Should SL stores offer premium members a discount?

If the discount is marginal, then what's the point of it? I can see the effect being worse than it would be with a large discount. The majority of people (non-premiums) would think, "how come they get a discount?" (a negative effect), while Premium accounts would think that the marginal difference isn't worhwhile anyway (no positive effect).

As for the original question, "Should premium accounts be given a discount", the answer is a categorical no. There can never be any "should" about it. If the question were phrased, "Would it be a good idea if premium accounts were given a discount?" then it could stand some discussion.

Why? How does a store owner benifit from more premium members? LL is getting their cut from store owners already, why is it a store owners place to put moeny in LL's pocket and less in their own?


I can make the same argument for Mainland but at least with mainland I can be pretty sure LL wont boot me off at a whim with no way to get my deposit back. Whether you pay rent to LL or to a 3rd party, you always rent.


I'm a freeloader now. Basic account. Buy my L$ with US$. If a store wants to give someone a discount because they are premium, sure, fine, it's a nice think to do. As a part time player and full time freeloader I have a lot more cash to spend that I did as a premium trying to run a business. I am no longer trying to get money out of SL ... I'm putting it in.

Exactly. I will take money from anyone Payment used, on file or none....but it is NOT my job as a small shopkeeper to subsidize the lab. I agree, LL saw nothing but inflated numbers and a astroturfed 'buzz' in the press. Well, now the buzz is gone, the press has turned or ignores them and premiums (that aren't island owners) are dropping like flies. The snake oil Philip the Clueless peddled about opening SL up and '3D web' has backfired.

I'm premium myself. Since LL threw the doors wide open, all I have gotten from LL for my trouble is a near useless 512m^2 plot and a stipend. Most all my land is rented now, I sold out all but the 512 on the mainland (nostalgia for a SL that LL helped destroy), so am considering going basic myself. I certainly do not expect my dwindling fellow premiums to cut me deals on things 'because I am a premium'.

If that's your personal definition of "own", you still need a better term for the conditions LL gives you because you're not going to get the same ones anywhere else.

1. Circumstances under which land is reclaimed
Estate: the sim owner feels like it, no reason needed
LL: account ban or non-payment

2. Payment is late for whatever reason
Estate: Reclaim and put it back up for sale, bye bye "deposit".
LL: 30 days grace period after which your land goes up for auction, the amount owed is deducted along with a fee and whatever is left is yours to keep

3. Dispute resolution
Estate: none
LL: take them to court, archive.org would have the different TOS/CS versions archived so it's easy to show that it said "this and that" around a given time

"Owning" estate land is nothing like "owning" mainland, despite all the sales pitches from some sim owners to the contrary.

What does VAT have to do with payment info?

Only premium and tier fees payable to LL are subject to VAT, L$ purchases don't incur VAT.

You might not get a credit card due to unemployment or being blacklisted for skipping out on paying bills (specific to where I live, not specific to all of the EU most likely), but you can *always* get a bank account which is all you need for PayPal.

What does VAT have to do with payment info?


Meant premium -- my mistake.

I wouldn't be offended by it, but I agree that there is no reason for it and that the obligation is on LL to make premium more worthwhile.

And that is absolutely the gist of it all- Why in the world would any shop owner even consider it?

If you want to drum-up business, besides adverts - Freebies- or Members Only specials- something like that would be far more beneficial than some arbitrary thing about whether the member is Premium or not.

The only reasons for a discount for Premiums would be to attract repeat customers.

Premiums get a L$300 stipend _every week_, whereas people who buy L$ tend to buy them less often and in bigger amounts (although, I know that some people buy them all the time). Which means that encouraging Premiums to your store could be a good idea if your business could benefit from customers who visit regularly.

Alternatively, the Lindens could do it directly; every time a Premium member buys something, some of the L$ are newly "printed" and the amount charged to the actual member is less. But this would just be a new way of selling printed L$, with a lot more potential for abuse, so it's unlikely that it'd be possible.

Yes originally phrased it came off as some sort of entitlement. Now, If LL wanted to have maybe a Premium Member Discount Club, that a merchant could participate in if desired, that would be fine.

no

Hmmm been reading this thread. My take on it. I am not a premium, I figure I spend well over the monthly membership and that allowance or what ever you get. That does not mean I am bragging or better then anyone else.

Am I slighting you that you are a premium nope. Do I care that you have premium or a no pay on info or payment on file or what ever financial wording you have in your profile? Nope.

Yesterdays data base server "incident" left not only premiums out but also the non pay and the whatever the other one is. Yup I was a "lucky" one I got to stay on if you call lucky laying in my hammock waiting for my hair to rez hehe and chatting with others in the chat window well then...... hey wait a sec I was having fun!! So scratch that, unless you add in that I was in the middle of doing something, lost a script, couldnt transport anywhere, and my honey was on the outside.

In the end it is what is. Now if you feel as a premium that you are being slighted then take it up with Linden.

Bec

I get more business by folks who are not premium members. If anything, these folks are probably more the consumer types themselves -- no land owned (perhaps rent an apt or house)

You said it yourself Brenda -- you pulled 25k into the economy last month -- wouldn't it piss you off to know that the premium member who owns their 1024 lot and never spends any dough except to LL, gets a better deal on shoes than you?

You know who gets my loyalty? The people who spend time and dough at my shop. Most who buy, a.) leave with more than they expected (if I happen to be around) b.) never pay retail c.) if they pay retail -- I match their dollar amount later with a giftcard.

Sending you a card later tonight Bren, you non premium jersey biatch Where's my Pie?

Cheers

Premium members _are_ entitled to recieve something in exchange for their money, which non-premium members don't get. This is nothing to do with being "superior", it's just that, um, kinda the point of payng money to people is usually in exchange for things.

Agreed- but from LL- not individual owners. And we do- we get to own land and we get -supposedly- better attention to resolution of problems. How that is my business as a shop owner is beyond me though.

this idea of having a two-tiered customer base sounds great ....

at the beginning ...

it will shortly become a paper-work nightmare ...

unless of course if you LIKE paper-work.

I agree. But you aren't paying that Premium to the shop owners, you are paying it to LL. They are responsible for giving you your money's worth. And they aren't. That's why I downgraded.

LOL. Now I have another reason to log on later besides a shoe sale. Yay me!

QFT - this is the perfect quote for this thread.

Premium members deserve extra service from LL. Your loyal customers, regardless of their status deserve your attention and service, because they have given you their money, and if they like your product and are happy with your service, they will give you more. The end.

Not from store owners, they're not.

Well, that's touching on a much more difficult issue, though.

Many have agreed that some consolidation towards the "best" content creators on SL is inevitable in the free market. The problem is that this creates a situation where essentially there will be 'a single group' producing the whole of SL - consisting of all the active content creators plus the Lindens - and others will be outside that group.

At that point many users may find it unacceptable for a strong distinction to exist between the Lindens and the creators. I mean, imagine if a WoW player complained that the game wasn't working for them, and was told "sorry, we can't help, your subscription fees have all gone to the art and game design departments, you'll have to pay more to the programming department if you want them to look at that".

I'm not saying this is an initative that the Lindens or anyone else would lead - it just might be demanded by customers overall.

Yumi, I have absolutely No idea what any of that has to do with the idea of business owners subsidizing LL's Premium Policy, and using WoW, something I know absolutely nothing about, doesn't help.

That's already the case, just look at this thread and the "Logins restricted" thread.

People who buy L$ argue that they're somehow paying for their account even though they're just paying content creators/providers, people who earn L$ argue the same thing even though they're not spending anything that has inherent value.

Even content creators encourage the blurring because they'll happily accept money but when it comes to delivery problems it's suddenly all LL's fault. Happy to accept the money, but not caring to deliver and trying to push the blame on someone else.

What it has to do with is that, to consumers, it may gradually become unacceptable for the distinction between "business owners" and "LL" to be strongly distinct. As far as they tend to be concerned, they put money in, and they get an SL experience out.

Ok I see what you mean. Thanks for clarifying.

If the premium member plan were so drastically important to Linden Labs bottom line, there would be a different system in place.

There isn't and therefore they obviously have a business model that takes all these non-premium accounts into it.

While people every couple months come up with these premium incentive ideas in order to more premium accounts - there is really no purpose to do so.

I think they think that if there were more premium accounts , LL would magically become more profitable and therefore be able to afford More (widgets and dodads) to make SL to perform better.

This is just rampant speculation - since I haven't yet seen the Blog entry where LL blames any performance issues on the lack of premium accounts.

It helps to remember that 1 (one, uno, un) Private island's teir cost would cover 30 (thirty) premium account memberships.