Telehub Land Values

Wtf? The reason I made the quip is because my original post which was apparently a 'personal attack' said pretty much the same as you just said above. Perhaps in a more "if you didn't recognise the risk" way than "did you recognise the risk" but the point was the same.

FYI, to people who think I have a "sucks to be you" attitude about it, I actually own telehub land! Just I chose to put a Koi pond on it because it didn't matter to me what the land was "worth" or it's location. So by opposing compensation to telehub owners, I'm opposing them giving compensation to me. After all, they can hardly compensate only the business oriented telehub land owners if they do, can they?

Hey, I wasnt attacking you -- I was just pointing out what most people were thinking when LL made their intentions known. This has been coming for a while, and if you didnt pickup that telehubs could be on their way out; you deserve what's coming to you for blatently ignoring the evidence. (Which is pretty much what you said to begin with.)

This is capitalism. Thats the way the game rolls. Kudos to those on the right side of the fence.

Better luck next time to those on the wrong.

Drawing out my ideas to a Feature Suggestion thread:

/13/92/73303/1.html

Well, I am one who 'invested' in Telehub Land - about 16km of it. Yes, I've known that the writing has been on the wall for some time.

Why didn't I move & sell? Heh. I bought more. Mostly because, I like where I'm at, and while it would have been nice to see my land appreciate in value someday, its not the reason I own it.

The primary reason I wanted to be close to a telehub was that it made it much, much easier for new residents to get to me. P2P wont change that, in fact - it'll make it better. So from the Shelter's standpoint, its all good.

Still, I've got too much of a personal investment in Telehub land not to think about this in an unbiased way, and feel a little shafted. Some of the comments some folks have been making about the folly of telehub landowners, the injustice of potential compensation - are downright cold. But may also be quite true

I don't know whether I deserve some kind of compensation. In the position I'm in, its hard to remain unbiased. I just know how I feel. I've never lived a Second Life without telehubs, and I'm by far no newbie. I came to Second Life thinking that Virtual Land was an exciting investment possibility. I know now its not - it really isn't. Thankfully, that's not why I'm here

LL sold sims for quite some time, so they can't claim ignorance when it comes to the issue of selling price difference. LL took the extra money for sims with hubs. They knew people are paying a premium for that land. From the minute they began discussing a change, they should have sent a disclaimer to each bidder of hub land that informed them of the consideration to change the value of the sim by killing hubs. That would have protected them legally to some degree. As it stands now, LL accepted the money under false pretense. If LL had sold all sims for the same price and let the land barons change the price, they would have no worries.

I hope LL has good legal advice in this matter, because anything that hurts LL hurts SL, and that hurts us all.

If I were LL I would contact those who bought hub land under the pretense of it being more valuable, and offer to buy it back at the price paid.

Just one lawsuit could harm LL in a major way, reducing time and money for development. Regardless of the outcome it could be very serious.

I see this issue as a major problem for LL. I don't see how they are going to explain to a judge they took a lot more money for hub sims but didn't suggest the sims were more valuable.

Presentation is important. It determines the course of the discussion. Your adding on to my post adds an unintended attitude to it which snuffs out the dialog I requested.

Do you go to a funeral and tell the mourners that the dude was old & sick and they should have seen it coming? Why question what the doctors did or didn't do properly, he was gonna die sooner or later anyway? Geez people, look at the bright side, at least you don't have to change his diapers and bathe him anymore. Of course you wouldn't. Because you know that even though you'd be in the right, you'd still be an ass for presenting your opinion that way.

How the hell does anyone quoting you change what YOU said?! We can never add to your post. We can never change the attitude of your post. We can merely comment on it. That's how forums work.

I fail to see anyone convincing a judge that they are owed something as a result of LL's controlling their own world in a manner they see fit.

There are other sides to the issue as well. In spite of the things I mentioned, LL also came out with the statement that they preferred such service to be user provided. This was when ROAM came out. I purchased a year subscription based on that. Should LL reimburse me?

I would like to see both sides of this presented rationally. When one makes a decision, you evaluate many factors. I'm sure investers in land did that and I would like to know what factors caused them to make the decisions that they did.

To present them as having ignored the obvious signs is monday morning quarterbacking. Making light of their decisions regarding their investments in SL is counterproductive. Asking the reasoning and basis for decisions made is not the same as asking, "what were you thinking?".

Imo, LL could have gone either way. To have guessed wrong does not warrant derision. I am of a mind to consider the effect situations like this have on the willingness of individuals with the means to invest in SL to continue to do so even though the situation has no immediate negative impact on my own situation.

You're just pissed you're gonna take a bath on your land.

Boo Hoo.

Capitalism.

Insertion of a joke or quip changes the tone of a dialog, if not out and out end it. That's how discussions work.

But these investors are claiming they did not GUESS at all, but were somehow guaranteed of infinitely stable, higher-than-average land prices. I am still waiting for a rational, evidence based argument as to how this conclusion was reached. The fact that "LL sold it at higher prices", "I bought this land with the assumption that...", etc. are not enough evidence to convince me that there was a hard and fast guarantee of value here.

If that's true, SL can and will never be what it's advertised to be, a platform for business investment. If SL is sold as a platform on which to do business, that platform must offer some form of stability and security to those who are willing to invest.

However, even with the TOS written heavily in favor of LL to protect them, LL is responsible for misrepresenting what they sell. There is no need for LL to say hub land is more valuable for them to represent it so. By accepting much more for hub land they acknowledge the land is understood to be more valuable.

So if the land owners are compensated then all of the people who have rented from the land owners should be compensted by the land owners. Right?

Yes, the renters should be able to end their leases as soon as the change takes plce, with a full refund for the remaining time on the lease.

Anything that cannot be taken with a grain of salt and with a sense of humor, IMHO, ain't worth the takin'.

What about the poor tourists? do they get a refund?

I disagree. If I go on eBay and list an old defective hard drive for .99 and that it has no warranty on it, and someone bids it up to 100.00, I am not guilty of misrepresentation when I take that user's 100.00 payment.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. LL offers several sims all at the same time. All the sims are listed in a standard list and there is no distinction made as to which ones are telehub and which ones aren't. What's to stop someone bidding heavily on a sim just because they like the name? LL offers a product and starts the bidding. That means that LL will accept whatever that minimum price is. The price is the same on all sims, regardless of telehub status. Therefore, LL does not distinguish a difference in value. If only one person bid the minimum on a telehub sim, LL would accept that 1,000 USD just as much as twenty people fighting over it and paying them 3,500 USD. To LL, it is just a sim.

This IS the nature of land values. They acknowledge the current value, but this does not define future value. Did you expect LL to say, "You know, we may change our way of doing things and even though the perception is that this land is very valuable, we are going to offer it at a price below what the current market will bear."

Not a question of any real merit, but I'll ask anyway. If LL did something to increase your land value, would you pony up extra $s to them?

SL never can be that business platform as it currently sits. That is patently obvious.

I am interested as well and would like to know the thought process. I was surprised by this move. Not against it, but surprised. Initially, the Atoll continent had no telehubs. LL was fostering a different type of user provided transportation. Then they changed direction, seemingly after an outcry from a significant number of land owners up there. Soon followed the statement regarding a preference for user provided P2P systems.

Not in a forum it generally doesn't. Sure, in fast conversational flow the direction might be dictated by 'the last thing said', but here you have your own named little published post attributed directly to you. Nothing I can say, including 'you're talking out of your ass', can invalidate, negate or change what you said. The OP or anyone else is still entirely free to answer you or engage on that topic. And I and anyone else is entirely free to chime in where we like whether you like it or not.

So what are you really saying? That you'd prefer that you were never quoted or that you'd prefer no one post at all until your own post is addressed?

In my own way, I was actually agreeing with your post as I already explained. Not that I have to in any way justify myself to you or 'grow up'. But for your sake, next time I see your name I'll remember to skip right over it just in case I feel compelled to agree with, comment on or otherwise acknowledge your post, knowing what a strop you'll get into if I do. I shall acknowledge that the sheer power of my posts can entirely invalidate yours, and I shall wield that power responsibly now I know it offends you.

Though ya know, if you put me on ignore like so many others have sensibly done, you won't have to feel that my posting could possibly change yours one tiny bit because you'll be blissfully ignorant that I said anything at all!

If you rent space in an RL mall, and the mall gets a huge tax abatement, they are certainly not going to refund part of your lease to you. You paid for the lease based on what YOU felt was a fair price for the property, otherwise you would not have signed the lease. The fact that the local government chose to cancel all the bus stops in the neigborhood is not going to get you out of your lease (unless you somehow guessed that ahead of time and drafted in an exclusion). The fact that they then decide to give the mall that huge tax abatement to make up for pulling all the bus stops out, still doesn't change the lease. The mall is required to honor the terms of the agreement, and so are you.

Timing is everything. There's room for humor and analysis. Joking about people looking at losing a significant amount of cash can be considered bad timing. A bit of work in the social skills arena might be beneficial.

Lacking a sense of timing does not mean that I am lacking a sense of humor. It's about sense and about utilizing the common variety.

If you list a hard drive on Ebay that would normally be worth $100 on ebay, and started the bidding at $0.99, the buyer will expect it to work and still be worth $100 like all the other hard drives with the same space and speed. If the buyer paid $100 and it was not working, or it turned out to be less in space and speed than what was expected by the buyer, the seller will have to refund the money.