Myth: Premium accounts only?

You missed 2 options:

"I take money out from content creation/services"

"I leech money out by adfarming or massbotting"

I'm a 'free' account with a few (16) products on SLEX which has made me 2k lindens in just over 1.5 years, which isn't much. Recently I have noticed a lucky trend, when I spend or give lindens away within the week I get more back, either through some art events, winning build competitions or meeting people who just want to tip me a few hundred etc. So although in theory my linden pot should always need topping up for the past 6 months it's increased.

For Europeans it can work out a lot cheaper to buy Lindens from an external source like SLExchange and rent land. This is because money paid directly to Linden Labs is subject to VAT - which can be up to 25% extra. They still pay LL, just indirectly via an estate owner.

There might be a serious bug in my calculation, but those L$300 a week deducting from the cost for a premium account are peanuts. I'm not interested in owning Mainland as I tend to move around a lot from private estate to private estate, my attempts with a support ticket were answered without being Premium (with actually helpful replies while a premium friend received "Sorry, we cannot help you", and those L$300 ... well, if I exchange the same amount I'd have to pay for Premium, I'm far better off buying L$ currency for my shopping needs instead of paying for services I don't want.

Besides that, as a RL student, I'm quit on a tight budget and I try not to spend more than US$10 a month just for (virtual) shopping. When I bought a plot of land, I decided to spend an extra L$6000 a month, but it's ok. Yet I still don't have a reason to go premium.

Right.
Your Premium should get priority. It's paying LL.
Your alt is not paying LL. I don't see that it should be able to be logged in during peak load times if it prevents me from logging in or getting a decent response from the servers.
Flavour.B is that your alt could get in if it has PIOF. Even then it should go into a lower priority login queue than Premiums.
Flavour.C is that your alt is linked to your main, and could log in with the same priority as your main during peak loads provided your main is not logged in.


Some people say "I spend US$x in SL".
If all you are doing is giving money to other residents, then I don't care. I'm paying for server space. I want to get in whenever I feel like it.
If a tenant can't log in, they can complain to their landlord and ask for a rebate. They *might* have a better chance than the landlord getting a rebate from LL.

Some people say "If NPIOFs can't get in, I lose business"
Tough! Nobody owes you a living. I don't think that your income should take precedence over my enjoyment of what I pay LL for.


.. Just to be clear, "you" above is just less than perfect writing, and not aimed at Denise..

L$ purchases aren't subject to VAT.

You get $59 worth of L$ over a year which makes the actual cost of being premium just over $1/month if you pay yearly (or around $2 for Europeans due to VAT).

There's no reason not to be premium other than simply not wanting to, it's certainly not cost-prohibitive.

If someone thinks SL isn't worth paying $1 or $2 a month for then they don't need it that much to get unrestricted access.

L$300 per week is L$15600 per year.
That's almost US$60 per year.
I pay an annual Premium, so my Premium sub costs about US$12 per year.

.....and then there's the tier

....... so in a way, the stipends and the US$12 really are peanuts

Unless you're old school like me and get $500 still. Sure helps out in shopping

Exactly! I wouldn't say that I spend $10 or $50, but I pay LL no less than $30 per month to purchase $L. Now if we were to consider a year of at the very least $30 per month, that sums to $360 a year! I don't need no stinking premium. All you get for premium is the ability to buy land and a $300 per week stip? No thanks. That's an additional $60-75 bucks per year for nothing that I need.

As far as logins, if they were to act on their consideration to throttle the logins to allow only premium accounts, that would be sad. I think a lot of people are just like me and would leave en masse.

Your final sentence there in all likelihood sums up exactly why they've not implemented it.

I suspect you're right--and hence, I suspect it will never happen (as if it weren't the kiss of death to the central database anyway). It's a natural response: "Don't value me as a customer? Fine: I'll go elsewhere." But from a pure, cold, utility perspective, it's not that well justified, since there's blessed little utility to be had on the grid when it's so sick they'd bestir themselves to limit logins. One could as well argue that in those situations, the ones who can't login are the lucky ones: less lost inventory, less failure-to-rez, less crashed teleports... just less random frustration.

And so, if there weren't already plenty of other reasons for them never to use this throttle, it should be further discouraged by the fact that it differentially *punishes* residents with Payment Info on File by letting them onto a grid that's known to be unsafe.

I could almost cut and paste for my response, but I was premium for only 6 months. I spend between 20-100US$ a month depending on how much time I spend in world. I consider myself the freeloading backbone of the SL economy

I'm still of the mind that there should be a nominal charge for Basic accounts as well, even if it is just a couple of dollars a month. And it should be payable, as all LL charges should be, in Lindens in world.

it must be a bug in your calculations,in any bussiness model 45% is a hug amount to save as well as having to pay 45% more is a huge expence.
and if you pay yearly it's 96%.

It took me almost half a year before I decided to go premium... And it was specifically for land. I don't ever remember being offered or promised guaranteed uptime, but for what was offered, I'm sure I got my monies worth. (^_^)

I'm sure LL makes a TON more monies off of other people compared to me, even for unpaid accounts. Mostly because, so far, The only monies I've ever given them is my annual premium fee and just enough for the L$ needed to buy my 512 parcel. (^_^)

So, as a LL customer, I can't see any good reason I should be "ranked higher" than any other account. Freebie NPIF accounts are at worst catalysts of the inworld economy. They don't exactly pay in to the system, but, the monies they move eventually winds up in someone's tier payment or something like that. (^_^)

For that half year I was a basic, I made quite a few contributions to other people's tier payments by shopping at their stores... And all the while using other people's monies... Who would have otherwise never gone to the stores I went to. So you can't say I was completely worthless to the service. Just as I won't say that about any other basic account either. (^_^)y

Isnt that only true if you assume spend the money you get. Guys dont neccesarily need as many shoes as girls do.

Seirously what do you get for premium and if you get somethng more than basic then why should you get anyhing more like priority logins. I pay congestion charge to use the roads in London but it doesn't mean I get to use the bus lane

What are the items for which Linden Lab charges VAT?

Anything that you pay Linden Lab for will have VAT applied. This includes:

* Premium account registration
* Purchases from the Land Store
* Land use fees (tier)
* Private Region fees
* Land auctions
* LindeX transaction fees

source: http://secondlife.com/corporate/vat.php

A friend and I have just done the math... Not only have I paid very little monies into the system, but, with the way my time inworld is working out I've leeched about $40 to $60 from it since I've gone premium. If this keeps up, I'll be in the state of being 'paid to play'. With that information... Can anyone still say I, as a premium member, should have any priority over anyone else inworld? (^_^)y

Me turns a weary eye to the bot issue.
If they were to implement the thing where you re-type a series of random numbers (what ever that’s called) that might help insure that at least the person logging in is a real person who may or may not be a member of the "freeloading back bone of SL society".
I’m premium. Sometimes I wonder why but I own close to 3100 sqr/m of Mainland spread out over two continents (yes I know…poor use of prims) but I have some odd sense of civic duty to pay for the resources I use. Also I work in SL and twice this past weekend I was hit with these log in restrictions and that has a direct impact on my wallet.
As for log in restrictions for non-premiums causing people to leave in mass??? Ah hahaha ah haha ha!!....pheeeew! Right!
Can I have your stuff when you go?

When something goes wrong I can get straight onto Live Chat and get them to fix it (read restart my inventory - such as when my collar disappeared and made me literally scream in frustration).

I see it as insurance, with 500L cashback a week.

Whoa, is this argument flaring up again?

Nope, LL never said they'd restrict logins to premium accounts only after a certain breaking point. That would lock out many private island owners who are NOT premium accounts. And that would be the stupidest move LL has ever made and they have made some doozies.

Here is what I forsee if they were to implement this in any way.

First to be locked out would be the No Payment Info on File (NPIF). Next would be the Payment Info on File (PIF), leaving only the Payment Info Used (PIU) able to log in.

Which begs the question of, why the heck would you WANT to log in when SL is at capacity and the asset servers are acting up? The asset servers don't give a darn whether you're NPIF, PIF or PIU.. it'll kill your inventory anyways. In this case, LL simply closes logins to everyone.

I'm premium and, as has been mentioned before, this poll doesn't reflect the reality of SL since, as far as I know, the vast majority of users in-world are basics.

Like it or not, those basics, whether PIOF or NPIOF, are the drivers of the in-world economy. Restrict their access and only allow premiums and watch your sales numbers drop to zero or very close to it.

As others have also mentioned, I also know several NPIOF folks who are very talented builders and contribute to the economy by selling their stuff and then spending those L$ in other places in-world.

Sure, IF Linden Lab could come up with a 100% reliable and enforceable method of knowing what AV is a bot and what is a real person, I could see restricting access to those. Until that happens, I'd just be happy to see them get their servers and software in shape to appropriately handle the load without melting down at the slightest hint of stress.

And they Pay LL a lot more than many Premium members do, I'd imagine.

I got premium and own over close to 11k in land, plus prepay for L, and tier in credit.
I was blocked out too last night so it doesn't mean much if they are having server issues.
I hear even those with who buy islands,etc have issues sometimes.
Even if you got special corporate account I bet they run into issues too or treated less fairly at times and that why possibly a lot of them left because they expect special treatment.
As vaguely recall one of Lindens said they didn't care either way if you were corporation or not...sort of implying they treat all their residents the same.

Yes?

LindeX *transaction* fees refers to the 30 cents on every L$ buy (and the sell fee, but that''s not relevant here), *not* the amount of L$ you're buying.

They never did actually charge VAT on the LindeX sell/buy fees as it is; if they're actually remitting on those the cost is being spread uniformally between everyone.

So once more: L$ buys are not subject to VAT.

Supply Linden was responsible for 4.7% of the volume for July and you have no way of knowing whether your money is going to a resident cashing out, or to Supply Linden's limit sell orders.

$30 * 4.7% = $1.41/month x 12 months = $16.92/year that LL actually gets from your $360/year if you want to argue that Supply Linden sales should be looked at uniformly; $343.08 of it is going to residents, not LL.