Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

Sure they could, it happens all the time.

Why not too classes of open sims. Class A would be primarily restricted to open water and open space. Tier would remain the same but prim count reduced by 1000. All that prim is not needed for open water/open space. Commercial use banned. Class B would be for 'little' people who desire a personal estate to express their creativity. This tier would increase to by 67% but the prim count increased by 1000. Commercial use banned or severly restricted.

So far I haven't seen or heard of anything "M" has done that's really worth one dollar, let alone multi-millions.

It's a pity that LL don't treat us as the shareholders we really are, because without us they'd have no product - because I think a vote of 'no confidence' in quite a few high level Lindens would have them being escorted to the door by Security with all thier belongings in a cardboard box.

Whilst people like Kingdon may well be 'leaders' in their chosen business field, it is very clear that they have absolutely no understanding as to what product their company is selling - and only one product, at that.

Did someone mention drain on resources. I believe someone mentioned the strain on resources caused by bots. Check out Echo Terra, Ech Island, Echo Vita. Wow, nothing but bots there!!! I didnt even know you could have 97 avies or bots on one sim. No doubt they are trying to get their traffic counts up, which they apparently have lol

This is only one example I am sure there are many more

Maybe LL should focus a bit more on resource drains like this.

I think charging $1000 per month for a license to operate a single bot is good.
If someone wants to falsify traffic by running 20 bots then they can fork out $20,000 USD for it.

That would end that except for a few places that really do make that much money. Then LL would be geting that much more a chunk of the action.

Eventually there will be no "cashing out" in SL. SL will end being a platform for small business. Probably within 2 years. At which time there will be open source collaborative workspace systems to make open source grids the place for companies that want that sort of thing. Free.

I must admit, I'm very interested to see what Azure's take on this will be. Azure are a BIG estate owner (my own impression was they are as big if not bigger than Anshe Chungs Dreamland and certainly better managed). Azure have made use of so called 'void' estates for a long time now (and yes, they are VERY low use .. usually two dozen linden trees or a dock). Unlike Dreamland, I haven't seen them turn what used to be voids into residential voids, and I certainly haven't seen them scrap voids (which is what Dreamland did to the void adjacent to one some friends of ours were renting - Cairns if you must know).

Ever since OSRs were released Azure have been marketing these for use by residents.. it's possible to buy a single full OS off them and have it registered in your name. You pay Azure, not LL. (In fact, it looks like they specifically intend these for use by residents, since they are *always* unconnected sims).

Premium accounts are irrelevent here .. You don't need a premium account to buy land on azure. Effectively azure are buying servers off LL and then performing the management of them. I was with them for over a year and happy with the estate and the way they managed. Incidentally, when people talk of land prices .. Azure owned land sells at 2L$/sq m.

So .. big user of LL servers whose business will be affected in a number of ways by the announcement. It will be very interesting to have their reaction to the 'final' announcement! At the moment it's 'wait and see'

And if I left the OS sim we have .. there's no way I would go to mainland. I've just looked at the uncovenanted Nautilus sims and think it's a disaster waiting to happen.

"Why not too classes of open sims?"

Because the burden is a fake reason so it makes no difference what is suggested in this area.

I am very disappointed with this from linden using the reasons which have been given, as a reason for the increase of fees for a open sim, in a time where every country around the world is in a recession.
We use this as a form of game, which it is and yes money is made out of it so it is a business for Linden also.
I can not see the reasons for the increase from $75 to $125, an increase of $50 and how it will increase or make the server better. If people are using the prims/land to the max, and if it is about lag in sl, it would be due to the products that are being made. Even though they are cleverly created, they are too high in prims. So as soon as you place something on your land the prim count goes down for the sim and being the type of sim it is this does not take long.
I can not see the justification for the increase and am not very impressed with this and can only see that this will cause people to think whether the game is worth shelling out each month and increasing their spending money, so as to purchase items in SL.
I feel that a re-think on this should be looked into before the 1st January, especially in the economic climate we are presently in and as we have been informed, it is likely to if not get worse stay the same.
To keep this a excellent and fun game it is and to encourage others to want to join and stay, I personally think a review of the increase of the fees has to be looked into, especially as there are many of us who is not happy with this decission.

If I offer a product for sale and, for whatever reason, discover that it is not as profitable as I had imagined then I would try to find a way around that. This can sometimes be done by gradually increasing the price or by reducing some of the product content.

If my company were in serious trouble I might discontinue the product, but that is not the action I would take if I were at all interested in customer relations and knew it would upset customers that I still needed.

Jack, you have signaled to all of your customers that despite your profitability and your ability to absorb the problem for a while, you are not prepared to do so.

You seem to be unable to appreciate that your customers are using services you provide to create their own businesses and that such a change makes them look equally unprofessional if they have to resort to passing on the costs to their clients too.

It is clear what you should be doing here:

1. Announce that you are going to put controls in place to ensure the usage levels will reduce to what you consider manageable and that you will do that over a sensible period of time like six months or so.

2. Announce that the prices will increase by x% per month over the next x months for those who don't work within the usage levels.

3. Announce that in twelve months time the system of charging and the usage levels for these OS sims will be reviewed so that everyone is aware.

We were planning six OS sims which would be mainly woodland, but their would also be attractions which would present a tp when you entered them and you would end up in our planned adjacent high-prim sim.

What no business should do unless it is in real financial trouble is dramatically change a product or service or its pricing suddenly in the way that has happened here.

Jack, I really hope you are listening, you do not appear to fully responding yet and time is pushing on. I NEED TO KNOW FOR MY OWN PLANNING REASONS.

Gerald Wylie! I loved your writing on *that* TV show back in the 70s!

On the contrary: it can be perfectly sound marketing to release two or more packagings and pricings of exactly the same product to address different niches of demand.

For that matter, even if we knew that "burden is a fake reason" there's no particular advantage in saying so. For all I care, if the end result is desirable, the supplier can resort to any face-saving measure they like.

+++

I hope M had a good weekend and a pleasant Monday. I'd estimate that each hour cost his company US$500,000 in revenue, so it had better have been a very good time indeed.

/me checks the blog, and the clock, and drums fingers on desk.

Somebody should do a poll on when we'll hear from M..

/me votes that it will be about 11:30AM SLT.

edit: added AM and a big to Kathy.

11:30 PM???

"Immaterial" has a specific meaning in accounting; it is a term of art. I think this is the sense on which it was meant.

From what Robin said, he was talking about the US$72/year premium subscription fee, not about things like tier.

Since they pay most of it back in stipends, it really is a pretty puny part of the overall math..

No. More likely 5pm PDT, just as he leaves the building to avoid any communication in the forums

Well, that's good. Since they brought up the point, it made me realize that I should look at whether I need my accounts to be premium or not. And, upon reflection, I do not - there's no advantage for me other than the feeling I was supporting SL. So, I simply won't renew when the time comes.

Firelight

I'm confused on why the OS were sold to begin with. Obviously lots were sold and lots of $ were made from these, but to expect that someone is just going to have a sim with a tree on it and that NO ONE is to visit is pretty dumb. As far as lag issues, maybe Lindens should ban poofers, particle effects, fog and other scripts that cause lag? I have been in places with class 5 servers that had horrible lag and it was due to what was placed ON the land. Just a thought...

Yeah, they could start with their own natural clouds - they are a lag hell for even the fastest and biggest of all computers if you have 512 distance on.

Really? What if you have a 30-region mini-continent and want to have some ocean around it, without having to pay the full-sim tier?

as i sit here "drumming my fingers" waiting for them to drop the bomb or relieve us all, i have been reading everyone's posts and investigation other opensim grid options - torn. I have been a very active "citizen" of sl for over two years, a land owner since my first few months on the grid.. attracted to sl because of its creative atmosphere like most here. i have spent a lot of money in sl (hundreds a month sometimes), i build, i shop, i explore, i rp, and i love sl. BUT

I currently have an estate owned open sim that i "rent" and i love it. i am the only one living on it, i dont have much on it, a few trees, a small build (currently nothing) ... the rest is for building. this was my blank canvas as someone stated earlier... and it was good

I think Lindens forgot what sl was supposed to be.. it was a dream. by the same guy who dreamed up Burning man, a dream where people could come and create their own dreams, a place where the only limit was your imagination... then they hired a suit. and suddenly this place is starting to look all grey, corporate. where like everything else wrong with our world is based on the mighty dollar.

so much for dreams. depending on the linden post, i too may be packing up before the day is done