Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

SERIOUSLY BAD IDEA

Linden Labs don't pay any US$ for cashed-out L$; all of the money is paid by the other users who bought the L$.

....but LL, and Jack. You are idiots for doing this. There is not a single reasonable business reason for charging OS owners 40% more for the same product. If there are people abusing the system, then punish them, instead of punishing everyone. I'll say it again, this is the stupidest thing I've seen LL do, and I'm not a person who criticizes your every move.

Why would I pay 40% more rent to live on an OS. I rent on one...I rent a quarter of an OS space sim, and now I'm sure my rates will go will over what I would pay in a regular sim. How many OSs are you willing to see just be abandoned? Cause I hope you're prepared for large scale abandonment. I'm glad I don't run my business in SL like you guys do, because I'd be F*CKED. Idiots.....

I'm trying very hard to remain somewhat professional here and failing miserably......I just better stop now. Good job, guys!! I'm going to write a book.....Fail Your Business For Dummies, in which you have at least a chapter devoted to ya!

Of course it's light use. When it rains it'll be filled with water

Not to mention its open source anyone can start a slserver ... it would be like going after ubuntu for anti-trust.

Jack Linden Thinks that since he got away with raising the Island prices in 06 that he will get away with it again.

Back then there were not nealry as much people in SL as now.

back in 06 he raised the island prices form 195 a month to 295 a month.

There's a Jira feature request to create a new inexpensive light-use sim ... as Jack points out above, enforcement requires some software. Go there and vote if you want to keep your OS sims.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3337 "SL needs cheap, *real* open spaces"

Since Jira can be difficult to use, here's quick instructions:
/327/4a/234101/1.html#post1826980

Jack, can anything more be said about these? You have time before January to twist the software group's arms and get a new sim product ready for announcement, if not rollout. Also, perhaps consideration should be given to a smooth migration path from current OS's to the new product.
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they don`t have a bank

all money transactions are resident to resident where the bastards take a 3.5% transaction tax

Transfer out of SL is already frozen my friend. I have been trying to get my money out since early this morning with absolutely NO LUCK.

Actually, that was Zee Linden..

I completely understand why they are changing the openspace pricing and I know people have been abusing the openspace concept but as a user of openspace sims for the purpose they were intended I feel it is not fair to have to pay for the abuse of others. They should pay.

The increase puts pressure on the legitimate users of openspace sims to change their use to an income producing sim rather than use them to provide a better SL experience.

It seems that either closing down sims that are abusing the privilege or giving the abuser the choice of upgrading them to normal sims would eliminate the problem.

I am at the protest in sim Linden Estate Services and will stand here all day and night if I have to!

Just adding my two cents worth in the (fairly faint) hope that the amount of comments here have some kind of impact on whatever student at LL is given the job of reading through it...

My home is on an Openspace sim, shared with one other person. We're way below the prim limit and traffic is...ooohh...possibly 4 avies ever there at the same time. Which maybe happened once.

I can't imagine that the owner of my sim can't pass on this price hike; I'm no way prepared to pay such a huge increase and at the same time, I am not prepared to move to the crappy, ugly, laggy, mainland and live with others like sardines in a tin can.

The net result will only be that instead of a 1/2 sim, I take a 1/4. This will have NO impact on the load (and I've never noticed lag btw).

It WILL have an impact on the owner and its him that I feel sorry for.

But whatever happens, I ain't getting my arse chased onto the mainland.

Punish the people who are pissing on our parade please, not those of us who are being sensible.

Well, no, it would be a "network effect monopoly" along the lines of MS. Technically anyone can write an operating system too; the only reason it's hard to compete with Windows is because everyone's already using it. If you've ever tried to start a club in SL you recognise the problem.

AntiTrust is extremely relevant here for the direct competitors of Linden Lab and that would be those who rent these sims out. Linden Lab has a monopoly and is controlling prices at whim making it impossible for their competitors to compete with them.

This 66% price inflation is not about abuse but about monopolozing the market. As for any ToS that users have agreed upon concerning accepting Linden Lab's right to change prices without given notice, and accepting such prices, that can easily be challenged in a court of law. Just because users agreed to the ToS of Linden Lab does not make it legal.

Usually I am a huge supporter of LL. I love Second Life as most of us do. However, personally I am disgusted and hope that M Linden will undo the mess as quickly as possible. Better yet, bring Rosedale back. Whoever thought up this hairbrained plan really needs to retire effective the moment the blog was posted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust

This discussion merit's a separate thread. One that I'd vote for Fist-of-God moderation on to keep it on-topic.

edit: and I think the discussion should be on what kinds of throttles/limits would be good with others trying to poke holes in the idea. For example, limiting the max agents in an openspace doesn't really do much - 10 Ruths won't really add much load to the sim but one tricked out cyber neko with xcite bits, swishy tail & moving ears plus an uberHUD that tries to spy on 57,000 channels at once will do bad, bad things to it. It's easy to say "provide limits!" but actually making limits that make sense, can be enforced and are not prone to griefing is a different story...

Please, Cindy, let your group members know as soon as you do to which grid you will be relocating. I want to be a part of that. Your tireless work over the short time I have known you has enriched the Second Life experience beyond words. It goes beyond my understanding as to how LL could not foresee what this 67% increase in tier will do to many thousands of individuals. If I can get into a different grid with my Mac, you can count your sweet bippie, I'll be seeing you there. Second Life, like eBay has done a multitude of times, is screwing over the very base that supports them. >shaking my head in wonderment of this stupidity<

Who also blogged about the massive growth in Openspaces and excitedly highlighted their price and tier fees......and made no mention whatsoever of light use.

. . is Estoppel. Since no one looked at the link, I'll post some basic defs from the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

Estoppel is a legal doctrine recognized both at common law and in equity in various forms. It is meant to complement the requirement of consideration in contract law. In general it protects a party who would suffer detriment if:

The defendant has done or said something to induce an expectation
The plaintiff relied (reasonably) on the expectation...
...and would suffer detriment if that expectation were false.


This doctrine clearly covers what LL has done: To land buyers in 06, to many online businesses, to in-world advertisers, and now to OS owners. Take a read and see if you don't agree. . .

I want to state that this is a completely unethical move on Linden's part. We based our economics on a stated price and to almost double it is unacceptable. I feel like you have stolen my money Linden and now you want more? I would accept a small increase in tier but not this! This is outrageous! You guys need to go back to economics class and put yourselves in our place. SL has been tanking for the last few months economically, you don't raise prices in a recession!

Well, LL strikes again. I saw it coming as the OS were too easily accessible. BUt now I am faced with the issues of trying to get my residents to pay the increase. With the economy in the state it is in, my only choice is to get rid of the full sim and the OS. saves me a lot of stress and headaches in the long run. I just feel bad for the sim owners who have 20 or more OS regions as they are the ones who will taking the biggest of the hit here. There will be a lot of land going back to LL. OO well!! I wish you all the best!!

So LL should enforce that!!! Not penalize those of us that purchased 1/4 sims just so that we could have some semblance of privacy and space. I "threw away" L$16,000 and spent an additional L$6000 to move from a 1/16th to a 1/4... same prim count, a little lower tier, but I don't have someone right next to me that thinks the height of style is a screaming red pagoda that they created... at Full Bright!

And will I recoup any of the money I've spent already? Who the heck is going to buy now? Think the estate owners, no matter how decent they've been in the past, are going to reimburse us for any part of this? No way, and I don't expect them to. I'm disgusted and dismayed.

Jack, how will this affect my OS? They are light use scenery now but if you make this change will I be able to use them more heavily? Are you ramping up the servers to support the heavy use then?

Is the change a change in the nature of the OS as well?

Or is it the same product as before but just more expensive.

Estoppel is probably correct - however, one of the big landowners needs to get a lawyer on this, unless we have one in the forums who will take it on.

I probably don't have much to say that hasn't already been said (no way I'm reading 78 pages before posting) but I felt I have to say a big THUMBS DOWN to this change.

Linden Lab, your land prices are already significantly higher than any other online games out there, and right at the higher end for most of what can really only be classed as a 'disposable income' budget.

It is the ordinary residents that make Second Life what it is, not the businesses that get sims built for them but never log in, nor the educational projects that keep themselves to themselves, or the big companies that do the massive (but often fail) big projects you like to shout about from the rooftops.

Many things I would like to build (for my own enjoyment and nothing else) need land space, not prims, and an 'openspace' would be perfect for my needs - but in this tight time for everyone, reducing prices is what we need, not increasing them. The up-front costs for something that you don't even get to own at the end, plus the frankly baffling requirement to own a full region first, were beyond my means before this price increase, now it's looking even less unlikely to ever happen, especially as you now appear to be preventing the sub-letting of them.

I would suggest that, before milking the long-suffering residents for more money, you take a serious look at your company structure, the very high salaries your senior staff appear to be getting, and look at moving to cheaper premises. Cut your running costs, and let us - those that build your world - benefit, rather than shafting us once more.

When there is nothing but Lindens left logging in, and your only income is your 3.5% cut on L$ cashouts... you might want to switch to energy saving bulbs.

Will you guys ever learn? It's about time we had a Town Hall... remember them? I hope you're listening to us.

Whilst many of your senior staff may have been good in their previous jobs... it seems very clear that many of them clearly do not understand the nature of Second Life, and that it does not work in the same way as the corporation they left to join you.