Telehub Land Values

I won't ignore you, I'm not upset or fragile. Nor do I think you're so fragile that you can't be asked to hold off with the witticism for a sec without going on & on about the audacity of my doing so. You are a dominant personality here and do effect the flow of discussion. That's what I'm talking about, not my individual post.

The county isn't running the mall. If the county was running the mall, and sold the space as a high traffic area, then changed the bus routes, they would be required to compensate the renters. In this case LL sold sims at a higher price with the understanding hub sims are more valuable. They gained financially, then changed the bus route.

Ever heard of eminent domain? Government doesn't have to do anything but pay you what they think is the fair market value. And once again LL didnt set the price higher, the residents did. All LL wanted was 1000 USD per sim. If someone wanted to bid 10,000 USD on a sim, that is the resident's choice and it would be based on what the resident PERCEIVED the value to be. LL taking a higher dollar value from that resident is not an agreement of the higher value.

If you sell a car to someone on the street, and you secretly know you would take $ 500 for it, but you ask them to give you an offer and they offer $ 1,000, what would you do? And I doubt the buyer will be able to take you to court claiming that you UNDERSTOOD that the car was more valuable because the buyer paid more.

No. But I'm not gonna hold off, either. My points are still my points whether you like how I make them or not. As to being a dominant personality, well, if you say so. A big mouth and a large post count doesn't make a dominant personality. It just means I'm often bored. And actually, you'll note that much of what I say is largely discounted or outright ignored, even when I am being serious, due to the usual nature of my posts (because I'm on ignore/just the resident troll).

It is my understanding that that LL didn't price the telehub land, they auctioned it. The land owners that bid on these parcels created the market value of the land. Real Estate is a risk. Deal with your loss and move on.

(1) Its a free market.

(2) Change happens.

(3) To my best knowledge, LL never marketed or implied that telehubs are “high traffic land/high value” land. (See #1)

(4) P2P teleporting has been discussed for some time now. The handwriting was on the wall. (See #2)

(5) Compensating telehub owners establishes a very **BAD** precedent.

(6) Get over it. Move on.

Respectfully,

TM

First of all, I have no loss. So please don't take my points as a way to protect my investment. I was one who lost faith in LL's business morals when they took over the currency deal. I know better than to invest real money into a game. For a while I did think SL was more than a game, but not now. I would never allow myself to live day to day wondering if my livelyhood would be turned on it's head by a decision made by LL. So don't worry about me, I have a day job..

As for the selling price.... LL has not notified those who are buying sims, based on the fact they are historically more valuable, to let them know this change was in the works. The fact the sims were sold at acution makes no difference. LL knows very well what a hub sim would bring, based on the history of selling them. By continuing to sell, without warning of the pending change (making all sims equal in value) LL is in a situation where they accepted money for a product that was preceived by all to be more valuable than it was, and LL had insider information.

The only thing that changed the value was the actions of LL after the sale. LL knew very well the prices would drop dramatically in those sims, and are required to notify the buyers the change is under consideration. And that the buyer should bid with the understanding hubs might go away soon.

If I were LL's lawyer I would suggest they offer to buy back all sims from people who want out because of the change. I would also suggest LL offer any small land owners a refund. The land can be resold and LL will probably not loose much if anything.

This is SL. Linden is not obligated in any way to be fair, and precedent is an illusion.

Linden can claim precident when its convienient, and then ignore it for the same reason.

By the same token, one could claim that the creation of Telehubs in the first place set a precident. As you can see, that 'precident' doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot when change is in the air.

Required by whom?




If you insert Federal Government in place of LL, you describe what many of us experience in our RL jobs. These things are expected when you deal with institutions that occupy the relative space in our environs that LL does in SL and the US Government does in RL.

Precedent that LL will change the world drastically and land values will change as a result.

As if dumping 48 sims (as of the time of this post) on the auction block wouldn't change land values

I don't see that LL are under any obligation whatsoever to change the perceptions of what you *think* you're buying into when they've never advertised it as such. When did you ever see someone auctioning something tell the bidders 'shit, dudes, it isn't worth that much!'? They'll take what you bid and your assumptions about the product are yours to be disappointed with!

And all of this and much of what is being discussed here assumes that they even knew - from what I've seen of the way LL works, the decision to actually go ahead and DO something about this probably came in a meeting this week. I seriously doubt they've had it on the cards for months as more than a 'people seem to want this' footnote without telling us.

And as far as I can see they really haven't said much at all about what they actually do intend. Which means that, once again, people are getting all worked up over their own assumptions as to what to expect.

This is kind of like selling products in SL. You get people say "but it doesnt do xyz!!!" and you're like "no. and it was never advertised as such, and nowhere in the documentation or features does it ever claim it could." .... "but I thought....".

Now do I give you a refund for that? Is it my fault you made up some imaginary functionality of my product? Is it LL's fault you dreamed up some imaginary life long benefit to the sim you chose? Because I really never saw anything in the fine print that said "and your telehub is guaranteed for ever and ever. The End".

You're right, LL can sell hundreds of sims, take people's real money for it while the whole time planning to shut down SL after cashing in, right? They have no laws to be concerned with. No worries.. relax... right? lol

Not at all relavent to what you said before, which was a discussion about a business decision regarding an ongoing concern that they have sole autonomy over. This is the description of a business plundering clients prior to skipping town. I hear they can get cheap rates in the Carribean, btw.

In the hypothetical case that LL sold the last few sims with full knowledge that they were implementing P2P, there exists is a separate discussion as to the blanket issue of whether all hub land owners deserve compensation as a result of a new policy change.

I'm torn on this issue - I'm sure it could have been handled better, but how?

If LL pays people for telehub sims, the compensation money will ultimately come from all of us, with the possible exception of the free account folks.


I suppose they *really* took the suggestion to phantom the telehub roofs to heart...

I skipped the last two pages of .....discussion.....

I don't think LL intended to bait and switch anything. I don't think it was a hidden agenda of thiers to watch people buy up telehub land at inflated prices and change to P2P. Things happen, things change. People wanted P2P, people hate telehubs. LL listened for once. They don't need to compensate those land owners. That's the risk you take in the land market, in RL or SL. It's not really stable and anything can happen. Imagine owning a prime piece of land and then having a land fill opened just down the road from you. WOuld you bitch and moan and demand compensation from the city/county/state for their decision to make the landfill there? You probably wouldn't get much if anything at all.

The fact LL sold any hub sims at higher price than non-hub sims is evidence LL understood hub land is expected to be more valuable. Now, when LL makes a change to a product they sold that reduces that value below what was paid, they are taking away part of what they sold. By taking away the hubs, they are taking away something people paid real cash to buy. People bought the hubs with the understanding those hubs will bring traffic. LL decides to take back a major part of the value of the land by killing the hub.

Will the judge believe the seller has taken advantage of his position to change the value after the sale? or will the judge say LL has no responsiblity to current land owners..... and business people within SL have no legal remedy when dealing with LL from a business perspective?

That's the $64,000 question...

If I were LL I wouldn't gamble on the outcome.

Your post begs the questions... why did you buy hub land if you didn't want the traffic. And secondly, why did you pay more if you want to be away from the traffic?

I don't really think LL is gambling on anything.

The hub wasn't sold with the land, so it should not follow logically that it is a permanent feature. I don't think we can resolve between us the idea that auction prices are somehow set by LL and that you seem to think they implicitly agree to hold said "value" if they accept what the market perceives as that "value". Nobody can even come to an agreement that any of it has value at all. There are absolutely NO guarantees.

Your questions are full of assumptions, Kevn. First, you assume that I bought hub land and wasn't interested in the traffic, yet nowhere in my post did I mention that. I bought the land to be close to a hub, which brings traffic, but not as much as one might think. Your second question I can't even begin to answer because it does not apply to me - I don't know where you got those thoughts, but it surely wasn't from me.

You said you bought hub land at a higher price, then you say you're glad the hub will be gone so your neighbors will go away reducing lag, right?

That is why I asked the questions. Maybe the answer would be I wanted the traffic and now don't want it.

But logically speaking it would seem a better idea to sell the hub land for the higher price and seek out a low priced empty sim. I don't understand the logic that says 'I'm glad I'm throwing away tons of money, so I can have peace and quiet, even though I could have both my money and peace if I wanted.'

I have over 60,000 meters in hub sims. As an investor in land near hubs, I appreciate LL's gesture of compensation. The actual amount of compensation is likely to be far less than the current (yesterday's) value of the land. Regardless, I believe that LL is at least symbolically trying to do the right thing here.

As an investor in a constantly changing world such as ours, one would be a fool not to research the environment that one has chosen to invest in. The implementation of p2p has been mentioned by LL on numerous occassions and has gained popularity on these forums for well over a year. The feature proposal has been at the top of the list for quite some time. Anyone who has invested seriously in hub land and has not at least considered that the system could change drastically at any given time, needs to reconsider their position as an investor here, or at the very least reevaluate their speculative skills.

I was a staunch supporter of leaving the hubs in place for quite some time. Recently, with the rapid expansion of the world, the massive amount of security scripts, and the overall crapification of land near hubs, my opinion changed. Would it be fair to the residents of SL to hold back a valuable feature so that a few can retain some perception of land value? No way.

Some people would like LL to refund money paid for hub land. I am curious how that would be implemented. Do we refund the initial purchasor? Do we refund the current owner, regardless of what/when they paid? What about the land owner's benefits they enjoyed while they owned the hub land? I do not see this as a viable compensation plan.

The one constant in SL is change. People that are succesful here, truley succesful, embrace the change. The one pony show does not have longevity in SL. For myself, this is all very exciting, I can't wait to see how this all pans out. What kind of compensation will there be? What will these "gathering areas" be? What am I going to do with my hub land? I have no clue as to what the answers will be, but I can't wait to find out.

I never said that I paid a "higher price" for the land - I paid market rate.

There's a difference between traffic and lag, Kevn. You should know that by now. Having large, heavily textured, highly scripted malls surrounding the hub does induce lag. That's what I'm saying I'll be happy to see go. It's an unexpected upside to this event.

I also never said I was "throwing away tons of money". I paid market rate for the land a while back and it has paid for itsself and then some - I don't see this as a money-losing investment. The value of my land may or may not dip below what I paid for it, but even if it dips below, I still made plenty with dwell, etc.

Next time you want me to answer a question to your satisfaction, try a question on my actual comments, not yours.

But didn't the fact that telehub land went for more mean that other land went for less, with no net benefit to LL at all? I know it feels so lovely to trash authority at every opportunity. But can't we wait for a genuine opportunity ? There are enough of those, surely ?