What does this comment on stipends mean?

Dang, rot13("Z" == "M". No wonder I can't keep them straight.

I'm a grandfathered pre 06/06/06.

I also believe this discussion came up before and it was decided that the only logical way for LL to make SL "teh intarwebz" was to do completely away with premium accounts. And also do away with tier... unless you're renting space from LL.

And the latter is why I don't think the idea will work.

Exactly. SL is a profit making product for SL, it can be part of "The New Internet" if that comes to pass one day. But no one entity owns The Internet since Al Gore gave it to us.

*nods* All hail the great Al Gore!

Honestly, there couldn't even be a centralized asset system, simply because hosting billions of people's inventories would require I'd say a computer farm the size of a medium sized nation. And imagine that clogging up the tubes!

Sadly, I think Phil's dream of SL replacing the 2D web browser is a bit of a pipe dream. It's a great social and creative platform though!

I don't see an elimination of stipend as a threat to existing premiums, but I do see it for future premium account holders, in phases - down to 200, down to 100, then nil. But there must be an increased benefit to go with that.

The most common suggestion is a bigger tier-free allotment of land, say, 1024. Actually, I think 768 would be sufficient, especially if they introduce more granularity in tier levels. I also suggest things like higher group bonuses, like 15 or 20%, for premium members vis-a-vis a player who is not premium. This assumes that LL would finally allow anyone to own land, versus just premiums.

Of course, I don't expect the premium restriction to go away so quickly, since it would have a deleterious effect on many estates.

It would surprise me a lot, if this was really something they cared about in any way.

-Atashi

The internet used to be limited to military and academic use. Al Gore proposed opening it up to commercial and personal use. So in a sense he did give it to us.

Speaking of which, Al Gore didn't claim to have invented the Internet, he claimed to have promoted it. This was turned into "invented" by some reporter, and that sound-bite just took off.

The Internet was actually invented by Mrs Marietta Cosmopolite, J.R.Licklider's landlady, during an altercation with the gardener over their sprinkler system. Licklider misunderstood her imprecations and went on to found the ARPAnet. If he had better hearing the Internet would have been a lot wetter and would have limited hours of usage during summer months.

Your stipend has gone down? Really? I'm a pre-06/06/06 premium, and I still get the $L300.

So far, they haven't reduced the stipend from the level it was when an account went premium. Wish I knew more about those Lifetime members, but I got in too late

Regardless of stated intentions, the company's actions on the ground under his stewardship have shown that the primary method of raising the value of one aspect is by lowering the value of other aspects.

Actions speak louder than words.

That would imply he intends to lower the value of Basic accounts, not Premiums.

Gotta keep the rabble-rousing *focussed*.

Only problem I have with that is that my land is owned by my shop's group. I like having my alt and my hubby's two, plus some friends who I brought in to be able to have a 'home' of sorts in my workshop.


Okay, it's not the only problem. You see, I'm a bit of a control freak too.

Not an outlandish idea. Right now, I am basic. I am not interested in "owning land", I doubt ever will be again, so becoming Premium again is unlkely. But if you now say that in order to use SL as I am now, I will have to take out a Premium Membership, it now puts the possibility closer in my mind. I'm sure some will simply walk away or just use the diminshed basic account, but a good majority will probably consider switching a bit more.

How it works is that you have a bot in your group that donates tier. You don't have to rent land from them.

Which is an excellent idea; cost-effective, and inoffensive to your current Premium Accounts.

Basic Accounts could be Free but with limited inventory and limited access- specifically to PG sims only.

Wouldn't that increase the value of Premium membership (without actually costing LL anything) while offering a sincere incentive to Basic members to upgrade?

Maybe basic accounts could be time-limited to a certain amount of hours per day, a generous amount (like . It would satisfy most human needs for SL and would stop 24/7 bot usage.

That sounds like a good idea to me.

Of course, if you can run a single bot, then you can also time-share three of them...

-Atashi

Or, limit the number of contiguous connections from a given IP to three for a household that has nothing but free accounts and 5 for those with at least 1 premium account and 1 more connection per each premium account on that IP?

Basics can log on every other Thursday except on weeks when there is a Full Moon, which will allow them to log in on Tuesday between 3 and 3:15 PM, unless there are 31 days in the month, which will mean they will be restricted to the 1st Wednesday after the first Monday, unless that Monday falls on an even numbered day, thereby creating a situation where they will be queued in reverse alphabetical order, except names beginning with vowels will have a seperate period of access.......

I don't mind losing the stipend, what i would like though is 1024m2 free of tier rather than the 512m2. Make use of those open spaces they ripped out from under us, if they are going to be reusing them for linden land.

It means us Premiums will get a 50% discount on tier!

sounds good to me, more land for our premium payments please, I mean after all L$300 what good is that anyway, my left shoe cost more than that lol, but more land, now that... we can use

I don't think giving more for the same money is something LL is interested in.

Increasing the value of Premium by giving less for Basic seems much more likely, regardless of what that less turns out to be.

Heck they could even phase out stipends altogether at that point and would still have something tangible to offer for Premium membership (grandfathering in exsisting stipends, of course, as a 'thank you' for their disenfranchised 'early adopters')

After the openspace sim announcements, I think this is the likely scenario!

Premium will look at lot better to us when we get a lot less for Basic membership.

Kinda sorta like how manufacturers are decreasing package sizes and charging the same price at the grocery store.

I can't wait for the drama it will spawn. Smug , elitist Premiums vs whiny, self entitled Basics.......... Every thread will be a Friday thread.