Should Free Accounts Go

now was that comment really Warren-ted?

You'll have to forgive Argent, he's just an excitable boy.

Why is it that every thread is starting to look like the "undying thread"?

I wonder if this is how it was at the fall of the Roman Empire . . .

Lets do the Time Warp Tonight!!! \o/

Let's take MSN as an example. Used to be that MSN chat rooms were free, then they began to charge for pariticipation. A lot of people (myself included) and went over to yahoo chat. Now yahoo chat has a lot of issues--bots, spammers, etc., but I would still prefer to go there than have to pay MSN for the same service. There are a lot of very thoughtful, intelligent people in yahoo chat. There are a lot of thoughtful, intelligent people in SL (like me) who can't afford a premium account. The argument that "But you paid $1000 for a new computer and $150 for a new graphics card JUST TO PLAY SL" holds absolutely no water. Did I get a new computer and a graphics card? Why yes I did--but I did that b/c I am a full-time university student. My investment was toward that, as I did not even KNOW about SL when I got this computer. So the assumption that I would pay for a new computer &etc. JUST to play SL is absoultely absurd!
If SL went to Premium membership only, I predict there would be a mass exodus just as there was in MSN. You would lose people like me, who create content as well as answer important questions about history and literature. The grid would be flooded with nothing but greedy capitalists and start to resemble the United States during the bulk of this decade.

I do not think there should be any recurring fees to use SL, however I believe that payment info on file should be required. If accounts without payment info are allowed, they should be VERY limited - cannot sell items, and scripts owned by them will not function, other than simple animation scripts (such as AOs). This would nearly eliminate griefing and copybotting. The grid would be a much nicer place!

Well from what i learnt being a Real estate agent in SL, 90% clients of ours (especially Europeans) are ppl without premium accounts, and they just buy lindens with paypal and such, to buy our lands. And we are a big company that holds about 1000 residents).

So i imagine if basic accounts were to dissapear, so will our estates company.

Imagine the whole SL economy then.

Shu has a very valid point. Alot of the 'free' accounts pump significant amounts of money into the SL economy. The main difference between those 'free' accounts and 'premium' accounts is that they do not hold their land directly. What I think LL really needs to do is to work out a better system of incentives that make holding a premium account an attractive option. I'm talking financially attractive rather than bling-shoes attractive.

I am a Premium account and i see one advantage is owning main land. As for free accounts I would like to see some limit on the alts. Shu does have a point but how many more "free" accounts do not add to the economy of SL and live off free things?

It was an “accident” when I came to SL. I was googling for something else. But I found something about SL and wanted to give it a try. So I started a free account. Without that I wouldn’t have been here now and wouldn’t be addicted like I’m now.
As a girl from a non English speaking country (and let me say playing SL is a good way to learn to be better to English – my English was awful in the beginning) it took me long time to understand the economics of SL, that the money inworld comes from outworld.
I learned to earn money first by camping and later getting jobs inworlds. That’s how I could go shopping.
I have now got a family in SL and I’m helping paying the tiers for our house.
I haven’t put any real money into SL. My credit card is only for national use and can’t be used for SL. But with my jobs inworld I haven’t problems paying my part.
Most of my SL family is vampires, bloodlines. I’m not. I’m growing my own garlic’s. But my SL Dad tells me I’m another kind of vampire, a money vampire. I think in a way he is right. Through my jobs I’m “taking” money from other players and I have been helping people to change money from RL to SL so they can pay me.
I’m not taking any money out of SL, I can’t. I shall have an account for that use, but I haven’t. All what I’m earning stays inworld.
What I’m doing is helping the money inworld to circulate and in the last end they will come to LL through tiers and so on.
I would never have started playing if I had to pay for it.
If I now had to pay to stay in SL it will give me problems. First I should pay for another kind of credit card. Second as an unemployed RL with not many money to live for, it will be hard for me to find money for playing. And third as an EU citizen I have to pay the VAT, in my country 25 %.
So if I can’t have my free account I probably would have to leave SL.

A rational one, please. Right now LL officially has a 5 account limit, but doesn't enforce it less than ... oh ... hundreds, except you can't put more than 5 on a single payment source. This is, of course, just promoting people who want to run armies of bots at the expense of premiums.

As long as this thread is active, I've been pondering something topical that's slightly relevant.

In conjunction with the new "content management roadmap" (could they choose a less apt term?), https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2009/08/04/our-content-management-roadmap, and in light of the recently filed suit, I'm thinking it may be plausible to restrict membership of the Content Seller program to Premium members. Assuming LL bestirs itself to do something proactive (or at least more responsive) to IP infringement, there would be costs to defray, and benefit specifically to these program participants.

(Of course, LL may also decide to charge more than just Premium membership, once they settle on a plan. Their vaunted "Gold Solution Provider" (read: fee-for-FIC) establishes a precedent there, and the Alderman, et al. suit might give them another excuse to gild the lily with our gold.)

I had one or two thoughts today in conjucntion with the Stroker vs LL lawsuit, and some possible solutions to distribution of stolen content. I think some of my ideas might tie in very nicely with this one.

What occurred to me is that for stolen content to be eliminated, you must prevent it from being distributed. This would mean restricting the ability for "unlicensed" avatars to make transferrable items. ie they could create whatever they want for themselves but it will all be non-transferrable. Someone suggested making notecards and snapshots exempt, which I think is a good idea.

Now, how to get licensed:
- anyone with a legitimate business, and RL info registered with LL.
- anyone who is age verified with LL
- anyone with a premium account
- anyone with payment info on file.

This basically means that making transferrable content is restricted only to those avatars with a RL identity trace. Thereby making them personally liable for the content they distribute.

Pros: This won't hurt SL businesses, nor will it hurt their customers. It will drastically reduce the sale of stolen content. It won't have any effect whatsoever on the masses of NPIOFs who never make anything. It won't even effect those who make things solely for their own use.

Cons: -It will hurt NPIOFs who like to make stuff and give it to friends/alts/strangers.
-People in some international countries are unable to put payment info on file or use the age verification system (although I understand that it's possible to age-verify by sending photocopies of documentation in the post to Linden Lab's office).
-It will no longer be possible to be a seller in SL and remain anonymous. Those who currently fall in to this category would have to choose one or the other.
-Land barons will lose some income as those sellers who were previously selling stolen content are unable to maintain their land.*

*I suspect land barons would lose a lot MORE income, if LL do nothing, and content creators are forced to close their stores due to LL's failure to address stolen content.

I also think that it should be mandatory to link all alts with your main avatar. Maybe raise the limit of alts if there's a legitimate cause for it, or limit not the number you have, but the number that can be logged-in at once (this preventing traffic-gaming).

I have a non-premium account and I myself am tired of all these alts running mad all over the place. *Sigh* ya' know, I just don't get it. On the one hand, we are expected to police ourselves, yet on the other hand...
....not sure where I was going with this. I am tired and have a toothache.

I don't think free accounts should go, but I do think there needs to be some major advantages to premium accounts to make them desirable.

Perhaps you should need to have a premium account to sell items or run any sort of business, this would weed out a lot of people who are selling stuff for peanuts or as freebies. As a lot of people not making the $10 a month to cover their costs or can't afford $10 per month to put into SL may give up, others would bump prices up.

I suspect the economy is hindered by the fact it can be completely free to run a poorly run or failing business indefinately, which isn't the case in the real world.

It might hurt a lot as people go into hysteria at having to put cash in to spend on stuff, but in the long run I think it would be a positive step. If SL had been premium accounts to sell stuff since day 1 very few would even bat an eyelid about it, people wouldn't start businesses unless they had some forthought they could make a return. Instead we have a culture where any newb can think they can set up a sucessfull business and quite their RL job. And of course their failures just lower the standard for others who have a business plan and are sucessfull, hence reducing their ability to recoup their effort and investments.

80% of SL is private estate land, you don't need to be premium to rent on private estate, making people go premium is not the answer.

What I was thinking had nothing to do with land, as most land isn't being used for business. I was thinking it was hardcoded so you had to be premium to sell items. The tradeoff perhaps would be to non-premiums own land on mainland.

Free accounts don't need to go, they just need to be restricted. Like not being able to transfer items or not being able to attach anything to your crotch until you've registered.

Gah, this thread should never have been necroed. All the idiot suggestions to nerf free accounts are just attacking the wrong problem. Split up accounts and characters (like just about every other MMO does) and use that to tie alts to mains. Then worry about reining in whatever "armies" of alt *accounts* remain.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-2222

While I did necro the thread just to be a smart-ass because of all the necro posts that had been in RA lately, and while the original topic has been beaten to death and causes much controversy, I really loved seeing Qie and Lewis put out some unique new ideas about account types related to other SL issues.

I definitely agree with the Jira and voted on that long ago.

Yep if you have one premium account you should be able to link your 4 alts to it and they can have premium abilities, possibly allowed to use/edit/modify each others items maybe even transfer, non-transfer items between alts.

This would drop the value of unverified free alts by adding value to verified free alts.