Should Free Accounts Go

*Hugs to Oryx*

I don't think I've ever heard it put better.

Thanks! What's really funny is that as I was rereading it for typos before I posted it, I noticed that I missed the letter "l" in "public parks." *grin*

Ok I know I should just keep my mouth shut here but.... Well... You all know me and I JUST CAN'T! lol

Everytime somebody has a issue with SL they run to the SL forum and post close free accounts or should free accounts be banned and bla bla bla bla as if free accounts are the antichrist and if they just block them then SL will be a perfect little paradise where there is no hunger, death, distruction and bla bla bla...

Reminds me of that Disney song... "Its a small world after all... Its a small world after all" GOOD GOD!

There is really only one point for why EVERYONE should have a free acount.

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Why pay for a dead horse?
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Why should people be expected to pay for something that never works right.

You listed streets and such above and your right but that also means I expect them to fix them because they are getting paid. And if they don't then we throw them out of office... Don't you wish you had that power in SL? This does not happen in SL. SL is one big fat huge black hole of a vacum that sucks in 24/7 on the money scale right now.

Where does all the money that the Lindens make go?
Thats what I would like to know because we all know where its not going.

I have no problem paying for a service when you get service for your money.

Free accounts are not the issue here people.... The Lindens are the issue.
Don't loose focus. They are the gatekeepers.
Yes free accounts does cause more issues of course, but that is not the root cause of all evil within SL and too many people are quick to jump on that band wagon.
Instead of closing free accounts and such here is a thought...
How about just fixing SL and making some laws and get enforced.

You can not let people run wild with no law in a lawless world and expect them all the play nice. Its not going to happen.

Sorry, I don't believe you. And you've certainly not proven to me that you do know what you are talking about. Any company who would throw away 20% of their revenue stream is a company that clearly has no viable "business plan"..........nor do they show that they have any business sense at all.

That 20% that you are so willing to toss out the window is what is known in the real world of business as "bread and butter". That base that can be leaned on for support in your endeavors for any future growth.

As for Linden Lab restructuring their premium membership. I have serious doubts that they know how. Or worse, know it's important to do so. Some aspects of any business are not fun to deal with. Go ask your local grocery store management if you don't believe me. They will tell you that if 20% of their revenue stream was ignored then they are no longer in business.

So, I just can't believe you when you say you know what you are talking about........you don't.

There are also plenty out there who wouldn't try other online games either, but because they offer a 30 day free trial they are hooked. Simple, you have 30 days to get payment verified.
Our population might drop a bit, but many of those with the, "I'm not paying to play attitude" also refuse to pay to buy things anyway, so no great loss to the economy. If they can't commit $5 once to put money inworld, I don't see how they could complain on the state of the game or "we need more Lindens", people who have been here 6 months, aren't content producers or supply services and refuse to put money in would be no great loss. Verified free accounts at least show a commitment to the ongoing of SL.
Then again a Metaverse is no good if general population can't duck in and out without being finacial either I guess.

im not really up on the metrics ... and Im sure they could be made to read in either way ... BUT ... the one thing that IS for sure...

Linden Lab ... ARE in the business to make MONEY. yes agreed, but in order to buy land you need to be a remium member, LAND is the Lindens reveniew stream. If you have flown over the grid lately ... you will see mass empty parcels for sale ...... why are they for sale becasue there sint enough premium members to buy the land and the preimums that HOLD the land are paying so much for it in tier ... they they charge the earth for it ... and nobody else wants to pay that money. I have good friends in world Like "the honourable Mr Figtree" who offer rentals .... or Michael Bigwig whos a free account and I have no interest in offending them or others but in ANY society there is no such thing as FREE .... the cost of free is offsetting those costs elsewhere, servers cost money....... and LL recoup those costs through land sales...... .LL make less on Lindex trasfers than they do on membership signups...

What LL WANTED to do is open up the doors so that people would go ..." i love this game .. im gonna become a member" they just forgot to shut the doors again. There used to be a signup process ...free accounts were never an option. Those that now bennefit BECASUE of the free account system are recieving the same bennefits of those that dont.... i know that these areas have been bounced around the forums for ever.... but I have as much right to my opinion as anybody else. If LL said for example...

As a free signup you are intitled to SL light ..... where you can only access the free grid... things like Land were not availble .... prim counts were low .... inventories were capped....then it would make membership more attractive bring in more possibilities for tier etc.
Instead we have a symbiotic system that only works for the few ..... shops paying free accounts to sit as zombies in thierr store .... bots roaming the grid looking to steel items or games the camping system ... or money tree system. Theres certainly no reason why Landlords can still rent to people who want to be members but dont want to pay the high prices for land.. the business opportunities are STILL there. But those opportunities should be for the few that stump up for the RIGHT to have those oppertunities.

Does a free member feel that having an inventory of 22,000 items is maintained becasue you pay a private amount via paypal to a private person ....... how does LL make money out of that system ,...... it barely does. Business that run clotheing stores are 90% empty bar a few ... and for them its hard work ..... but the percentage who comes to buy from them is just as much members as not ...... the REASON that people DONT become members is becasue theres no need for them to ..... theres no bennefit of doing so ... and I feel THAT is what has to change ...... as I said ..... if we cant get something for our membership then we shouldnt have to HAVE membershoip for anybody. .... that fact that as a UK resident my membership costs more than a US resident ...... makes it an unfaiur asystem to start with. This post isnt about VAT .. its about the load on a flakey network by people who opt out. .... if that load is acceptable by LL then it should be ok for us all. ...... I hear a lot of the ...as a free account i bring money into the game ..... but I wish thier was metrics to say what the ACTUAL value of free Vs Memer was.... and how many of the FREE accounts were actual contributing people Like Michael ... OR juast a bot of Alt Zombie.

As Oryx said earlier .... LL have declared that they are liable for tax as a service providor... and as such they are providing the SAME service to the free accounts .... so you should be taxed on THAT service. Im sorry folks ....but I got back to my Original post ....... Will LL close free membership ... once people start to realise that being a member gives no bennefit ..... or will they open it up in order to level the playing field.

I have no personal feelings one way or another ...... Im not berating free accounts.... certainly not... as I said earlier ... I want to be free and get the same bennefits I do now the ONLY one bennefit i get is the ability to pay LL an OBSCENE amount of "hosting" money.


Allthough as said on a different thread .... as a hosting company ... LL ARE subject to the comment " goods must be fit for purpose ......" you best pull your socks up LL .... you are now under UK law ....the tax man says so.

What ought to be done is a restructuring of the membership options, perhaps dividing into three:

Paid Premium
Paid General
Free Basic

The "Free Basic" people should not be excluded, but they should be restricted from doing some things that Paid General and Paid Premium can do. To me, for example, it would be reasonable that a freebie typist should not be able to own or rent any land anywhere, whether on the mainland or on an island estate. I understand the logic to allowing the current unpaid to own estate land or rent anywhere, but it more or less completely undermines the paid membership category, which is why there are so few people who have paid memberships. The free people should be able to come in and play and spend their Lindens, but not have any land -- if you want land, you need to pay something into the system itself directly so that you have a direct stake in the system (rather than indirectly paying to an island sim owner or a mainland landlord). That seems very fair to me.

As for the rationale for two paid categories, I would think that the General paid would be entitled to by or rent land anywhere, whereas the premium would have certain benefits like enhanced customer service, access to higher Lindex and transaction limits and the like. Sort of what is currently at the "concierge" level, perhaps.

This kind of a system would help parse the costs and benefits better than the current system does, as well as incentivize more people to become paid members.

Personally I dont care one way or the other but please dont try to pump sunshine up my butt how much free accts contribute to LL.

Players maybe, LL no.

Spoken like a true oldbie! Agreed don`t you love how they say how they contribute to the game? Yea right in a neg way for most. Now Toy has been around a long time she has helped many people and is one of the most repected of her class. If she has to say remarks like this, then there is reason.

but free people pay for all that too they just pay it to other members and then it gets to the lindens

it would be like the city you live in saying all people that only rent apartments/homes/condos have to go you can only live and be in this city if you are buying your home

i dont see why people dont understand by us basic accounts buying clothing/skins/hair/homes/furniture and renting apartments/condos/land from other sl players we are still contributing to LL our rental payments and payments for other goods give the producers and owners of these goods the $L to either pay their tier or cash out and pay their tier its just going thru a sl player rather then to ll directly

ive been a premium player and am now a basic it was more cost effective for me to rent the land i wanted then to be premium and try to find mainland that was nice and decent im still helping my landlors pay their tier which is contributing to LL and the same for all the people i buy products from

Yeah I think those are called "Gated Communities" where I live. Last I checked, they generally run more smoothly and are less plagued by crime (aka grief), ugly advertising (ad farms,) and are considered (by some) to be a "premium" lifestyle.

I would be fine with what Brenda said earlier, or what Victorria said just now: Have different levels of membership. Everyone pays, but basic accounts would pay $5/month, whereas premium accounts would pay $10/month (or whatever, I don't even know what the membership fees are anymore. I paid a full year LOL.)

I don't notice WoW membership going down, and that's, what, $15/month? People don't complain about that. It's just a fact of life in WoW; you want to play, you have to pay.

If only ~1332 basic users joined SL at a fee of $5/month, that would pay for one pretty decent programmer's salary (although maybe not in the San Francisco area) for $80,000/year, or 2 tech support people, or 2 billing people, I don't know. Wouldn't that be worth it?

1) I am in the process of setting up some land to rent to others (haha maybe more Europeans will give it a second look now ... not to rub salt in their wounds), and I recently sent up an ALT free account to add to my rental groups and she has become a very valuable asset in making sure the rental boxes are setup correctly (sure they are not hard to do now that I know how to do it) and to ensure that the optional security system also works. Plus without her I would not have known that I have a problem (which I still haven't figured out) with allowing people in my rental groups to modify the media settings.

2) I have a SL friend who is a pretty popular musician in SL and she has been having trouble with her privacy at times. She realizes that when she is in world as this musician that she has certain obligations to her music and her fans. But it also spoils the fun most of us "less than famous" avatars take for granted. So having access to an ALT makes SL life easier on her. She can explore in world the same way the rest of us do when she is her ALT.

So yes ALT free accounts do expose us to griefers and free account people are just like people who don't vote in RL. They should not be whinning and complaining too much since they do not contribute as much as the paying accounts. But there are valid reasons to have a free ALT account.

shakeshead...........they don`t buy money much. if not at all.

I think one of the problems is the confusion between basic accounts and free account. Although a basic account can't own mainland it can still own private islands, and someone with a basic account paying US$295 a month for an island is not a free account. Neither is someone who regularly buys L$ on the exchange.

A better definition of a "free account" is someone who has never put money into SL i.e. someone without "payment info used" in their profile.

Matthew

It could be argued that if an alt is important to you, you should be prepared to pay for it!

Even so, you could easily come up with a subscription model that for $10 per month (say) you could have up to (say) 2 accounts (but additional accounts beyond that incurred additional fees).

Matthew

Good explaination! Thank You!

Except.......... you can get your lindens via the SLExchange, then _not_ have "payment info used" in your profile and still spend like the best of them.


BTW i'm a freebie (no copy / no mod / no transfer) but have spent thousands of lindens on upload charges. If that's not contrtibuting to LL, i'd like to know who's getting my dosh.

Sadly, some will never get it. I have 3 premium accts. I feel it's money well spent. I just feel the "I spend elsewhere so I contribute" is an excuse.

And blaming freebie accounts for the woes in SL is just too easy. I suppose that's why so many do it. What do they take from you exactly?

I'm actually considering downgrading my account to Basic. I seem to have more frustrations with the SL world itself, LL decisions, LL lack of Customer Support, LL lack of communication, etc..... Why should I pay LL money directly for a Premium account for something that seems to be getting worse every day? I think I prefer to just spend money in world, giving it directly to the Designers/Landlords that have something that I want.

Just to be clear BTW, i'm not arguing for or against here.
I've just not seen the need to go premium so far. Have been thinking about it, but with the latest load of nonsense being shipped our way i'm having major doubts again.

Well ok so then everyone should stop paying for full account. Then what? Well we coud be charged for costumer service, taxed on the amount time we play during the course of day. Peak time usage that can result in paying high amounts for prime time and less for off peak. Creating object could be taxed as well. Ther are endless amounts of ways LLABS can still get money from us.

I would give a buck or so to 'verify' my only account that hasn't been premium yet (out of 3), I'd say give unverifieds 30 days to pony up, starting now for existing accounts and upon creation for new ones. Make the unverifieds the trial account.

Its not free accounts I'm against, but unverifieds and the lack of premium benefits (put off some by the new customer service).

Blaming? Not at all if you had read my previous post you would realize this. Adding to the problem? yes. You see it doesnt effect me one way or the other however trying to tell that an acct that pays nothing is good for LL, dont bother I see no justification.