Should Free Accounts Go

Please keep your comments to being constructive and not a flame .... but I would like to know

With LL bottom line affected by the new european tax laws, should LL tighten its belt on the free accounts that use SL. It may come that with the advent of a premium tax it is viewed that this is an unfair tax based on that non payers recieve almost the same bennefits and services as those that not only pay but also recieve little or no more tangable service. After all ....... having access to land and stipend does not quantify the additional cost of membership...tier AND taxation.

This is a little bit of a legal situation that could mean that as a free account holder Linden Lab may no longer allow access to users that can not or will not pay for membership.

any thoughts on this??

I don't think they will do away with free membership at a time when members are going to be leaving in droves.

The free membership folks are keeping the economy going too with their purchase and rent payments. In the coming month, the SL economy will need all the help it can get.

At the very least, they should be stopped from this point on. Inactive accounts should be purged, and figure out a way to get all current free accounts to pony up somehow. Even if it is a mimimal charge, that can be paid inworld with Lindens.

I dont know. I think the free accounts are the gateway to possible premium upgrades later. Why would someone pay upfront for a premium account if they aren't already familiar with SL?

Even if you went to a model where you get a free trial which expires--that would cut the population considerably. People with free accounts also pay rent on islands and buy goods in stores.

I think the opposite should be true however, free premium accounts for *everyone* with everybody having the right to own land if they wish.

I know it's not a popular view but YES. First, because I believe without hesitation that it will greatly reduce the amount of griefing. I've heard the arguments that it will not and I disagree. I don't believe it will eliminate them. Nothing ever will. But it will greatly reduce them.

Second, it will make the numbers more accurate. Todays population numbers are absolutely meaningless. Currently I could have 5 emails with 5 alts attached to each. I can't imagine why anyone would do so but I would venture to guess that someone out there does, or is pretty damn close.

If they did go to a premium membership only system then I believe that a certain number of free alts should be allowed but would need to be linked to the base account. That way they could still be tracked in the case of griefing. This way those that need alts for building or testing, etc. wouldn't be penalized.

As much as I'd love to see this system in place, it will affect population numbers. I don't think LL will do this until they have a healthy enough population that the drop would keep them at a respectable level.

I really don't understand why anyone would have an issue with paying. I figure SL costs me the same as a movie which only provides me 2 hours of entertainment. God knows I spend a helluva lot more time than that on here each month and I have a lot more fun.

The argument has long been that EU users have such difficulty with payment systems that most of them are free accounts anyway. I don't have any data to back this up, and it's never been provided (and I've tired of asking). Getting rid of free accounts will actually end up drastically cutting the EU presence in total. If you look at the numbers, the growth in premiums had lagged far, far behind the growth in the population, and the population growth was most drastic in Europe (and now Brazil and Japan). I'd say that there is much truth in most of the free accounts coming from Europe & other countries.

If most Europeans aren't paying tier to LL anyway, the overall effect on SL's bottom line is questionable, and tacking on VAT is, by and large, a non-issue to them. If you aren't paying in the most meaningful way to LL (membership & land tier), then the comparatively few of you who do are just the cost of doing business. Sorry to say it, but that is probably true.

It's not happening. Tired of explaining why. There are many other threads that addressed this ...

There are plenty of people who would *never* try out SL if they had to pay. LL is hardly in a position at this point to exclude free accounts. There are too many people who depend on the money those "free" accounts put into their business--it would truly be the death blow to SL.

I was free for months before upgraded and bought land. If I had been *forced* to go premium I would have left immediately.

There are plenty of people who would *never* try out SL if they had to pay. LL is hardly in a position at this point to exclude free accounts. There are too many people who depend on the money those "free" accounts put into their business--it would truly be the death blow to SL.

I was free for months before upgraded and bought land. If I had been *forced* to go premium I would have left immediately.

I'll repeat, if SL wants to go somewhere, *all* accounts--land owners or not--should be free. I pay enough in tier, why I pay an additional charge is beyond me.

Well, as someone who is contemplating cancelling premium membership and renting land rather than owning it and paying tier, I'd obviously say that stopping free accounts is a bad idea.
On the other hand, if enough people cancel premium accounts, LL's ability to keep this whole thing running - if you can call it that right now - could pretty much evaporate. They seem barely able to keep it running right now.

I could be forced move into a pair of Brenda's panties.

Which again raises the question: why can one person - Nicholaz - apparently fix more bugs. leaks, etc. than the whole LL team?

SL is in part a multi tiered economy:

1. Consumers (free accounts included) buy goods/rent land from producers.
2. These producers provide LL with tier payments, land purchases etc.

Just looking at the people who directly pay LL is ignoring the fact those people often pay LL with the earnings they make from their customers, including all the free accounts.

Remove the free accounts = remove the customers = remove the SL businesses = destroy LL.

I'd like it if they followed WoW's format of a free trial period with payment info required...might need to be longer than 2 weeks, though, given the learning curve. While I'm at it, it'd also be great if we had one account tying all of our alts together...on WoW, you can have up to 50 characters, 10 per server, but they all fall into a single login account.

Do I think either of those are going to happen any time soon? Nope, not at all.

I'm on a free account yet I am certainly doing my fair share of keeping the SL economy going including but not limited too paying my monthly 8500L tier !

I Vote for keeping free accounts

There have been so many death blows to LL. I don't believe this would be any more so, though it definitely would have a greater impact than other changes.

I would never propose that LL should announce "Tomorrow everyone is required to go premium", that would be the kiss of death. I had no intention of staying here. I was checking SL out because I was curious so like you I wouldn't be here today if premium was required. However, they could always offer a free introductory period. How they could carefully handle those that currently have free accounts, I don't have the answer. A grace period and then reduced rates would be a good start.

A few reasons ... first let me say that I am a real Nicholaz fan, but I think he'd agree with the below:

> The open source crowd works ONLY on the viewer code. LL must also do the much more complex sim server code, as well as the shared servers (database, presence, lalala), each of which is probably a completely unique system.

> LL also is a service provider, so has the operational burden of the grid and its various support pieces (website, billing, etc). Clearly the operational aspect of LL is strained to the breaking point at all times ... why THAT is is a whole 'nother discussion!

> Nick incorporates fixes from other open source contributors, tho the bulk of what he ships is his own.

All that said, I think the answer to your question has to be: Focus.

As a mac user, I hate any posts about the magical Nicholaz viewer.

I'd be flippin ecstatic if they could fix the stupid 503 error. And my opinion: yes. I agree with Brenda, Ann and Bradley. Maybe then they could hire a decent staff.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

I don't think we should even go there if we can't back it up. Just because a few snot nosed Europeans came to the forums and used their location as an excuse for not buying anything doesn't mean a thing IMO.

Credit cards are as accessible here as in the US, and I very much doubt the percentage of Europeans not paying tier is much different to the percentage of Americans not paying tier.

I like that too. That's pretty much how things were when I arrived here I think. By that point SL had attracted around 200,000 users.

He has Mac (and Linux) viewers now.

It's not just forumites.

Regardless, there are some numbers to show that the pace of the population growth exploded, and it wasn't in the US. And since the lion's share of the accounts are free, it is reasonably concluded that the vast majority of those in the explosion are not Americans.

That assumes "free account" = "non-premium account" though. Some people are using a "true" alt and paid $10 for their account, or they're old enough to have joined at the time when LL required everyone to pay (or a charter member). Those accounts weren't free, they just don't have additional monthly charges.

Usually when people refer to "free accounts" they mean the truly free accounts which are the "no payment info on file" ones. Removing those doesn't really remove customers because they on average (or as a whole) simply don't possess any meaningful in-world wealth.

You're not my alt are you?..... I was thinking this exact same thing. I do think there should be a trial period before LL starts charging, and I think 30 days is plenty of time for someone to decide if they want to pay or not.....60 days at the outside. I had my mind made up by that time and I will admit....when I was a basic member I felt a vague sense of guilt whenever I would b***h about LL and the grid. So, I decided to give myself a real reason to complain and became premium and bought land. Now I have 2 premium accounts and pay $25/mo in tier (prim addicted fool that I am), as well as buying lindens on a monthly basis just because I love to shop. Yes, basic memberships do contribute to the economy and can "own" land on a private estate or island and contribute to the owner's tier, but I still believe that if we all pay LL, then we have a stronger voice. You would think they would then get really tired of ALL those people being able to access live chat for help and support. Might force their hand into actually doing something to fix things.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still amazed by what LL do on the whole. If you think that every time we tp every single item in our inventories is moved from one server to the next (I think). And some of you guys have inventories of 50,000-100,000 items or more.

But the viewer code is surely pretty important, as it affects how each and every one of us experiences all that amazing behind the scenes work.