Grats to all those using Openspace as intended

I agree it's not necessary. None of it is. But by paying for the home and the full sim plot, they might not be able to afford both, especially if sales are not brisk.

I'm sure they can adjust. If they have homes on other land, then simply giving up the OS sim and moving the business to a full sim plot will do nicely. If the home is on the OS sim, then spending the same money of a full sim plot, with the same number of prims will also do nicely, even if it means the home or store being in the sky.

All I am saying is that those who claim they will have to close their store down now are just complaining for the sake of it. They don't have to close anything down. They just want the nice environment and the idea of owning a whole island. It's LL's fault for it coming to this, but the idea that the changes will make it necessary to close a store down, is wrong.

Well my partner abandoned his OS and moved his business back to his small mainland lot. Our other business that we were trying to develop has been scraped at the moment. Our home is on my OS which very likely will be abandoned and moved to my equally as small mainland quarters. We are thinking the tier we will save over the next 4 or 5 months would goes toward purchase of our on island sim. However, I am gravely concerned the tier on these as rumored will go up as well. If that is the case, I hope and pray the increase will be announced prior to us obtaining our own island sim.

At least I got to enjoy my OS since 6/08. My partner sadly only for a short time and he is very sick over this. We haven't even been married 2 whole weeks. This is just a hot funky mess.

I would ignore the rumours because that's all they are - people saying that they wouldn't be surprised if LL is planning to put other prices up, but nobody has any inside information. They may go up or down in the future, or they may stay as they are now for a long time.

Having said that, it's good to only put money into land if most or all of it can be written off if things go the wrong way. The tier is written off automatically as a pleasure expense - when a month's tier has been paid, it's been used for that month's pleasure and it's gone. So, even if the tier goes up, the pleasure of the land has been used for the months that it was owned, and at least some of the initial cost of the land can be recovered.

Well, when you position it like that, I suppose you are right and that does make me feel somewhat better. A full sim would better suit our needs. That way, we can have our home, the businesses and possibly rent 1/4th of it. Sometimes, you have to take 2 steps back to go one step forward.

If you're willing to consider a full sim pleasure expense, that is certainly the way to go. My feeling is that this is exactly what many used the openspaces for; they hit a sweet spot where people felt they could write them off that way, whereas an island (or even the new homesteads) is seen as major investment which needs to be run as a business to offset some of the cost, which is just not what many are here in SL for.

Our OS futurely known as homesteads (we have 2 between us) is now viewed as a major investment with 7000 prims between us and on separate sims. Initially, my intent was purely social when I joined sl. But having been here almost 3 years now, my interest has evolved into owning my own business. My husband and I knew our needs were going to change and we factored that in our plans such as consolidation and the need for more prims. But, just not quite so soon. I can certainly respect existing business owners concerns/complaints that all of sudden they have to adjust, change or scrape their business models altogether. My husband and I haven't got off to a start yet and we are radically changing things. But, better to know now and as we maybe better off in the long run.