Basic Membership = Illegal Alien

I can agree and disagree on that.

Yes you have rights as basic member, absolutely. But on the other hand, if supporttickets get available for free members as well, then there is 1 less reason to become a premium.
In all cases where you can choose between free or premium, there are benefits for premiums, and in almost all cases that also aplies to support in any form.

SL is sometimes a cruel world, for instance maintance is done in mornings and afternoons so people can log in in evenings... ehm wait a minute... hold on a sec... that means for this premium member, that SL is for maintance offline in the evenings a lot, because somehow, LL thinks in their own local times. Wich for me as european means their daytime maintance is happening in my evening hours.

I think Linden Labs should consider a few things, first, make some kind of decent support available to basic members. Basic member - basic support, premium member - premium support.

And they need to start thinking global, instead of local.

As for the buying of L$, well, you can sell them as well. you can make money here without putting in a cent of RL money. And even make a RL profit here as free member.

The fees you pay are same as in RL. Soon I go on a trip, to Canada. Then I need to change some euro's into CAD. Means gonna cost me some fees too... so does that give me a claim on Canada? Although a lovely idea, but I will just be a guest traveling there.

I do not see it as buying L$, I see it as exchange just as I need to exchange from Euro to CAD.

Since the claim is "we buy L$ so we deserve support", you can substract the value of the stipends since they're buying L$ anyway and what's left over would be how much access to support would effectively cost them.

Premium: $9.95 / $22.5 / $72
Stipend value: $4.92 / $14.75 / $59
Cost of support/month: $5.03 / $2.58 / $1.08

Anyone can get support for as little as $1/month, if they refuse to pay even that there's really nothing else to do.

Fascinating, Chip

First off - I'd think that Estate Landlords offering Support through their own channels could be a value-add that'd further help differentiate what one landlord offers over another. So perhaps there's actually an opportunity there

Secondly - Hypothetically speaking, say Linden decided to create a seperate tier structure for those who wanted support vs. those that don't. Or even better, simply charged an ala-carte fee for support, and reduced other charges appropriately to make it net zero for premium/concierge folks.

I wonder how many folks would actually pay for it (assuming the total charge wasn't more than premium/concierge members are paying today). If that number was low, I wonder if LL would see that as an indictment of the support system itself

NO WE aren't. Basic Members are legal residents of SL, LL allows for the creation of free accounts. RL Illegal Aliens, are in the Country ILLEGALLY, hence the title. I am a recently downsized basic member. After a year pf premium, I felt what use I was getting out of SL didn't equal the expense. The pennies I give LL through buying Lindens, and by shopping and paying my landlord each month are about what I think they deserve.

That being said, I agree that people who pay more should get better service, the level of Premium service being inadequate, in my opinion not withstanding. Let's not get all hystrerical here. Equating SL Basics to Real Life Illegals is like equating SL BDSM/GOR to RL Slavery.

That all depends Wilhelm. Yes in the USA, the highest tax brackets get quite a bit from the government. The ones in the middle don't even get a kiss or a tube of KY, and the ones at the bottom get way more than they contribute for. Add in those who broke the law coming here and Lindal is exactly right.

I just find it interesting that $72 a year sounds so expensive. Thinking about the equipment required to run SL, the people to support it, and the families they have to feed... It doesn't seem half bad. Really, entertainment wise, that's about 10 bad movies on DVD or a months worth of boring cable TV. Considering how many hours can be spent in SL being entertained, premiums are getting tons of bang for the buck. (^_^)

I'm still on the $9 I used to buy L$ when I started. I'm leeching monies off of people who are willing to buy the stuff I make and some more from the different contests and competitions I enter. So I still don't plan on going premium any time soon. (^_^)

Uh, practically speaking, I think Basics are way better off without support, than to get in line behind Premiums. At least it saves the trouble of entering a support ticket that is certain to never get to the front of the queue.

Unless of course the idea is to increase the support capacity. In which case, either tier and estate fees go up (and thus so goes rent), or everybody pays membership fees. I honestly don't know which of those would be preferable, or if there are some who'd still like the option of the current lower rents and free membership. Actually, my hunch is there'd still be some who'd prefer the lower-cost, lower-service alternative.

I can't even hear the argument that those who pay a monthly fee for purchasing mainland reasons are entitled to special treatment. I've contacted LL many many times and have received prompt service and I don't own a stitch of mainland.

To say that those who do not own mainland are any less privledged or lower class is such a obnoxious statement.

As well as lots of basic members who make a significant positive contributiton to the SL experience, there are certainly premium members who have a negative effect.

I'm thinking particularly of those who sign up for a year's premium, buy a bit of land, rez a few bits of junk and make a plywood wall or something and then give up, leaving a blighted piece of land.

Having said that, I feel that LL can't exist on thin air alone and it's the paying members who presumably provide most of their income. I appreciate SL enough to feel happy to pay for my tenure. LL don't need to offer free membership, other than perhaps on a temporary try-out basis, so I think people are lucky that it is available.
Those of us who do pay are entitled to something a little more than what basic members get.

One can't blame LL for encouraging residents to go premium, it's their bread and butter. I was a basic member for about a month then I upgraded. I don't think basic members are particularly discriminated against because they can always upgrade to premium if they want to.

Not to mention, the weekly stipend covers the majority of the expense...it works out to something like $58-59 per year on the current 300L/week scheme, so the membership ends up costing $13 or $14 for the year. And older avs actually make a few dollars on their stipends.

Actually, OP, I think Basic Members are closer to Resident Aliens than Illegal Aliens.

In the U.S., resident aliens--like my parents--are here legally, but choose not to be citizens. They are held to the same tax laws as citizens, spend their money here, own land and houses, and are just as likely to be contributing members of the community as are citizens. Resident aliens can have high paying jobs and thus can pay more in taxes than citizens with lower paying jobs. But they are still not citizens, so they cannot vote, serve on juries, etc. They cannot write their local government representative and ask for help because they don't have representatives; they are not members of the body politic. They have no voice in government, no say in how their taxes are spent, because they are not citizens.

Certainly those with basic memberships contribute financially and otherwise to SL. But, following your analogy, as long as they elect not to be premium members/full citizens, I see no real ethical problem with denying them direct access to LL/the government.

I came to the conclusion long ago that there is no technical support when I was premium. Tickets sit in the basic system and the premium system, but hey if they want to get rid of the clients not helping basic members is a pretty sure fire way of doing it since its mostly basic members keeping those landlords in business I'm sure that LL enjoys selling those private sims and collecting monthly hosting fees from them. If they want to dump members because they earn their money two ways from the Lindex and then get the money back then that's their choice. However if you want to look to the future of linden labs as hosting company which is the direction they are taking then it would be nice of the browser they use etc was supported. Heck microsoft gives away its browser free in order to entice people to pay for more microsoft stuff. For some reason though when it comes to LL the concept of supporting software that they made goes out the window.

Now today I can't even get the loading screen to load so today I guess the land baron doesn't get paid even though they should be. So that's 48 bucks less that LL is making today. How many others are not paying today because the browser seems to be stuck on loading.

Your approach is simplistic but the reason I dumped the premium membership is because they weren't really helping premiums either. My financial inpout into the game however has not changed in fact I think its gone up. As the 48 is just one plot of land. I have others...now.. but to me my basic fee is the big chunk I own to play on as I do use second life for recreation this is not me trying to earn money to feed my 20 startving children. However I am a consumer that is "consuming" . Maybe LL should just stop hosting sims now and close their doors and maybe they should just stop making browsers that run with this platform cause essentially they are not supporting their product since the bulk of users are not premium members because the mainland is a hellhole ..

I received two replies to a ticket yesterday...one for the initial question, and then another to my response. And I'd only put the ticket in a few hours before.

I won't say I loved the answer, but they are trying. *shrug*

We are the ones who shell out directly to the company. If you got great service as basic, great! But if push comes to shove you get to the back of the line. People who own land - by owning an estate, or by owning a plot of mainland - we are invested in the company. We have a higher level of commitment. It's great that PIOF members contribute to the economy but it doesn't necessarily sustain the company. Yes, basics are important, but no, you don't come first.

I and other have been blowen off by LL so saying they will help..no they dont most times.
Being a non-paying customer is WAY better off right now.. maybe the new ceo and cto will start replacing some Lindens that need to be.. but dont count on it intell ya see it happening

Depends on how it's implemented. Maybe have a smaller, non-premie, support team, that does freebie ones, which would obviously be slower.

Or, do doable support tickets for a given day by a certain date, regardless of premie or not, but still with premies done first.

I'm just overcomplicating things, but I want SOME form of support durnit

I haven't heard a single person in this thread say anything of the kind. I'd go so far as to say that basic members are more priveledged, since everything you do get you get for free, and that's almost everything that a premium member gets, minus the land. If you want land you can even get that if you care to rent, often for much less than you could get the same amount of land owning it directly. This isn't a class thing, and casting it as one is a bit silly.

They're not? Then who can I look down on?
For cryin' out loud, LL! I'm a Concierge level resident. I DEMAND SPECIAL TREATMENT!

You've got that title.

'Concierge Level Resident'

That'd be enough for me, but no, for you you gotta get a free all-gold monitor, 84000 inches, and flatter 'n' a pancake, yeah?

Snooty piece uh....err...HI! How are you today?

They could charge for basic support tickets, say give one or two free ones a year then charge you a small amount afterward.

Well if nothing else I'm glad I got the community into a good discussion.

I do want to clarify that I've never expected to get special treatment here. I'm not looking for a concierge level or premium level to sit on the phone 1/2 hour while I'm taking up tech support's time. Not at all. However, even a ticket would be nice to submit.

Of course the general feedback in here is that the ticket is not really worth submitting because it takes so long (some of you have had quick responses though).

Personally I'd see benefit to "contributing" more and in a direct way to the Lindens if I saw some reason to. Even when things were running 'good' it wasn't great. Crashes still happened when things were considered to be stable. Lag issues. Not being able to log in issues. Way too frequent for something that I'd be willing to shell out a monthly or annual fee for.

If things turn around I'll gladly pull the annual plan. But I still think we are all customers of LL in a way and should all get some type of support.

A lot of you seem to be quite heated in this discussion as well. I can attribute this to my sarcastic post that started it. I do like a discussion but let's all be respectful to each other. You never know when we might run into one another inworld. btw..if you do see me in there say Hello! (and that would mean something got fixed and I can join you all again!!! LOL)

Personally, I'd actually be fine with that.. in my time here on SL, I've used two support tickets. One to get my daily trading limits upped on Oki Rayna (When I was buying land), and one for my 'stuck avatar' incident.

2-3 a year free should be enough for the average user it seems, unless you're doing some odd things (Which..well..then you're not the average user)

Then maybe hell.. a buck or so per ticket? Buck fiddy?

You can file a trouble ticket. Just went through this yesterday on hubby's account. You DO have to provide them with the email address you signed up with, and say it's a Special Question on Basic Account, and then state what the problem is.

Doesn't mean they'll actually respond in a prompt fashion, but you can submit.

You mean like tech support?

Ahhh ok cool.. so there is still basic account support, it's just gonna be as slow as it always has

/me nods wisely