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Introducing T Linden. What would you do to improve Premium subscriptions?

LittleMe Jewell
...........
Join date: 8 Oct 2007
Posts: 11,319
11-22-2008 10:52
From: T Linden
.... eliminating premiums seems unlikely to bring about Resident delight.
This is very very true, but I am not sure that all of LL upper management realizes this or really cares. Part of the issue is that we, the common Residents, are not really sure that we matter much anymore.

I do think that LL needs to keep some sort of Premium account and also encourage retention of those Premium accounts. I also think that it needs to be done in a way that does make money for LL and gives us the feeling that we are getting something for our supportive membership.

Out of everything that we have all written, I think the biggest money maker for LL is the restructuring of the Tier system. Tier and Land Sales are where LL makes their money -- not on the actual membership fee. Many of us just prefer to increase our land holdings a little at a time -- but we all do get hooked and a large majority of us do continue to increase. So make those little jumps in land possible and ultimately LL will get more money in Tier. And definitely allow the 'buy a Homestead without having to own a sim first' -- this really will make LL more money in the long term.

Other than that biggie financial item, I think LL should toss in some feel-good fringe benefits. Things like increased number of groups, if it can be done fairly simply. Adding in some sort of longevity perks - increased free tier sounds like one of the options that would keep people the most, and it does not have to be an 'every year' type thing. Throw in some free or reduced uploading. The idea of a few LL owned sandboxes that only Premiums can use is definitely another one of those feel-good things that should not really cost LL much.

Many of the Premiums are content creators, but many of us are not. Please keep that in mind when coming up with what 'perks' you might give us.

Truthfully, an increase in stipend is neither here nor there to me -- it is too small of an amount to really matter. I do think you should keep a stipend in place - it does help to sell the Premium when you can calculate the stipend in and tell people that by committing to a fully year, it is really only costing them $1 USD per month.



From: Starfire Desade
... or regularly scheduled popup ads that must be clicked or you are logged out.
This is a great way to force the bots to at least be Premium to help pay for the resources they consume, but it might be a big negative for the newbie that is just trying to camp overnight and earn a few bucks while sleeping - I'm not really sure if that is a good thing or not.
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Eirynne Sieyes
PrimPlay Owner
Join date: 15 Oct 2005
Posts: 59
premium account sellers
11-22-2008 10:55
It would help greatly reduce theft in my opinion of anybody selling items here had to be a premium account holder.

Now we have a measure of accountability vs. the newly minted copybot alt who sells today, is gone tomorrow.
T Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 30 Sep 2008
Posts: 19
11-22-2008 10:56
From: Atashi Toshihiko
T Linden - thanks for continuing to read the posts and replying to them. Even if you aren't preparing to announce anything, can you give us an ETA on an ETA? By which I mean... do you have any form of timeline or agenda, for decisions / announcements? Will you have some decisions by the end of the year? Q1/09? Or is this just testing the water, without any actual mandate or agenda?

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

-Atashi


Atashi, we are in the preliminary stages here. We have a timeline to gather requirements and feedback, but we do not have an implementation schedule when you might see changes.

Given all of the things that we *could* do (not just for premiums, but across the whole spectrum of second life), we need to make sure that a) we are utilizing our scarce resources effectively b) we are confident that any change we might make would make a positive impact c) that in the grand scheme of everything, it is the best use of our time and energy.

So, yes, that's a caveat around us making a commitment...
T Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 30 Sep 2008
Posts: 19
11-22-2008 11:00
From: Kate Sakai
Thank you T for accepting our suggestions and criticisms with grace and humor, both go a long way with your customers. I hope you enjoy being a part of our Second Lives :)

P.S.
Any chance of the alpha texture bug ever being fixed? (had to get a builder's pet peeve in there:))

-Kate Sakai


Hi - sorry to say that I don't know the answer to this. Bug fixes and bug triage is something I have yet to dig into. But it's logged in the old noodle.
Dana Hickman
Leather & Lace™
Join date: 10 Oct 2006
Posts: 1,515
11-22-2008 11:00
From: River Ely
Like I said, why live on mainland?

ok, show me a regular prim, 8192m private island that I can wholly own and pay LL for, and I'll ecstatically move today.
Renting on an estate defeats the purpose of owning, AND of premium account.
Homestead is too big and costly.
OS4 is crippled and out of the question.
Current OS2 is the closest, but still too big and a little bit too costly.

I don't already own an island...
*sound of toilet flushing that pipedream away*
ArchTx Edo
Mystic/Artist/Architect
Join date: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,993
11-22-2008 11:09
One of the few significant "benefits" to premium members is the ability to buy land on the mainland. However, the mainland is so out of control and poorly policed that land ownership there is considered undesirable by many. LL needs to do a better job of policing it and helping settle disputes there before it will become desirable for many.

You could make premium membership much more desirable by:

1. Provide premium members with assistance in dealing with resource abusers, such as malls that lag the sim with scripts and clubs that bring in so many people that land owners can't enter the sim where they own land and pay tier. A premium member should ALWAYS be able to enter the sim. Allocate sim resources (script time) based on land ownership so everyone gets their fair share.

2. Provide mainland owners with more of the same land management tools that are given to island owners.

3. Allow premium members to buy Homesteads. This would be a huge benefit. No longer would one have to worry about "renting" homesteads from a third party.

4. Provide smaller tier increase steps. Currently the huge jumps in tier payments discourage people from buying more land as buying even a small piece can result in a huge increase in tier.
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Yumi Murakami
DoIt!AttachTheEarOfACat!
Join date: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,860
11-22-2008 11:12
From: Gabriele Graves
Because I would be amongst the first to make a viewer that ripped them out again - grrr what is this wish of people to see endless products all the time? You want that go stare at the shopping channel or something *shakes fist*


Actually, one change that could be made is to only allow Premium accounts to log in with non-official clients. Linden builds of the official clients authenticate via RSA in the login sequence and the key isn't included in the open-source distributions. If the key is missing and the target account isn't Premium, the login won't complete.

This has the _major_ benefit that anyone who logs in with an abnormal client is guaranteed to have their name and address and payment info validated - so that using clients designed for griefing, like Shooped, becomes ineffective. (This was also the reason for having some Premium-only script features - not to penalise basic scripters, but to break the deadlock where some useful features can't be added because they might be abused and in SL as it stands, anyone can log in completely anonymously and in 2 minutes be running arbitary scripts on the server. No web host would allow that.. but that's also why we have to have pains in the ass like forced delays for e-mailing or changing prim shapes, which makes (for example) llSetLinkPrimitiveParams utterly useless)

But it has the side benefit that Nicholaz and RealRestraint start selling Premium memberships for you. And that's important.

Premium memberships should be designed so that resident created content drives premium memberships. Otherwise, as land rental has shown, residents will help others SIDESTEP the premium membership requirements. Give other residents a strong incentive to reward premium members, and they will, and then the rewards will exist across the board, with communities vying to be the best to get the incentives. (Letting premiums generate L$ dwell was one such example; or perhaps they could generate rating points that count up to earn a reward.) Or, perhaps L$ obtained from Premium members always sell first on LindeX. Or similar.. something that makes other residents want to support premiums.
Mimika Oh
Registered User
Join date: 5 Sep 2007
Posts: 23
11-22-2008 11:14
Get rid of it.

A lot of people propose a big bundle of random benefits all as "premium" benefits. But don't do that -- just sell the benefits individually to anyone who wants them.

So make an expanded group list a product/service I can subscribe to.

Special deals on land? They're just special deals on land. Why not sell to all?

And so on.

You will get more people buying things from you, and a more even society. No reason for special status.
Sindy Tsure
Will script for shoes
Join date: 18 Sep 2006
Posts: 4,103
11-22-2008 11:15
From: T Linden
Interestingly enough, there was a division on Stipends: some - Nimue Jewell, Sindy Tsure, Poppyseed Poppy, Viktoria Dovgal - didn’t really see the value in the convenience of stipends..

I was actually on the other side - I do think they're convenient.

I'm just not in the camp that wants more stipend. I figure that if you raise them to L$500/week, you're actually paying us to be premium and that leads to my tier or subscription cost going up.

As a suggestion, a parallel thread/poll on peoples top-5 JIRA issues, especially ones related to premium, might be a good idea. I didn't really see explicit mention of "fix bugs/implement enhancements" in your summary and there's a lot of customer pain documented in JIRA already.
WADE1 Jya
SL Pets Creator
Join date: 3 Dec 2006
Posts: 43
11-22-2008 11:19
From: someone
Originally Posted by Dolfke Barbosa
Well, a better Mac experience, for instance ?
Mac users are still second rang, second life viewers citizens ...

;-((


here here.... must we mac users live in a shadowless world?
ArchTx Edo
Mystic/Artist/Architect
Join date: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,993
11-22-2008 11:22
From: River Ely
Like I said, why live on mainland?



On the Mainland I own 33,280 SM, with 7605 prims and pay $125/month.
I own the land and can do ANYTHING I want with it.

In comparison -

a homestead would be 65,536 SM, with only 3750 prims for $125/month*

and dicey sim performance. I would have a landlord and be subject to their covenant, stability, etc.

*$95/mo starting in January
$125/mo starting in July
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Dilbert Dilweg
Loading....
Join date: 27 Jun 2006
Posts: 500
11-22-2008 11:32
Somehow i am seeing this is as an opportunity to raise prices on premium accounts. Im sure they are not going to give something for nothing.

My question would be .
If there is going to be more perks for premium accounts. Will the price be raised as well?
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Ceera Murakami
Texture Artist / Builder
Join date: 9 Sep 2005
Posts: 7,750
11-22-2008 11:37
From: Eirynne Sieyes
It would help greatly reduce theft in my opinion of anybody selling items here had to be a premium account holder.

Now we have a measure of accountability vs. the newly minted copybot alt who sells today, is gone tomorrow.
Nope. When First Land was being severely gamed, the bot runners were making 1-month Premium accounts left and right, using them to rape the system, and then dumping them before the second month's dues were payable. This proposal wouldn't stop them at all, and would punish thousands of innocent content creators by increasing their cost of operations to a degree that it would cease to be worth being a content creator, for many of them. Most content creators either make no profit at all, or make so little that any price increase would eliminate that profit.
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Talarus Luan
Ancient Archaean Dragon
Join date: 18 Mar 2006
Posts: 4,831
11-22-2008 11:43
From: Jannae Karas
Found T Linden in people search in world.


I'm happy for you. Truly. :rolleyes:

I get an annoying error message and have to page through Lindens alphabetically to find them.

If the search doesn't take single-letter names, then Lindens (who developed and support this "service";) need to not use them.

It isn't even allowed for residents to create single-letter first names, most likely for the same reason.

Yes, it would be nice for even the Lindens to be consistent and adhere to their own naming rules.
Jannae Karas
Just Looking
Join date: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 1,516
11-22-2008 11:53
From: SuezanneC Baskerville
When I put "T Linden" into Search, People tab's "Find:" field and click enter, I get a message saying "Your search query was modified and the words that were too short were removed. Searched for: linden"

You can then click through several pages of names and you will get to T Linden, but it's annoying getting an error dialog that requires you to dismiss it and page through several pages, compared to the result you get when you do a search in which the search terms are all at least the minimum searchable length long.

Since People search wants search terms two or more characters long, Linden names should have to be at least two characters long, else change the People Search tab's behaviour.

Search All with the People category selected accepts single letter search terms. This inconsistency is annoying. Of course, expecting consistency from LL or the SL software is kind of silly.


I don't understand this. Maybe it is because I use Cool Viewer or Nicholaz. i am right now looking at T's profile.

Went to search, people tab, entered T Linden and hit search. Opened it right up.
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Rose Mackie
@-`-,--
Join date: 15 Oct 2006
Posts: 7
Relative cost of premium membership SARCASM ALERT!
11-22-2008 12:00
In advance, Kathy this is not aimed at you personally, but at the mindset that says, "It's too expensive"

From: Kathy Morellet
The merchants you hear screaming are not the ones who may not sell something to a basic because the basic has their inventory limited. No, the ones screaming are the merchants who are currently basic accounts, living on estate land with their shops also on estate land. Limit their inventory and they will simply stop creating and walk away from SL.

Unless there was some VERY large incentive to buy that premium account. And, nothing I have seen proposed so far would provide that much incentive to those people.



OMG How right you are! How could I have not seen that! The huge expense of a premium membership would be a terrible deterrent.

Monthly USD $9.95/mo (with VAT from about $11-$12 USD) (Year = @ $120 USD)
Quarterly USD $7.50/m0 (with VAT from about $9-$10 USD) (Year = @ $90 USD)
Annually USD $6.00/mo (with VAT from about $7-$8 USD) (Year = @ $72 USD)

Yes, I can see that cutting into their profits! Quick, run screaming to the hills!

Or buy 2 video/PSP/XBox games a year
Or go play WoW for $15+/mo.
Or buy 2 extra Big Mac Values Meals a month (@ $4.25 USD)
Or rent 1 Video a week (or about 5 per month)

Rose Mackie
Sindy Tsure
Will script for shoes
Join date: 18 Sep 2006
Posts: 4,103
11-22-2008 12:00
From: Jannae Karas
I don't understand this. Maybe it is because I use Cool Viewer or Nicholaz...

Probably.. There are lots of fixes/features in those viewers that LL doesn't pick up in theirs..
Rose Mackie
@-`-,--
Join date: 15 Oct 2006
Posts: 7
Transfer of SL Assets
11-22-2008 12:06
From: Skell Dagger
As a premium member, I would like the ability to have an 'SL will' - the ability to name one other avatar (in my case, my partner) as my executor


ToS Section 2.4 states
You may not transfer your Account to any third party without the prior written consent of Linden Lab; notwithstanding the foregoing, LINDEN LAB WILL NOT UNREASONABLY WITHHOLD CONSET TO THE TRANSFER OF AN ACCOUNT IN GOOD STANDING BY OPERATION OF A VALID WRITTEN WILL to a single natural person, provided that proper notice and documentation are delivered as requested by Linden Lab.

Rose Mackie
Jannae Karas
Just Looking
Join date: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 1,516
11-22-2008 12:09
From: Sindy Tsure
Probably.. There are lots of fixes/features in those viewers that LL doesn't pick up in theirs..


Oh well, my good. It was off topic anyway.

I met T last night, and I can assure you all that he is a very nice frog. A bit of a newbie, and quite charming company.

Back to the premium enhancement stuff.
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Talisien Llewellyn
Inconnu Council of 12
Join date: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 14
11-22-2008 12:14
From: T Linden
Sheesh. I can't catch a break! Honestly, we're just looking for some suggestions and you can be sure that anything we do here we will do with deliberation and transparency.



Nothing against you T, but at this point, people have a distrust of anyone wearing the last name "Linden" From what I can see, you just may be the person to regain that trust.

I was a premium member for a while, then I downgraded to basic because of the tier fees.
I paid a little more for estate land where I recieved enhanced control over the land, Vis-à-vis the estate tools, terrain texturing, and debugging.

In my opinion, you need to lower the tier prices, and give us the ability to have estate tools on mainland, after all, what good is owning a sim if you can't do anything to it? Another point I have seen made is the total amount of groups a person can join.This has been on the Jira for some time, and I think this is an excellent option for premium accounts.
Skell Dagger
Smitten
Join date: 26 Jun 2007
Posts: 1,885
11-22-2008 12:17
From: Rose Mackie
From: Skell Dagger
As a premium member, I would like the ability to have an 'SL will' - the ability to name one other avatar (in my case, my partner) as my executor


ToS Section 2.4 states
You may not transfer your Account to any third party without the prior written consent of Linden Lab; notwithstanding the foregoing, LINDEN LAB WILL NOT UNREASONABLY WITHHOLD CONSET TO THE TRANSFER OF AN ACCOUNT IN GOOD STANDING BY OPERATION OF A VALID WRITTEN WILL to a single natural person, provided that proper notice and documentation are delivered as requested by Linden Lab.

Rose Mackie
I understand and am aware of that, Rose. But T. Linden was asking for suggestions, and I would like to have the option as a premium member to name one avatar (my partner) that - in cases of emergency - could use a special password that I have approved, to login and deal with such things as inworld rent and other pressing matters that could be problematic for me if not dealt with. And I would like the ability to be able to do that for my partner, too, should he wish it. The ability to do this would *be* that "prior consent of Linden Lab".
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Kathy Morellet
Registered User
Join date: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 809
11-22-2008 12:24
From: Rose Mackie
In advance, Kathy this is not aimed at you personally, but at the mindset that says, "It's too expensive"


Believe it or not, I actually agree with you. But I also acknowledge that mindset exists.

There are content creators out there that have no payment info at all on file. They came into the game, camped or harvested money trees or worked at some in-world job to build up a supply of L$ while learning to build.

In time these people managed to create some objects that they were able to sell and continued until their sales supported their in-world life without ever spending a dime of real $$$.

These people worked their butts off and proved not only their talent but willingness to do what it takes to be successful in SL.

And now you want to penalize these people by forcing them to buy a premium account that they never needed.

It isn't that they are not contributing to SL. I've been a premium member since day 2 of my SL existence and a mainland owner since week 2. But these people have contributed more to the well being of Second Life than I ever will.

I just don't see it as fair to punish them for being good citizens. Just reminds me of that old saying "no good deed will go unpunished".
shug Maitland
Registered User
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 30
why I initially got a primium account
11-22-2008 12:27
in a word - Land!
I will bet premium accounts dropped off beginning with the end of the first land program.
This has worked out great for the land barons, not so well for LL.
Mainland land, actually purchased through LL is secure (for all of the problems and blessings that come with neighbors). You need not worry about your landlord not paying his tier, or just getting out.
This pride in ownership and investment in SL starts with land *ownership*.
Restore some form of first land, and you will have more premium accounts.
Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
11-22-2008 12:35
From: Keokipele Ansar

Do premium account holders pay set-up fees for their mainland land--I think not.
Er, well, actually, they do. Often a lot more per square meter than estates.

Or what do you think happens to the money paid in land auctions? It just vaporizes?
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
11-22-2008 12:39
From: Mimika Oh
Get rid of it.
And piss off a whole lot of SL's oldest residents. Linden Labs has just pissed off several thousand people who bought openspaces, so the timing is perfect!
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