Tier = land taxes?

It's not misleading.

It has the little tiny number 3 and 4 by it and the text for the tiny number 4 says "Premium signup bonus is granted to new registrations only. You will receive your signup bonus 45 days after the signup date, assuming your credit card has been accepted." How is that misleading?

Well, since I've been told told several different things, from the bonus is no longer offered to you must be referred by a current resident to receive it. I say many people are confused by the way it is written.

I'll be honest, I completely missed the fine print, thank you for pointing it out.

My next question is why is it in fine print? So people won't see it? Lets be honest, that's the only reason fine print is ever used. Ask any lawyer.

It should say scroll down for more info by those tiny, tiny numbers.

Actually, "Land Tax" is a fairly accurate term to describe tier. In the United States, homeowners are assessed property tax, which is an amount, assessed dependent on property value, a municipality (city, county, state, etc.) charges on a recurring basis (usually annually) to help pay for services such as police, fire protection, sewer systems, water treatment, road maintenance, electricity for street lights, and so on. Different municipalities have different ways of assessing property tax, and some may have alternate means available which eliminates property-owner liability (most counties in the State of Nevada, for example, get their funding from casino licenses, which allows them to waive property taxes entirely).

So, in essence, tier fees are analogous to land (property) taxes in that landowners are assessed a flat amount based on the quantity (value) of their holdings, and these fees are used to pay for the supporting infrastructure upon which the property depends.

The one thing I do NOT agree with is the concept of land purchases. When you buy a plot of land, or even buy an entire island - what are you purchasing, exactly? Answer: Not a fucking thing! You are not purchasing any hardware, since these already exist - and you don't get to keep the hardware when you're done playing, so someone else gets to "buy" it when you're done - at the same price you paid. You don't own *anything*. Miss a tier payment, and watch your "purchase" disappear. This practice places tier fees on the same level as extortion: "If you forget to pay up, Johnny-boy here will make your property disappear. Capice?" So you only get to "own" something as long as you keep paying for it - over and over and over!

If *I* pay a thousand dollars for a private island in SL, then I want the server hardware when I leave!

Actually, there are two bonuses and they are both still in effect:
1) If you sign up as premium when you first sign up your account, then in 45 days you will get L$1000 -- this one is still going.
2) If you refer someone, and they upgrade to premium then you would get a bonus as follows: L$500 when they hit their second billing cycle, L$500 a month later and L$1000 a month after that.

You compared the Tier to the US property tax. Compare the buying of land to buying land in the US. What do you really have? A place you can put a house on, etc... If you fail to pay your property taxes, watch how fast that land and house get taken from you. So you only get to "own" it as long as you keep paying for it over and over and over!!!

LittleMe Jewell,

So since I signed up with a basic account first, then upgraded, I don't get the bonus? Do I understand correctly?

Thanks.

Well, if you were willing to pay $25-30K for the island (one quarter of the purchase price of a high performance server) and then pay the electrical fees, maintenance on hardware and software and licensing fees, plus heat and light for the building housing the hardware and software, you might have a valid case for taking the hardware with you when you leave.

Given the specs that LL describes their servers having, $3-5000 is probably closer to the total server cost, including their share of the rack... which matches up pretty much with what they charge for the hardware. The island fees at $295 a month are WAY high compared to rental of a similar portion of a shared server, which cover electrical fees, colo facilities, hardware and software maintainance, and there are no software licensing fees on Linux and Squid and Mysql. ... I'm paying for hosting for my own (personally owned and built) server myself and it's a LOT lower than that.

every game server colocation ive been a part of stipulated that i purchase a particular rack unit, and at the end of the deal i got to keep the unit!

Well, because you pay tier you already pay for the ercurring fees, so that part has got nothing to do with having a valid case to take the hardware.

Not what kind of dollars are you talking about here if I may ask so? Not US$ I may hope? Because that would make a server cost 100K????? Now I do not know what kind of hardware you think the SL servers run on, but for sure no 100K servers As far as I know its XEON machines with a whopping 4GB of ram and a single SATA disk. Available for less then 2000 euro. No hgh performance stuff is used for our sims

The only way to make a valid case though, is to have 4 sims, because it is difficult to bring 1/4 server with you at your way out. Imagine 4 sims.. paying US$ 1180 each month for the costs you mentioned, and payed $US 4000 for a server that probably Dell sends over for half that price

Agreed.

I have a premium account because it has a high stipend that pays for the account over the course of a year plus pays me back around $US25. I flip the free 512 I get and over the year just flipping one 512 over and over will net me an additional $30US.

If nothing else, it's nice to have a plot to call your own, put down a little Japanese tea house and TP into when you first log in.

Plus you can get a 512 for around L$1200 right now.

Except when you accidentally 'set home' to right outside your little house, and then, crash while changing clothes, and log back in naked outside in front of your neighbors.

You actually saw other avatars on a Mainland sim? Wow.

That is correct.

Yes, that is the way I understand it.

Well, that seems very unfair to exclude costumers who "demo" the sim first. It's also a great way to insult the basic user. I played for free for few days before upgrading so that excludes me from any premium perks?

That's just illogical. LL needs to hire some Vucans it seems.

I don't know about other parts of the country, but around here, it's very, very slowly. Typically if you owe taxes on a residence, all that happens is that a municipal lien is put on the property, allowing the town to collect the back taxes when the property is sold. It's one of the benefits of very small, hence very accountable local governments.

This isn't as true for non-residential property, nor do I know whether personal residences are currently protected against seizures from the IRS or state income taxes, but for property taxes, the local tax collector exercises a great deal of discretion.

That is not, however, a true statement. I upgraded one of my accounts to Premium after it had been open for a couple of weeks and 45 days later I got the L$1000 (actually, I think it was really L$1200).

Treasure....where did you say you lived?

You lucked out. LL seems to do this sporadically...especially if you upgrade just days after opening your Basic Account and then plead with them to be generous and happen to catch the ear of Sympathetic Linden.

I have heard a few people say that this happened to them.

Good deal

Jackie, this happened on my Mainland parcel, on Whitesun, which is right adjoining Allana where the Forum Hangout is. I have a big resort in front of my parcel, 'Tamar'. The owner has made his big mega prim wall transparant for me, so it looks like the whole resort is my front yard. There are often people there, those were the 'neighbors' I referred to when I crashed and logged back in, naked. sigh.