RESIDING ON LINDEN'S SERVERS, MAY BE DELETED, ALTERED, MOVED OR TRANSFERRED AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON IN LINDEN'S SOLE DISCRETION. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT, NOTWITHSTANDING ANY COPYRIGHT OR OTHER RIGHTS YOU MAY HAVE WITH RESPECT TO ITEMS YOU CREATE USING THE SERVICE, AND NOTWITHSTANDING ANY VALUE ATTRIBUTED TO SUCH CONTENT OR OTHER DATA BY YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY, LINDEN DOES NOT ADMIT, PROVIDE OR GUARANTEE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS (SUBJECT TO ANY UNDERLYING RIGHTS IN THE CONTENT), ANY VALUE, CASH OR OTHERWISE, ATTRIBUTED TO CONTENT OR ACCUMULATED STATUS OR OTHER DATA.
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6.4 Second Life Currency. You acknowledge that the Second Life service presently includes a component of in-world fictional currency ("Currency" or "Linden Dollars" or "L$". You agree that Linden has the absolute right to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate such Currency as it sees fit in its sole discretion, and that Linden will have no liability to you based on its exercise of such right.

P2P has been in the forefront for a very long time. There has been a considerable faction for this as well as one against. At one point, Jeska even introduced the topic in a thread indicating it was up for consideration by LL. When the voting system was introduced it rose to the top as a key issue. Did any of this give you pause, did you reevaluate your land holdings? Perhaps not put all your eggs in one basket as suggested after the GOM situation came to pass? I'm seriously intrested in hearing what the decision process was during this period after it was known that LL was considering this move?

I believe it went something along the lines of "Lalalalalalala! I cant hear you! lalalalalalala!"

ZOMGZ! Personal attack!

/reported

(sorry Margaret. Couldn't resist)

Adam and Kris, growup. I am not of the same "sucks to be you" mindset which you're displaying here at all. While I am for P2P, I am still concerned and interested in those who choose to invest in SL. Just as I was concerned about the conditions led to your withdrawing your content from SL, Kris.