RE: Rising costs

I've seen a lot of argument here, people making comparisons between Linden Lab and things like Open Life Grid. It's very true that as of now, these alternative "second Lives" are indeed sub par reproductions of what we've come to love.

HOWEVER

It's true that even in 2003 the function of Second Life was incredibly stable. We, as residents, were always pushing the envelope - and the servers - as far as we could. But when we talk about Second Life back then, it was a different place, it had different goals, and was used for different purposes altogether. Linden Lab also had a different relationship with it's residents.

But it seems today, on the cusp of 2009, That Linden Lab has forgotten that the element primarily responsible for it's success is the residents - Us. We have created the entire world, we have embarked on amazing initiatives in business, education, art, media, and more. We have realized the potential and acted upon it. Solutions providers bring in big commercial entities, not Linden Lab. Resident actions that engage the media raise the interest of the general public resulting in new residents, as well as the friends and family we tell about the service.

Residents, you are responsible for Linden Labs huge success. You are responsible for the power of our world. Linden Lab provided a canvas for us, but we were the artists, the innovators. We have been their greatest publicity machine, we have been their content creators, and some residents even their developers.

And yet... The Second life experience of having a home or business of your own is not a service that the average resident can afford comfortably outside of mainland. Businesses whose structures rely on Linden Lab's model are finding their once lucrative efforts now leaving them in debt. Regular residents who simply enjoyed the concept of having a virtual home of their own in an experience they could control are rendered homeless. Artists, like myself, who use Second Life to create, not to reap financial gain, find ourselves struggling to continue because the cost has gone beyond what the great majority can reasonably afford. Is this another step in Linden Lab alienating the common resident and catering only to big business corporations who can line their pockets? All of this, after the residents themselves provided the service of building their entire world from a blank canvas? Linden Lab provided the code - people like you provided the content, you always have, you continue to do so, and It appears Linden Lab sees dollar signs and we're being effectively pushed out of the picture.

I'm deeply disheartened by the recent turn of events. I am one of Linden Labs biggest supporters, I always felt that, through the evolution of this magnificent world, they were always on the same page of the residents. It would be negligent not to stop and consider Linden Lab is working hard to make sure the technology scales with the rapid growth - but reducing the experience by limiting the greatest number of residents experiences leave so many merely grid wanderers who are participating in other users experiences, users who had the money to invest to create.

I hope that they see the error of their ways, or a great many will move on, and just as these residents build Second Life for Linden Lab, they will do the same for another platform, now or in the future, bigger and better. Draining these residents of every last dollar in the meantime is not the key to survivability. Linden Lab won't be the only viable virtual world on the block for long.

When did "Your world, Your Imagination" become "Your world, Your Imagination... if you can afford it."?

Beautifully said! Bravo!

I loved the bit where the rabid penguin attacked that dog.

Wonderful editorial...I salute you!!!


Ashe

The day the land auction system went online in 04'.

Tier in v1.2, surely?

No, that was understandable after the Prim Wars. People WANTED a solution and we all understood that LL had to start making more money if we wanted the world to expand and we all wanted it to expand at least a little.

Nonetheless, it is also the point at which affordability began to limit the extent to which a person could realize their imagination in the world. Or did you mean the point at which that became a problem?

See, the thing with the land auction was this... People spent huge amounts of money for sims and parcels. No, not like Bay City or Nautilus, but you have to understand we had just gone from buy land at $1L/m2 and now a full 4096m2 lot was selling 50-60k Linden. That was a big deal. And it was sad, because the land system was suppose to make SL bigger and better and available to everyone, but at those prices, it was apparent that SL was no longer available to everyone. LL could have regulated the system, could have stopped the barons from price driving and then abandoning, could have stopped Anshe's cheating earlier. But no, they sat back and reaped in huge amounts of money as their system was exploited by the greedy.

So, tier, that was understandable. All the greedy moves that have followed since however, are a different story. And the Land Auction system was definitely the start of the Gold Brick Road of Greed for LL.

... How did that actually work though? Weren't the land barons just buying every sqm at L$1/m and reselling for more?

That is rather extreme. SL went from being FREE LAND, to USD for Land - so yes, that will limit the extent to which people canrealize their imagination in-world, naturally. But saying it did so right then is kind of extreme considering how small we were. And before the land store, the monthly fee of $15/usd already limited people from coming in to the world to realize their imagination could be made real in SL. So yes, it limited people, but it was all relative and still is as the limiter is still in place.

We did not have Land Barrons like that UNTIL LL announced land was going to cost USD.

And yes we had a couple Land Barons even when it cost $1-2L/m2, who held loads of land and would shuffle it all around on Tax day - but that scam is a different story.

You really could not resell land for more money then as it cost you Linden in taxes to keep it, and there was only Linden to be made on some really primo land parcels back then, and to me the primo parcels were in the area of the map called "The Badlands" and that included Chartreuse, where i lived, but ultimately it was all relative then. So basically, most people did not buy land unless they needed it.

Once LL said they were making the switch to a tier system, even i bought up 200,000m2 worth of land to sell ninja style. And i sold it all for about $20L/m2. Yes, I am guilty of greed, but i paid the residents back by housing people for free on 1 full sim of land for a year. It cleared my conscience.

Sure, but if I understand correctly the tiers then were the same as they are now - right up to the US$195 for a full mainland region. And I remember seeing archived forum threads saying exactly this - that ability to be seen in LL would now be based on what the real person could afford.

Yes, i believe i said that too, and was upset by it.

See, for me the tier was a SL ender. I was not a creator, i could barely build, and what i had built had been publicly ridiculed on the forums. So SL for me had changed from something a stay at home mom with a 2 & 3 year old could do to something that someone that had money to spare could do.

So i bought up a bunch of land (and my 'partner'of the time gave me like a sims worth), and sold it, and i had socked away 90k from stripping. And then I changed the way I looked at things and started looking at SL to see what "I could do" to make a difference. And i used all that silly money and did something.

And honestly, if I could so something in SL, a non-tech savvy stay at home mom with no photoshop skills and never building, then anyone can.

Oh, HEY I CAN BUILD NOW PEOPLE DONT BE AFRAID OF ME PLEASE COME BUY MY FURNITURE! I haz a prim!

@ Briana - You should be very proud of yourself

Ashe

They can certainly create something, but they can't necessarily make money that way. (This isn't me being a downer, it's simple economics - _someone_ has to be the person who puts the money in.) With the professional creators and especially marketeers arriving, it's much harder to be noticed now, too.

I guess what I'm saying is, the fact that some people could "afford" it by different methods didn't make it so that land wasn't limited to what people could afford.