Clueless Lindens? Maybe not.

I hear and read a lot about the clueless Lindens. They don't understand the problems that the residents have to deal with and how destructive, harmful or financially draining these issues can be for us. At best I hear that they just don't care. I have been thinking a lot about these issues over the past two years that I have been inworld: lack of zoning and building standards within the sims, adfarms and adcutters, copybot and texture theft, unethical landlords, real estate extortion, griefing at newbie hangouts, bugs in the building tools, inventory loss, crashes and glitches in the viewer, and...um...I bet I forgot something but I'm sure that you get the idea.

What I have been thinking lately is this: Maybe the Lindens aren't so clueless. Maybe these issues are actually beneficial for them in many ways. I will go over a few of the problems and explain how they could be beneficial for Linden Labs. I'm going to greatly simplify things for the sake of brevity. Also, please keep in mind that I'm posting this in an effort to create a positive change. This is not just to cause trouble or to make anyone angry. I'm not trying to stir up a hornets nest here. I'm just asking everyone, the residents as well as the Lindens, to think. Now take a deep breath and read on....

Adcutters, adfarmers and land extortion. LL makes a percentage in fees for any transaction of real to Linden currency. The greater the extortion, the higher the sale, the more they make. If landowners near an adfarm can't sell their land, then they may abandon it in frustration. LL gets the land for free to resell at auction. Also, the adcutters, adfarmers and land extortionists own a lot of land and pay a lot of tier. LL wouldn't want to alienate a good (meaning lucrative) customer.

Unethical landlords who rent, then kick the tenant out before the lease is up, then do it over and over. For example, a tenant pays a high downpayment for say a 12 month lease. Maybe the tenant even pays in full for the whole 12 months. The landlord kicks them out in two weeks and does the same thing multiple times. Again LL gains because they collect a percentage in fees for all of these additional real currency to Liden transactions, and not just the first one.

LL continues to create new sims, even though there is a glut of land for sale on the mainland. These new sims could be contributing to the decline in value of the mainland, because people want the new high prim value of say, the pretty Bay City sims. People may not be able to sell their land, so they abandon it. We know what happens here. They spend lots of Lindens on the new land. We know what happens here too.

The new mainland sims eventually become the adfarm or trashy slums that the old ones were. Well, here we go again. LL benefits again but not the residents.

Bots, both camping and land. If people are creating bots to use, then this makes it look like there are a lot more people actually using Second Life than there are. Inflated user numbers makes for good press whether these are real people or not.

Inventory Loss. I bet a lot of people will just go and buy another whatever. After all, everyone says, we are talking about things that maybe cost at most a little real life pocket change. Well, millions of items lost translates to millions of Linden dollars that must be purchased again. So Linden Labs makes a nice percentage on the exchange....again.

Let's move on to bugs, crashes and glitches. If anyone has ever written a program, they will tell you that the most fun is in the planning and creation of that code. The real work is in the debugging. Let's face it, this is just a boring chore and very few people want to do this. I get the idea that LL feels that it is more important to have a fun place for people to work and a great place for free expression. If that's the case, then the bug fixes will never be a priority.

Copybot and texture theft. This is a really easy and quick way to get a little business going and sell quality even though you have no talent or ability. The more people there are who have stores and sell things, the more likely a customer will stumble upon something to buy, the more Lindens will be purchased and we know what this means for LL.

Newbie griefing. These people have already signed up, so the numbers are up there, so what if they leave and never come back. I mean this is kind of like hazing, right? No big deal. Only the best and brightest will make it through, right? And that is who we want here, right?

Finally I want to ask, if you agree that maybe I am on to something, how can we as residents change this? How can we ask the Lindens to give up some substantial income streams, or positive press reports in the media, or even something so wonderful as a great working environment, so that we as residents can have a better inworld experience?

Now here is the big question....do I really want to post this? Will I be labeled a troll, troublemaker or griefer myself? Will I be banned, ostracised, criticised? Are these things that I'm saying stupid or uninformed? Is is full of misinformation? Am I just going to succeed in embarrassing myself and nothing more? Well, I'm going to post it, even though it may be dismissed or scorned. I just want to say that I really want this post to be a source of positive change, and not just to make residents angry or the Lindens defensive.

/me hits the submit button, then ducks and runs away....

well i grew up hearing that there are no stupid questions..
now i'm gonna reread this but just wanted to say that first off..

I don't think that you need to postulate that LL gains from their bugs, just that they fail to lose from their flaws.

Remember, this is a firm that thinks that a 10% retention rate of new customers is mostly alright. Aim low and you may well exceed your expectations.

The biggest obstacle we, as residents, face is the lack of competition that LL enjoys at the moment. As long as you are the only game in town (world) you can pretty muc do as you please and detractors be damned.

I actually think LL has bitten off more than they can chew with the platform design. More than a little ahead of the times technology wise...........but, hey, someone had to do it. I don't think things will get better until some viable competition gets up and running.

My 2 lindens.

http://www.realxtend.org

Better yet, go to the video page, start with the bottom video, and work your way up:

http://www.realxtend.org/page.php?pg=media

Nobody's going to vilify you for asking the question (I hope!) - it's definitely something to wonder about and discuss.

I remember once hearing, in a political context, someone once say: "follow the money."

Thing is, I personally don't believe the Company wishes to sell its future like that. I've talked to people at all levels in the Company over the phone, and none of them are out to extort anybody. I really don't get that sense at all.

They want the world to succeed, and privately hate the ad farmers and extortionists more than we do in a lot of cases.

I do get the sense, however, that one point three billion meters of land is a bit tricky to manage well. A quarter billion of that being their own estate.

Part of the problem is that they were so liberal with land terms when they first began. It's also hard to tell someone they can't do X or Y with their land, once they bought it without restrictions. There are legal issues with that.

all i can pretty much say is LL made a place where people could get as close to the rl as they could so they could live another life so to speak..

they gave us a planet to inhabit and said we are not going to interfere unless you break the rules which allows you to enter this world..
once you do you are part of this world..

they gave us a place to come and interact pretty much as free as we want..the thing is with freedom comes responsibility and a lot of people abuse it..we create our own problems in sl..
the only thing not user created are the sims on the mainland..
we kind of need to be as respectful of others as we are in the rl actually more because in a way it is like living back when there were lessor laws and more trust in mankind to be that respectful..the problem is not with LL but with the people in it..a lot are victims because of that..
i can't look at LL in a bad way because someone leaves there land and their account expires..
LL didn't take it away the people walked away..

theft from copybots..again users taking advantage of the system not LL..i don't see nearly as many of those as when they first came out..but just like in rl there will always be someone trying to find a new way in..the connection to LL and them selling more lindens i don't think is related..

Land prices? well a lot that are in the world that really hurts with land sales yes but they also dropped their prices on sims and upped the prims on void sims..
i just think they are or were expecting a big growth in population..

if you look at it from the standpoint of sl and say they were looking at land prices and new users..what would bring in more users that would want to buy land? cheaper prices?
not saying that is the intention but to make it easier for new people to get land would increase by volume of land because tier is always there at the same price..land value is what changes..they would be getting much more tier in the future..so i expect it is for future residents not current at a cheaper price..like any company that is successful they are taking a risk on increasing in size..if it doesn't happen they are going to feel it too..

i don't think they are out to screw over land owners but i do think they would like to add to the bank account which in turn would maybe fund in the future a more stable grid*ducks from lettuce and Tomatoes being thrown at her*
i look at sl as a beta grid for the most part..always changing and getting ready for things to come..

i've said it before ..big change is coming but we just don't know when..

i think a lot of people look at most problems in sl as they were created by the lindens and it's just not true..

99% are user created <====that is just a flung out there number and not a real statistic so no i do not have proof of it actually being the right % lol

sure LL will make money off of linden sales but we are the ones that make the amount sold or bought go up or down and the price of the linden..

they have nothing to do with how much someone has invested in their sim or land or what they sell..only the tier and lindens sales not earned in game i believe are all they get..

i don't think it is a lack of caring really but a lack of being able to care with such a growth in such a short amount of time..they are a company first and i think a lot forget that LL is all RL when it comes to business..they are going to make the choices they feel best for them to keep them going in their direction not ours..if they didn't we would not exist in this world.

i think the connection from user to lindens which is the support system is so over clogged with little problems that it makes it a lot harder to get to the heart of the bigger ones in rapid time ..but i keep hoping that in time like they have in the past will get them taken care of..
i'm not saying someones problem is bigger than anyone else's but that there are some things that are more from the less experienced newer users and it really cloggs and takes up time..
but that should be expected.. a lot just cannot see what all sl is about when they first come in..
i don't think they are profiting billions or anything like that ..i do think they are investing in growth and wanting to get bigger..

us already in here are going to lose and gain while this happens..it's always been like that..growing pains..
we are the ones that put lindens in their pockets i don't think they are out to scam us with little plots to sell more..i don't think they have to really..i just think time is a factor and they are thin on time in getting to a lot of the problems we create..

Second Life is going to celebrate their 5th bitrhday soon. Based upon a brand new technology, why do you think there is no competition yet? The current players are nothing but beta testers for a platform that is going to make the current internet change just one more bit. Lately I read an article about the top 5 of most promising technologies, and 3D worlds were one of them. The story was by IBM, not one of the smallest.

So we are in fact nothing more then beta testers, and that makes the Lindens far from clueless: They are making money from a technology in beta stage!

The clueless ones are a lot of us residents:

We are surprised that technical problems are not solved almost right away, without realizing that most of those problems are related to a platform there is hardly any knowledge of. No third level support for the Linden engineers. The technique is revolutionary, but the corresponding problems as well.

We are surprised Lindens do not get involved in in-world disputes about for example estate scams. But who was wrong or right? How much is is going to cost the average user extra, to pay for resources that are needed to investigate? And, almost as important: who does an estate renter (like myself!) have a deal with, LL or the owner?.

We are surprised LL cannot beat the addfarmers that easy. Didn't we see a few months ago how hard it is to define an addfarmer? Plus, how legal is it to ban an addfarmer, when he or she is in fact operating withing TOS? Plus, how important is the problem really, in the big picture?

What I do think, is that the bad publicity about the stability is not the main priority at the moment for Linden Labs. Neither are the addfarmers and others of their kind. The main challenge for the Lindens, is to be taken seriously by the big technology companies. They did a great job there at IBM, big blue believes in this technology. And there lies the future of Linden Labs. They did invent a technology that has potentials to get very big, in time.

So who is clueless? Lindens for still being the only platform in its kind, or the users, thinking they are the reason for Linden Labs existence? Let's face it, Linden lab, at this moment in time, would survive wether we keep playing, or not.


Greetings, Marcel

P.S. One more point: Do not forget that the forum and blog posters are a small minority in SL. No more then a few hundred people are expresing their bad feelings. On 60k concurrent users, those few hundred are not as important as they would like to be

i just have to say that was very well said..=)

At the risk of being poopoo'd for a "me too" post, Me Too

It's wrong to say that SL has no competition. It's just that the competition isn't just trying to re-do exactly what SL did, but going for a different approach. That makes sense - no competitor is going to duplicate SL, as they'd have the same problems SL did.

Hipihi is very close to SL but based on appealing to a special market - China - which paradoxically SL is disadvantaged it precisely because of the level of freedom it offers. This might become the case in other countries, too.

AWOMO is competing for the pure gamers market by creating an "SL" in which you can play mainstream commercial games.

IMVU and Kaneva are trying to compete by stripping out many of SL's features and creating enhanced talkers instead, on the grounds that this is probably how 90% of people are using SL. That model helps them - their hosting model is based on a talker rather than a MMORPG, so they can give people houses of unlimited size without needing to charge higher subscriptions for more area. (SL's biggest problem, and to blame for many of the technical problem it has, is that it's still tied down to a MMORPG hosting model - and that model is now obsolete even on MMORPGs)

Metaplace and Whirled are trying to compete by increasing accessibility at the cost of sophisticated 3D graphics. They don't look neat and 3D, but you don't need a GeForce 7+ to view them, and for Whirled you don't even need a software download.

oh i may look at a couple of those..i tried the IMVU and it just wasn't for me but that is me..i'm sure a lot of people will enjoy it..it is pretty cute actually =)

Total agreement on that one.

Until something better comes along, I'm sticking with SL.

That is also the idea.

Anyone trying to "game" online using a 1-5 yr old video card is unlikely to be arsed to spend $$ online.

From my experience, those with up-to-date or cutting edge systems have money to spend on frivolous things.

I've even seen people drop $100+ for Server Donations just because they've had fun gaming there.

Also, if you pay attention to various MMO sites, SL gets the reputation of "crappy graphics". These folks want bang for the buck & their bleeding edge video card.

Myself, when I go out for the latest-greatest PC Game, #1 thing I'm thinking is "Do the graphics kick ass? and will it push my video card to the limits?" I dont want just the 'fun' factor. I want the 'OMG It's Frickin' Beautiful' factor. For instance: http://www.gamespot.com/video/extras/ubidays.html?sid=6191555

On a bad day I do imagine all sort of conspiracies about Mr, Ms, Mrs. Trouble-making Linden who sole role is drain the pockets out of every resident and make their life a very expensive prim addicting hobby.
Then I put on my tinfoil hat and laugh.
As residents we can choose where we spend our money, who we buy from or don't, we can focus on our friendships, on skills we already have and gain in manifesting almost anything our imaginations can think of....
Or we can focus on all the problems, the things that make us miserable just like real life.

Simple answer to the adfarm problem: make the smallest subdivision of a parcel be 512sq.m

Has anyone actually done a survey of adfarmers to find out if increasing the min parcel size would in fact deter them? I think we would just see adfarms on larger parcels.

I think it would deter them if they had to pay more tier. Maybe tier should be done in reverse increments below 512, maybe 512 is free but if its 448 you have to pay an extra $5/mo, incrementally until you have to pay $200 for a 16, or more tier should have to be paid if one owns land under the size of 512 on more than one sim.

And why shouldn't an adfarmer have enough locations to benefit from the discount of a higher tier and group bonus. Adfarmers can be land barons too.

At the very lease we need to determine how much land the average adfarmer has. That will give us some idea about if this plan will actually work.

They can under my scenario. They would just need to use bigger parcels to do it instead of chopping up land into 16m squares.

Well, hope, first off, I can say first hand, no, the Lindens are NOT clueless. I recently sat down and talked with Philip Linden for 40 minutes. During that time, we talked about alot of the issues you spoke of in your post, and believe me, he's well aware of all of them, and they are working towards a solution to the various problems that face Second Life. It really amazes me that people here in the forum simply conclude that Linden Lab is 'clueless' as to the issues, or simply doesn't care. Customer satisfaction is a key component to ANY business, and given Philip Rosdale's track record, I'd say he's got a pretty firm grip on that notion. You're all here aren't you? So there must be some level of customer satisfaction that keeps you coming back.

On the issue of copybot Hope, tell me, what solution do you have in mind? Speak clearly, because Linden Lab, the graphics community, and the software industry as a whole is paused and leaning in to hear your solution. Content theft is not unique to Second Life. People steal textures off of websites all the time. Left click disabled? Big deal, my Printscreen button works just fine, and a few minutes in Photoshop and I have the textures. People hot link to information all the time as well, and warez sites provide cracked copies of the latest software packages out there from operating systems on down. The problem is always the same. Regardless of how much the data is secured, the key to unlock the data is there too, and hackers dig it out and unlock the data.

Watch Torley's latest video, then head in world and go visit the various Lindens during office hours and voice your concerns, but it's silly to join the crowd of whiners who hang out here and spew out silly assumptions with no basis in fact.


http://www.secondscripter.com/

There are many problems with SL and the resident caused ones are mostly related to people cheating the system. LL know about a lot of the scams that people are getting something for nothing, and are working on them. But I guess the sheer volume of shady people and the unlimited alt resources to them just make it damn hard to finger who is responsible for what with all the alt / group / land shuffling going on.
I would just like to hear announcements stating they acknowledge the problems, or even ask us if we can supply them with more information on them if they need it. Once they acknowledge a problem and say "look we don't know which course of action is best yet or we won't be able to fix this for a month or 2" then we have an answer we can spread amonst other residents as the questions arise.

My own thought was pretty much what Malachi say in post 3. I highly doubt LL sits around trying to intentionally think up ways of screwing people over. I can see however, were there might just be the teeny tiniest hesitation when it comes to "fixing" something that is beneficial in some ways. (before anyone throws a megaprim at me, I mean "beneficial" to LL). I'm sure they would love to be a phenomenal success based solely on the merits of what they've produced. Since that is as of yet a carrot still dangling .85 meters just out of reach, I do believe they carefully consider what to prioritize...and what NOT to prioritize. But "clueless"? Highly unlikely.

On an aside: The *only* way to stop adfarming, is when the *advertisers* stop investing in it. The more people gripe about the ads...the more it *validates* it is an effective ploy. If the ads are not getting across the bubble bursts (AllAdvantage anyone?). The best thing to do with adfarms is actually IGNORE them, in all senses of the word.

I haven't clicked on any for a long time, but most of the ones I clicked on 12 months ago were dead links, non existantant companies or big names used without the companies permission, a few RL companies I emailed about the problem didn't seem to care of course.

Ceka en Zaphod, thanks

When one follows the latest technology trends, it is very clear that the technique Second Life is based on, is going to rock in the future. It will not be the next internet, but a very important part of the way we will communicate.

Maybe I suggested in my writing that LL does not care at all about the current virtual world and its inhabitants, but that is not exactly my point. Probably they do care, but it is very important to understand the focus they have. Now we cannot be sure without them telling us, but in my opinion, that focus lies on further developing the current technique for the future. Even when they care about the current userbase, we are not their priority. We are , however, part of the development of a brand new technique that will play an important role in the future. And that is great on its own

When taking this into consideration, it is easy to understand what are their biggest worries. Sex did make the Word Wide Web what it is today, so it is important to have the sex industry involved. When publicity focusses on extremes like childsex, it might chase serious business opportunities away though. Because of that, I see them sooner put more and more restrictions on the sexual content, as zoning mainland for example. The latter does have no value at all for their commercial value in the future.

Biggest lesson to lean: We are not as impotrant as we think we are.