Analogy

All the more power to those who feel they have privilege to access SL due to their status as a premium account, or lifetime account, or even payment info used account.

Just for reference, my account is premium, and has been for almost 2 years (this coming August). I pay annually, and pay tier on about 1/8 sim worth of land (spread out a bit, mind you). I don't run a business, I gladly give copies of anything I've built to just about anyone who asks, and am ashamed to take money when someone offers.

Why? Because I have been given the chance to create and explore and enjoy a world that doesn't have the limits of our regular world...I really do adore what SL can offer.

Do I think some of the things that Linden Lab allows is messed up? Most certainly.
Do I think that if another offering comes along, that can successfully address the issues that I believe LL is foolishly not acknowledging / fixing / modifying, that the new offering will steal away much of SL's business, perhaps even my own? Most certainly.
Do I think the rather sad excuse they seem to offer for customer service, or the lack thereof, could potentially be one of their biggest downfalls? Most certainly.
Do I sit in the corner and twitch while the grid is down, relaunching the viewer, clearing cache, and re-launching it every 1.625 minutes? Most cert...well...no, I won't admit to that one.

If it came down to merely a question of customer service, then perhaps an analogy of LL and McD's could happen...but it's still a far, far cry from an apt analogy.

I'd almost think it's more likely that a ticket selling agency, with exclusive rights to sell tickets to something like the Superbowl or PGA tournament, would be an apt analogy.

If the customer service for that organization sucks, people will scream and yell, but put up with it if they want the tickets.
And they'll keep coming back if the same organization has the exclusive rights year after year...screaming and yelling all the way through.

However, someday, there may be the chance that some other agency may just get the right to sell those tickets, and if that happens, the agency with crappy service may find themselves extinct.


Is that any better as an analogy?

My RL alt used to work in a shopping mall. There was a Taco Bell in the food court, and during some times of heavy business, the Taco Bell would sometimes close an hour or so early, because they had "run out of meat". A logical enough reason, given the business they pulled in and the small size of the particular store; except that the beginning of the next day, they would be open for business again. Since there are no store employees in the mall when it's closed, they could not have gotten a delivery in the overnight hours.

I suspect, if one looked closely, one would've found that this "running out of meat" always happened on one particular manager's shift.

Ah, well.

Mmmm you are using a different analogy to show why the first one is wrong. I have to admit I don't agree with your analogy either.

There is a big difference between a positive spin and false advertising. False advertising is never excusable. In many cases, false advertising amounts to criminal fraud, or the basis of civil liability.

So does Linden Labs's advertising of Second Life as a business platform resemble the fast food chain advertising a burger by showing a freshly made burger in its television ads? Or does it more resemble Big Tobacco secretly injecting cigarettes with addictive substances and suppressing medical studies about the cigarettes it promoted?

Just food for thought. (Pardon the cliche.)

Depends what you mean by invested. I have a modest amount of land, am premium, have a business but it is still a leisure activity and these are my leisure dollars. If SL went *poof* tomorrow I would be more sad at the sudden withdrawl than the money spent. Then I would move on to some other leisure activity.

It is probably simillar to the internet service or cable tv service. So it is a like a utility. They don't promise you anything accept that they will do their best to provide service.
So the things that LL says you can do - you can do - when the service is running correctly. Which they will endeavour to provide as best they can. Anyone who expects that to be 99.99999% of the time is deluding themselves.
How many unhappy people are there with other utilitiies?

I am retracting my earlier comment about false advertising. I am using the stuff you printed up there as reference:
Linden Labs advertises:


I can honestly say I know or know of someone that applies to each of these claims. So they are right about these claims. The one that was dodgy was the owning of virtual land. They have changed that and nobody challenged them in court about it anyway.

People pass around the thought of LL getting sued more then comparing SL to WOW around here. Who has sued them? One person. If LL is so prime for lawsuits where are the lawyers that would take cases for no upfront fees because they surely would make a big name for themselves if they won.

Yep, if another VW came about there would likely be tons of people flocking to it. Right now that is just not an option though. So I guess it is a matter of passing on the tickets for now and waiting for the better band to come through on tour, not wait online in the rain for a show you think sucks.

Oh, I love analogies...

If Microsoft made cars...


1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.

12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.


http://www.secondscripter.com/

Now Johan... you may be on to something.

We can substitute Linden Lab or Second Life for some of those and that almost..almost gives the bus analogy legs to stand on.

The best analogy was made long ago - SL is like a crack addiction.

Ah.. but I can render that bunk.

A crack seller will take your money. How many posts did you see where LL's billing was so screwed up they couldn't even take payments for the service! ROFL

Linden Labs has some liability problems, but you don't see a lot of lawsuits because the stakes are too low for any one individual resident.

To take a case on a contingent fee basis, there has to be a huge expected payoff from winning a case. To draw a reference from personal injury cases, any case worth less than five figures isn't worth it for a lawyer to litigate in a contingent fee basis. And on the low end of five figures, it'd better be a darn sure case. And then I'd guess that there might be a little more complexity involved with the lawsuit scenario we're discussing with Linden Labs, than there is with a garden variety personal injury case.

Lawyers got to have their fees, so there needs to be a high payout waiting at the end of the case for it to be worth pursuing. More than a few hundred dollars, more than a few thousand dollars.

You won't see this kind of thing litigated unless someone gets burned for five figures or more, and the person getting burned has a clean case (done nothing wrong themselves, taken every precaution), has documented their facts from the beginning, and actually finds a good lawyer ready to take this kind of case.

Or you might see it litigated by someone unusually litigious, who has a lot of extra time and money to burn, and the thrill of litigation overcomes the financial insensibility of the case. Though the unusually litigious rarely come up with.

I wouldn't be surprised too if anyone spending something on the magnitude of five figures or more investing in Second Life is getting special attention and advice from Linden Labs.

Of course there is a lot of talk on the forums about suing Linden Labs for this, that, or the other. A lot of that talk is misguided, because it comes from the thought that, "Linden Labs sucks, and if they suck, I can sue them for that." That an entity sucks is not a basis for a lawsuit.

First one is free?

All good thoughts and points in your post.

I wonder if someone like Anshe ever called them up and made a threat. She would qualify in spades in your thoughts.

I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall if ever that has or will happen.

Good.. because just like SL it may be free to start but it costs us in the long run.

Yup sure does...O.o linkage with my leisure money post too - do I get a prize?

someone mentioned KFC, those diptards are always out of food 10 min after 5 and get pissy with you cause you came in and ordered, three have closed in our city in the last 9 months ~ a year so they will be dead soon

anyway back to the MCD's, i rarley experience issues during peak times at ours, at lunch...

theres the skinny kid who has a disability which could effect his performance, but he works his ass off, made manager and will probably be owning his own in the next few years

some middle aged people who have been around long enough to know what its like to be pissed off at lunch due to a burger doodle not having their act together

and some fresh high school grads who are already in management training, probally cause they dont want to be at burger doodle forever

i wish LL worked like that!

unfortunately LL works like the night crew, we forgot where we put the fries, we forgot your order, we charged you wrong and took 8 min to give me back 35 cents, and after almost 15 min you get a damn burger thats not even on the bun but a nicley prepared cheese n ketchup paper wrapper

Every business has the published phone number for the general line meant for regular customers, and an unpublished number for a special line meant for the most valued customers. I'd be surprised if Anshe did not have the latter number.

I'd be surprised if she didn't have her own Linden.

Someone did post on another forum about an "Enterprise" level of support.
Ah, found it.. it was at SLU:


http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/12680-enterprise-level-support.html

I wonder if there is an even higher level for someone of her magnitude?

Yes.. a chance for you to provide linkage to your leisure money shot.

Oh wait, that is if Damien and I win.

That's the one where they pick up the phone and say...

"Can I take your order, please?"

I had analogy once, but it cleared right up with antihistamines

"Would you like to super-size your account for just $9.95 per month?"

Yeah analogy works if Maccas were offering free burgers to everyone and every cardboard cutout that looks like a person or everytime you changed shirt and hats to look like another person.

You wait in the car line at Mac Donalds and you finally get up to the speaker and you order some fries.


The voice says: "can you please visit our blog where we explain how we inadvertently lost all our fries?, but please pay first

---pay us in money we sold you----

We are working hard to get those fries back and we will get them to you soon."

So you pay and then wait to get to the pickup window. Finally you get there and the employee says, "Sorry, can you come inside please and make those fries yourself?"

Youa re shocked but drive through and park your car and go inside. They hand you some potatoes from a supermarket and give you a peeler and a knife to cut the fries. You figure, why not I am hungry?"

Suddenly a robot appears out of no where and grabs the fries and runs off.

You peel more potatoes and cut them and put them in the deep fryer. This time you are careful so no one can take them. You put them in a container and start to leave, when suddenly someone vomits on your fries. You are shocked again. You speak to the counter staff and they tell you "We do not get involved in customer disputes. You can submit a letter to the company if you want more fries."

So you go home and write a note to the company and never hear a thing about it again.

You go on the Mac Donals forum and tell the story and the fourm people, tell you it is your fault and you should not blame MacDonalds---and you can sue the person who vomited on your fries.

.....And if you don't like it, don't eat here! AND THEY START THROWING PIES.

Oh yeah and then when a customer who wants to come and and make fries can't do so, because the store is so full of other people who aren't really customers but just LOITERING (OMG) that she can't even open the door, and she complains about it to the staff and they LOCK THE DOORS AHHHHH!!!!!