Land. Can there ever be enough?

I started with my 512m plot a year ago, then a month later bumped up to 1024m. 1 year later I find myself tiering down from a sim. I think a sim is a nice size for an individual don't you think? My plan is to live in a crampt 1/4 sim space. ha ha

If tier weren't so expensive, I'd keep the sim but it has occured to me--exactly why is it so expensive? I know bandwidth comes into play and certainly other overhead costs but why is it $195 for a mainland sim and $295 for an island? The technology that SL is based upon is getting more advanced every year, but tier costs are staying the same or going up.

I would think $75 for a sim and perhaps $95 for an island would cause a swarm of people into SL but is that realistic? I think one of the big turn offs in SL for people is the awful tier costs. Most other successful "internet" business models are based on free or very low monthly costs but I understand this is somewhat different.

Rather than worry about tier fees going up(I know it was announced recently that they would *not* be in the near future--but still) Shouldn't they be going down considerably?

You can't be too rich, too thin, or have too much tier.

Actually what I find, after watching a lot of residents make land choices is that most settle down to about 4096m standard.

If they have businesses or suchlike, they may have shops that pay for themselves, but personal use tends to run 4096m-ish.

Two reasons why, I think.

One, is that when it really comes down to it, one only wants to *use* maybe 1000 prims - perhaps 500ish static to define your home, and 500ish to play with. Or various percentages of that. Sure it's nice to have a lot of pretty things out, but when it comes down to it most of us are either designing or socialising. Too many prims around can interfere with both.

Second, is the prim density per parcel. It's low. What that means is that if you want a lot of prims, you need a lot of land, thus pushing your nearest neighbours waaaay away from you.

Oddly, pushing your neighbours away is highly undesirable - don't forget this is a social world! It's quickly lonely and depressing, looking out over a vast landscape of pretty things, all alone. As much as we cuss our neighbours sometimes, it's just plain more fun to be around an active region.

So... yeah, I know many of us have entire sims to ourselves. It's nice in a lot of ways, but ultimately it may boil down to 'toys -vs- friends'.

At the end of the day, most people are just dying for visitors and traffic. Were it just about land and prims, the logical conclusion is to get off the computer and start building dollhouses.

(for those that wonder, Desmond has no home, and maybe a few hundred prims to play with in Alice sim except that he's set them aside for a regional development project)

I like the way you think, Plato.

There are two possible explanations for the high tier fees, IMO:

1. Linden Lab is an evil, profit-grubbing company and charges that much because they CAN. They're raking it in hand over fist.

2. Linden Lab charges what they must to support the hardware of Second Life, plus make a reasonable profit. The costs are so high because of SL's unique demands on computer hardware.

In the first case, don't expect tier to go down until a viable competitor starts stealing Residents. In the second case, advancing technology MAY result in a tier reduction...unless Scenario 1 raises its ugly head, or improvements in SL features demand more computing power as fast as it can be brought online.

Well, not that I was a big shot and could afford to pay the tier on an entire sim on my own mind you. I was dependent on rentals to pay a portion of it and that was going well for awhile. However, it was also a lot of work and there was a period where it was hard to find tenants so I've decided to scale back for now.

I understand that every business has expenses and needs to be profitable(LL included) but I can't imagine the *general public* getting excited about paying $195 (or any fraction thereof) for virtual land-despite how much fun it can be. Under current conditions, its also hard to build and maintain a viable business(with notable exceptions of course). I know several (presumably unemployed in RL) people who claim to spend 12 hour days to net a profit of $100 U.S. per week. That small margin is often driven by tier.

I just remember island prices being $195 for awhile--then suddenly new islands started to cost $100 *more* per month but yet mainland did not increase nor did grandfathered islands. I guess its the right of any company to charge the maximum amount for their product or service that they can possibly get, but it may not be a great strategy in the long run. If they could lower their tier now and attract more unique users before the inevitable competitor arrives to possibly undersell them. . .

I'm starting to get the impression there are several established SL residents counting the days until they can jump ship.

3. Residents' usage of the grid takes a substantial bite out of LL's income. Other than a small 100,000, the large majority doesn't think it's worthwhile to pay for their actual use of the grid so the biggest portion of what you pay for tier doesn't go towards keeping the sim running, but to offset the cost of free accounts (less so for verified basics, more so for unverified basics).

With LL's twisted business sense, more residents equals less paying customers yet larger expenses.

Last November Zee stated that $195/month is about the break-even point for LL. Since then they've added voice (monthly cost for LL to a third party) and concurrency has grown, and there are several things LL actively subsidizes so that amount is probably only higher today.

The reason mainland can go cheaper than private islands is because on average the mainland brings in a multiple of what a private sim does. Walking down the chart you get:
1/2 sim - $250/sim
1/4 sim - $300/sim
8192m² - $320/sim
4096m² - $400/sim
2048m² - $480/sim
1024m² - $512/sim
512m² - $640/sim

I've always found it puzzling that LL won't take better care of the mainland, considering it's very likely their single largest profit-maker.

I'm sure there are many ready to jump ship, but as moves go, that won't 'save' anybody long term - neither those who stay, or go.

Here's why I think so:

Consider the metaverse as a sort of 'big collaborative' such as an airline, or a semi-utility like cable.

I suspect that between the lobbying, the cartel effect and just plain incompetence, the market will shake out. But not to blue skies - rather to a sort of a 'this is how it is, like it or not' mashup of semi-adequacy.

Much like airlines or cable service or electricity, today.


With regard to lowering tier: it's inevitable, someday. Technology moves forward too fast, as does competition.

Yet, managing growth is an art.

I think the ultimate failure would be not in the failure of the grid in general, but in the success of an infinitude of adfarms, griefers and scamtards as far as the inner eye could see.

*That* would be the true failure: a hell of our own creation.

* * * * *

Oddly enough, it's the high tier that keeps us in the Age of Land Barony, characterised by vast collaborative efforts and corporate-style governance (or semi-anarchy such as on the mainland).

If tier for a sim were 5 USD/mo, who would tolerate neighbours, and why tolerate renting from me? There would be little motivation.

I think that is where we are ultimately headed, to the Age of the Personal Dream, where land barons are broke on the street and digital content usage will be paid mostly like a utility bill. I envision a flat rate for asset storage, with 'prim fees' only paid on rez when anyone is there to see it.

The inexpensive metaverse may well be a different sort of wasteland - vast, desolate expanses, stunningly beautiful and full of AI, yet incredibly devoid of humanity - we'll be rare unpredictable specks with godlike powers in our personal demesnes.

Perhaps we could manifest as forces of nature, not avatars, but even so these dreamscapes will have a lonely component unmatched by our current, cosy-by-necessity times.

The social ramifications of future advancements are going to be huge, and not all positive.

Many "free" accounts are renting from private estates or mainland landlords, so they are actually paying LL, just indirectly. I don't think there's any way of determining what percentage of the population they are, though.

True, the economy would be in a right state if the "free" accounts were sent packing. Plenty of free accounts help to keep this place moving.

That's the problem with any kind of "theory" about SL usage/cost . LL is the only one with the numbers and they're keeping them to themselves and just present us with global ones.

I did point out the verified basics make up a smaller portion of that cost (there's fewer of them and *some* portion of those are paying their way), compared to the unverified basics.

Yes there can be too much land. After zooming up to 32,000 sm I put my foot down (or rather my rl husband put my foot down) and now I am very happy with my 512 sm government allotment.

Goodness, Des...not one, but THREE bleak futures in one post! A mediocre service; a world where the bad guys win; and a world of super powerful strangers. How about painting a rosier picture, and telling us what we need to do to get there?

Honestly, I don't know. The common theme to all three: tragedy of the commons.

It's the classic conflict between personal freedom and a lovely, ordered world. In the metaverse, personal freedom wins most of the time.

Proof: software and music piracy, the inability of China to keep out western digital media, the de facto freedom of speech from over a billion websites.

So yes, it is a bit depressing. The rise of a global Respublica Blingtardia is pretty much inevitable.

But the cure - totalitarian enforcement protecting a lovely common vision - is likely to be even worse.

* * * * *

In a way, the metaverse has always been with us.

We don't 'see' with our eyes, so much as translate a cacophony of images to build a worldview within our mind.

We have always interacted with that worldview, more than anything else.

"Bird flying over the ocean at sunset" - that's a far cry from "black speck against a blinding bright spot" - we see the bird in our mind, recall its features, and can even imagine the seabreeze under its wings.

"Mooshy softness and some warm spots" - that's the sensory input, but in our worldview: "cuddling with lover in the dark"... we live in our mind's eye and always have - we are inhabitants of our constructed, waking dreams.

A world where love and despair is exactly as real as a solid table or the color blue.

So - how to save ourselves from creating a horrific mutual dream, now that we have found a way to share?

I think the answer might be very deep and personal, and have nothing to do with computers or made up rules at all.