Is everything a mall?

Recently I have been using search to search for areas that might be of interest to me but it seems that 99% of them turn out to be malls once I get there. I know that there are nice places to visit in SL so please don't suggest places to me. That is not the point of my post.

My point is that whatever you search for seems to turn out to be some boring everyday mall. Is this what the residents of SL really want? An endless land of look alike malls?

That hasn't been my experience at all. What is it that you search for that takes you to Malls? I honestly haven't been to many!

I define a mall as anything within sight of my landing point that is selling things such as a vendor machine or a 300 meter high wall with items for sale.

If you want an example try searching for farm and see what you get. Once I had a large farm with nothing for sale and few visitors I must confess. I was looking for some other farms for a nice rural experience....

Well, that could be a store. When I think of "mall," I think of a collection of many stores. Apparently you are looking for something that isn't a store at all, but rather a place to experience.

coco

Libraries (central + branch sites)!

Academies with classes.

Sports fields (play, or cheer, or be a hooligan)

Railroads.

Chessboard.

Sailing (navy and pirates!)

A Victorian zoo.

A forest.

A horse riding trail through mountains.

Dogfighting / balloon tours.

Fencing.

Harvest festivals.

Fishing!

Halloween haunted house contest

Formal Masquerade Ball

Theatre



That's just off the top of my head, though of course I have a somewhat warped view of the grid.

I don't have much social life and am decidedly PG 99% of the time (100%?).

And, ah, yes I suppose there are shops - are they terribly significant somehow? I don't look through classifieds much.

grin

surfing!

Forget it! I was commenting on the commercialisation, or however you spell it, of SL but I think I was too obtuse.

Would this be an incredibly appropriate time to offer you space in a mall I manage?

Perhaps the issue is how search and classifieds are set up.

I can see a lot of artists making wonderful things, for instance, but never thinking to take out a classified in relation to their work unless it was for sale.

Of course not Susie! We want strip clubs, too.

I think SL is a lot like RL, in the sense that if you just drive aimlessly around any large metropolitan area in the USA (where I live), you will see many shopping malls and storefronts. Now, if you are determined to find culture, you can find it but you have to know where to look or at least who or what to use to find it.

Oh, I get it. SL is Irving, Texas.

That's scary.

Tiers.

Land costs money, in the case of islands, lots of money.

People just can't create nice places for other residents out of the kindness of their hearts (well in general, some do, bless them).

I dislike malls in general. The only exception are attractive themed ones that compliment the rest of an island etc. Then exploring the mall is enjoyable.

I have nothing against stores - though again, I like ones that are imaginative or set in attractive surroundings.

But unless the Lindens start paying/lowering tier/rewarding residents who create content for other residents - well, the commercialism has to stay.

Well, I think the issue here is SL's search function more than a die-hard addiction to capitalism.

Places that sell items are going to have more traffic than places that don't. Places with more traffic are listed more prominently in the generic Search results.

Try changing the drop down to "recreational" or "Parks." (I don't remember how it's actually listed.)

I can barely move three plots in any direction without hitting a store of some kind. Even clubs & dungeons more often than not, have a vendor stall or wall attached. I'm not criticising. Some are quite amusing. There's a large red barn near my home I would never have found on search that had something, someone asked me for. You never know what you're going to find next

Now there is a thought, come on Lindens how about it. How about a 25% tier discount for parkland open to all and containing NO shops etc. Anybody with me ??

NO!

Not just no, but HELL NO!!!!


Quoting an above poster.
"But unless the Lindens start paying/lowering tier/rewarding residents who create content for other residents - well, the commercialism has to stay."


What are the items for sale if not content for other residents?


Let the Free and open market decide all land use issues. No to subsidies for any segment of SL.

Oh it would be nice to have safe zones.

Like when I tp to so many places, look around and 'oooh there's a store. OK you never know what they might have. Let's take a quick look.'

And across the road there's a shoe shop too. Hell those slingbacks look good. Never seen anything like those. And what do you know, there's a store opposite selling nice subtle bling-free jewellery. I really do need something to go with that formal. Oh and hang on, that's not a lingerie store is it? omg they've pretty white things. Hell I can't resist pretty white things.

So half an hour later I check my balance that was looking particularly healthy when I fist TPd here to check out the beach.

L$3

I agree. The harsh reality of the matter is, someone has to pay tier. If you can afford to pay for a sim with no shops or businesses, more power to you !

Spoken like a true capitalist, but then if you are running a small shop or large mall should you not expect to get taxed (tier) more than somone who welcomes people into his garden just for the fun of it ?

To expand on my earlier post, and to support Susie here I do rise at the number of bland, box-shifting, minimalist, jam-in-as-many-as-you-can malls.
A couple of nights back, I returned to one of the first places I ever went to, Midnight City. Shops in all directions but such imaginative, pleasing styles fitting together to make a very immersive cityscape is still one of my favourite places. I took Morgaine to the Exploratorium there and found myself launching into a very geeky explanation of the solar system. We took a couple of the freebie souvenir tee shirts but never spent a linden. Huge fun.

Why can't malls be more inventive? It's the bland, box-shifters in my view that just shout, "We're only in it for the money" ... also name of a Frank Zappa record someone pasted the cover of in an appropriate post

Sorry Chris, maybe I should have made my point more clearly. Malls and shops have their place of course, but the phrase ‘content creators’ is all encompassing and I was thinking of those residents who simply make a nice place to visit or hang out with no eye whatever on making money out of it. So how about this:
One contiguous parcel per resident
Minimum 2048 sm
Anything you like but absolutely no charging / selling
25% reduction on tier (for that area)

You are talking RL here aren't you? Most creators here are simply selling their creations for fun. Please see the plethora of VAT threads to see the carnage caused by increasing tier costs.

Well Chris, in my opinion a free and open market isn't the best solution for every situation.

As for a commercial market, I cannot agree more with you that open market works best. But as for a social environment, some kind of sponsoring is not a bad idea. At least if you think there should be parcels available that are just ment to relax in without having to pay for it. Like a nice park for example. Let me give an example to make my messy writing a bit clearer

When I would buy a significant parcel to build a themepark, with a ferris wheel, roller coasters, and whatever other nice things to ride, people might consider paying a few linden to come in and make use of my creations. Compare this to a park like Disney.

When however I would buy the same parcel to create the most beautiful park, with flowers, places to sit and relax, chat with friends, admire the environment, how many people would pay for that you think? Compare this to a public park in a city.

The first example is a commercial venture, which could be paying for its own costs. The second one is a community venture, which in general is payed for be the government, through tax money. Cities would be very sad without those places in my opinion.
Since SL doesn't act like a government, there might be residents who would love to create those places for them, to make SL a nicer place to live your second life in. But in order to do that, they would need to have access to some kind of virtual tax money, as you can't really expect them to spend a lot of their own cash to make SL a nice experience for others.

Since english is not my native language, I hope I made myself clear with the above

The only way there would be the ability to have lots of places of interest rather than some commercial value is if the lindens themselves decided that rather than sell a sim they used that sim as a place of interest. The commercialisation of SL is becasue SL is a commercial undertaking.... People get charged LARGE amounts of money to hold land and they hold that land for prims..... those prims are used to create content, now unless you have a lot of disposable income most folk want to see some return out of the large cost that is SL.

Now on the other hand, if people were unable to make some cash...maybe there would be less content creators...less content which i think is a bad thing.

BUT that aside what i dont like to see is "battery malls" with cubicles full of resale boxes etc. But nicelcy set out places can add to the SL flavour rather than take from it