Limiting theft by limiting creation

NPIOFs and PIOFs can make a significant contribution to the SL experience and thus the SL economy, as well as LL's bottom line, by motivating PIU's to put cash in.

Your statement that NPIOFs and PIOFs make no contribution to LL's bottom line is false, and even a bit insulting, by implying that we make no economic contribution to SL. All our effort, care, enginuity, and creativity is for naught. (I'm gonna go eat a bullet! )

NPIOF and PIOF accounts can spend money. They just aren't getting it directly from Linden Lab. You can buy L$ from other sources.

No, Mickey.

I'm basic account now..i can still buy from the blue button in world..
i never have been a basic right away..my info still shows me as a PIU..
Can basics buy from the blue button if they have never been premiums?

i'm more curious than anything..

When I brought up the shadow draft branch here in the forums ages ago I talked enough people who had absolutely no clue as to what they were doing (that isn't meant in a bad way) through it and they all managed to get a functional binary .

How about we collect 1,000 names of random NPIOFs (let's even make them over a year old so they've had plenty of time to learn skills) and then deconstruct to see just how many of them are making all those wonderful products you keep insisting enrich the world and how many are just "there" offering no contribution of any kind?

Also....if it is so offending to make suggestions that involve paying for a premium account....how can we present that, so that people do not think we are suggesting that there is a difference in "people"....rather than just a difference in payment plans? And that it is not a criticism of "people?" That seems to be the way it is taken.

Well, every time I've tried it staring in 2007, it's been a frigging nightmare, and if you subscribe to sldev, you'll see that it's a common, or perhaps typical, experience. No offense taken!

I doubt you can .

I don't think anyone would dispute that there is a US$ cost associated with each and every account in terms of bandwidth used, on-call/on-duty Lindens monitoring the grid, inventory and asset storage and backup, etc etc.

You can ask who should be responsible for paying for how much an account is costing LL and the answer will be probably boil down to "not me" followed by some excuses that try to point out how they're somehow so tremendously valuable to SL that someone else who isn't nearly as talented/"special" as they are should pick up their costs.

In the end though: people always make a lot of noise but when it comes down to it they'll give in. Everyone I personally know who was all vocal about how they'd never age verify and conspiracy theory this and conspiracy theory that all unsurprisingly verified when the time came. Apparantly it wasn't so impossible after all. Same thing with anyone I've ever met who swore high and low that there was no way that they could ever get payment info: when it was convenient they suddenly had a credit card after all, who knew .

LL knows it too but unfortunately they're more inclined to raise tier each time they need more money to run SL since they know most landowners will cough it up in the end. By the same token most of the people who are insisting that they'd never pay for SL will do so if LL were to decide it's needed.

I don't really think there even IS a separation. Heck! I'm almost convinced now, that I don't even need a premium account! I totally forget about taking advantage of the 512 benefit....the only other advantage is the 300L per week? I would give that up, easily, just to get rid of the scarlet letter P on my chest, now!

Noone can tell you're premium unless you tell them you are btw so you can just say you renounced your misguided premium ways and stand with the masses and noone will ever know!

Hopefully you got my point above, after you posted this. But I'd like to amplify on this, because it's a common bit of misunderstanding.

Anyone who adds value to the SL experience in any way (even if it's just standing around in a dance club saying clever things and making people happy) *do* matter to LL's revenue, because they make SL more enjoyable to others, who pay (whether in $L or $US) for products and land.

Also:

- LL profits directly from XStreet sales.

- LL profits directly from landlords who rent out land to NPIOFs who earn $L inworld.

- LL profits directly from people who buy $L for poducts made by people who have never transferred a dollar ingame

- LL usually profits indirectly from people who earn $L and then buy products or services, because product makers and service providers usually have expenses that wind up in LL's pockets (e.g., rent).

- LL gets "free money" to use for all $L that are ingame and weren't put there by the monthly account payments (sorry, I don't remember their term for it).

As I said above, an economy is much more than a mere currency.

Personally speaking, I pay in rent to a landlord, I pay commissions on my XStreet sales, and since I have never cashed any Lindens out, all the Lindens I have in my account are essentially free money to LL. At best, that's free capital, at worst (were I to spend them all or transfer them out), it's an interest-free loan.

If you're on Windows and ever want to give it another go just give me a nudge and I'll talk you through it .

Most of all the problems stem from installing the wrong version of some tool the viewer's build process needs.

How about we collect 1,000 names of random NPIOFs (let's even make them over a year old so they've had plenty of time to learn skills) and then deconstruct to see just how many of them are making all those wonderful products you keep insisting enrich the world and how many are just "there" offering no contribution of any kind?

What is your reason to be in SL?

To extemporize the diegetic paradigm of musteline psychogenesis.

What if they don't send the real source code?

Does LL actually employ people to look through submitted source code anyway, or just depend on the OpenSource community spotting it?

Except there's no inferior materials, no slave labor, and nothing breaks two years later in SL.

You can't be serious. >.> Bit rot is alive and well in SL.

You can't be serious, you think bit-rot is any respecter of "quality materials" in SL.

I was referring to the "nothing breaks two years later in SL" part.

I've got PLENTY of broken stuff in my inv now. Some of it from inventory loss, some of it from various upgrades. Some of it isn't even two years old.

I was referring to the "nothing breaks two years later in SL" part.

OK, as we have now drifted (or more accurately perhaps, done away with the pretence this issue is over content theft) from "some of demographic x are thieves, so all of demographic x must be treated as criminals" to "People who don't pay have no worth", can I ask you a direct question or two?

What is your reason to be in SL? To make money, to socialise, to create, to explore a varying quality of virtual environments, or other?

Do you feel only people who prove a financial viability should be allowed to exist in the same (virtual) world as yourself?

Do you really believe there are thousands of users who log in to not chat, not explore, not build, not in fact do anything at all other than waste their bandwidth and computer time? Because unless you do, your comment of making no contribution is a very materialistic and shallow one.

(And once more, any L$ spent has to have come from LL at some point. NPIOF/ PIOF can be considered redistributers of wealth, something that is actually vital in driving an economy even if it is uncomfortable to reduce people to mere mechanisms)