How Many Islands have gone so far?

From my POV, and anyone else who has all ready dealt with their island POV, changing the plan again would be a terrible decision.

What has shaken my confidence the most is LL's obvious lack of a plan. Or the ability to drastically amend that whatever plan they have midstream.

We made decisions based on the information they gave us.



Well that's my opinion at least. I am certainly not saying that LL is not backpedaling; again....

As I think I've expressed to you before, although I think it's too soon to be quite that confident I agree, with you that they probably won't do the second increase, when August 1st hits with no price increase all of the people who haven't been displaced by the price increase but would have been displaced by the price increase will be relieved and won't have anything to worry about (at least for the time being) and most of the reasonable people will give this up. At that point my guess is that LL will close the Openspace Announcements section and all that will be left is a dwindling number of hardliners who will keep moaning for anyone who will listen, I'm guessing also on that day there will be a few new names on most people's ignore lists.

Being one of the Americans who is working hard, paying for my house, and honoring the terms of the mortgage loan I signed and agreed to, *yes*, that's *exactly* what I'd say.

I'm particularly annoyed by the rather odd belief entertained by some that in addition to paying for *my* house I should now also pay for somebody *else's* house too, because they now "can't afford it".

That's nonsense. If you can't afford something, and you don't pay for it, you don't get to keep it, that's how a secured loan works.

By the way, once again, "loose" means "not tight" or "unattached", it's an adjective. "Lose" is a verb, and it means to undergo a loss.

How about those hard working Americans who were talked into mortgages "hey, you can afford it, you have a good job, and we will make it possible for you", who honored the terms of the mortgage loan they signed and agreed to, and now, today, they still are hard working Americans, and because of a small percentage of greedy bastards, lose their home and everything they already payed into the financing? Because the other party of the contract doesn't honor the principles of good faith and keeping promisses? Wow, sounds a bit like LL, doesn't it?

Sorry, but you paint the perfect picture of the superficial American who really believes that as long as *you* do your part, everything is fine and you are on the safe side. And you insult those who did nothing wrong, played by the rules, fullfilled *their* obligations - but still are destroyed because *others* didn't fullfill theirs. You are perfect for such a society. Blame the victim, hail the culprit - be it an investment banker in RL who burned his customers money while enjoying a 7 digit income no matter what happens, or be it LL destroying dreams and robbing their customers while boasting what a great company they are and how much they value their victims.

... and then there's the incalculable potential revenue by those who WOULD have gotten OS, but dropped the idea and either decided to go homeless or rent small spaces. I settled for a 2048. The lag is no better now than it was before. So much for that feeble excuse.
As for competition, LL seems to be hatching plans to get rid of any competition, starting with exchanges. XstreetSL and Onrez, for example. Must be nice to have dreams of being dictator. I'm switching to AC's exchange.

What about the people who had a house worth 1 million USD a few months ago and now they sit on a house which is only worth 500.000 USD...is it their fault too? Or what about the people who lost their job, will you say that to them too?

By the way, once again, you are very arrogant towards the people who are suffering financially at the moment in real life.

Must be nice to have life packed up into such a neat little package. I say this because life is complex and the reasons for the current deterioration to the financial system are complex as well. If you want a boogie man you can find one at every level, just as you can find victims at every level. Personally I am on your side with the LL issue; I just don’t think some of the generalizations in your post are helpful.

BD

I've been unemployed. My house was at considerable risk. It's not fun. But I didn't ask anybody to make my payments for me. If I hadn't found a way to make them, yes, I'd have been on the street.

If not volunteering to pay for somebody else's house is "arrogant", then I guess I'm arrogant.

But personally, I think someone who wants me to pay for their house is pretty arrogant. Don't you? Will you now compensate me for the money I spent to keep my house during four years of unemployment? If I'm arrogant for not paying for somebody else's house, surely you are arrogant for not covering *my* housing costs.

Just go ahead and place it in my LL account in Lindens...I figure 14.7 million will cover it.

That sounds like a pretty "superficial" analysis, where you blame the "other party" because an adjustable rate mortgage had it's rate adjusted in perfect compliance with the terms of the agreement, and then accuse them of "bad failth" and "not keeping promises".

You know, there actually was a reason ARMs had such low payments initially...it's because they are *riskier* for the borrower; you agree to take on the risk of fluctuating interest rates that the lender assumes for a conventional mortgage. (And that's the reason I chose a conventional, even though it was "more expensive". Interest rates fluctuate, and I've been around long enough to see them super high and super low. A mortgage term is a long time.)

Does it seem reasonable that you should be able to undo what now looks like a bad deal you entered into eyes-open and willingly because "somebody talked me into it"? Yet still hold the other party to to the terms if you were to decide now it's still a pretty good deal?

You accuse me of being superficial, but perhaps the pot is calling the kettle black.

There is a difference between "rate adjusted" and "rate adjusted" - the difference laying in how much the rate got adjusted.



It's the job of the financer to give fair and realistic advisory and recommendation - they are the experts, not the people who dream of their own home and see a realistic way (in their opinion) to get it. But in most cases (and that's not an american only problem) the only thing that counts for these bankers and real estate agents is the number of signed contracts and the ammount of commission they get for them. The usual sales talks are like "there is no real risk", "if you lose your job we will find a solution" and so on.



If the contract was based on wrongleading by one party, yes.



As someone being in the RL real estate business, I can answer that with "no". There is something like business responsibility and honor - we *do* send people away that come with totally unrealistic ideas about what they can afford. Some people are simply blue-eyed, and you know what? They are not really to blame, they are not the experts. Those in the business are - and they should see this as a responsibility to protect those who don't know better - instead as seeing them as easy victims.

The problem is the totally unregulated market, where those greedy people can not really be held responsible for their actions - even in todays dramatic situations they still are the winners, they still are on the sunny side of life. Now the whole society has to deal with what they left behind and has to decide on either letting the whole system breaking down totally or trying to save what little can be saved. Personally, I'm for the latter alternative. And for installing a system that allows a tiny bit more control that maybe can make sure that something like that won't happen again.

The bounds within which the rate may be adjusted are stated in the note.

So...you are "in the real estate business"....you are an estate agent perhaps? It's good that you should look out for the people you are working for.

But lenders are not working for the borrower, any more than used-car salesmen are working for the customer. If the terms of a loan are misrepresented, I can understand that fraud has occurred. But if a buyer can't handle the math or understand the risks involved in a mortgage loan, maybe they should stay in a rental property, or at the very least hire an expert to help them. This is the downside of the belief that "everyone should be able to own an affordable home"...not everyone is prepared to handle the responsibility of managing an asset of that magnitude.

And based on the evidence in this thread, there's a lot of people who find the economics of the somewhat smaller-scale challenge of buying server time to be mysterious as well.

Innumeracy is rampant. Comedian Rob White has a saying about situations like this...

Daniel, though this is off topic for SL discussions, I'd like to point out something you may not be aware of.

I refinanced my home in 2003, taking advantage of lower interest rates. I arranged with the bank to get a fixed rate mortgage. Fixed. I paid all the necessary fees and charges, filled out forms, then went to the bank to sign all the final paperwork a week later.

The paperwork they handed me had an Adjustable rate Mortgage, not fixed. I told them that the deal was for a Fixed mortgage and that the paperwork was wrong. They told me that they weren't going to give me a fixed mortgage. They told me that I could either take the ARM or I could leave, and abandon all the fees and payments I'd already made (something like 700$). And although I had copies of paperwork defining what I was buying, I'd have to take them to court over it - a costly and time consuming solution. They had me over a barrel and decided to take advantage of me.

I told them that I would then walk, pull out my cellphone the instant I was outside, and call the banking commisioner for my state. And that I would be certain to spell all their names correctly when I told him exactly what happened. 5 minutes later, they find the "misplaced" paperwork, and I got my Fixed mortgage.

If the major banks are playing these shenanagins on everybody (which I think likely - I can't possibly be a rarity) then again the question is - who is responsible for all these impossible to pay loans?

It was at this time that my opinion of bankers sank lower than that of Health Insurance service deniers.

I think you got something badly wrong, I never said others should pay for people who cannot afford their openspace anymore. I said your comment:

"You don't have to "loose" it. You just have to pay if you want to keep it permanently rezzed."

is arrogant towards people who are suffering in the economic crises and cannot afford a 50 USD price increase per month on their openspace. Please stick to the facts in future.

I'm not surprised at all. And too often (at least here) such bankers and shady RE agents work together nicely, sending each other customers (aka victims).




We work for ourselfs, we own the company. And we feel responsible for our customers. Might be an old fashioned concept, sadly. Ethics? What's that?



That's the problem. Shady RE agents and bankers (who often work together nicely) display themselfs to the customers as those trustworthy experts who only want their good (while really only wanting their good money). Of course you now can blame the customers/victims "hey you should have known that this isn't a partnership but a shark's bassin" - but my small mind says that it's the wrong bottom to spank.

An estate agent who is representing a buyer indeed has a fiduciary relationship to that buyer...and if they lead their principal astray they are and should be liable.

You have to pay for what you get. If you don't pay for it somebody else gets stuck for it.

I'll stick to the facts. The facts are that somebody who's "suffering" and in RL financial trouble needs to take care of RL business. If they can't afford to pay for the sim space to to keep their virtual creations permanently rezzed, they should either scale them back until they are within their means, or back them up, put them in inventory and wait for better times.

Arrogant means "disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance" Whining about how "evil" LL is because you don't want to pay market rates to keep your stuff permanently rezzed in a cut-rate, low-calorie sim sounds pretty arrogant to me.

I know that people are attached to their builds, I'm certainly attached to mine. But if I hit hard times again, I'd know it was still my job to pay for my stuff, and I wouldn't be campaigning for welfare from LL.

Show me the magic formula that justifies the USD$125 extra cost of setting up a homestead over an openspace on this somewhat smaller challenge of buying server time and I'll be impressed, that's a mystery alright.

Market rates?? Looks like you just like that word and thought it would sound cool.

Just to make one thing clear, market rates are what consumers are willing to pay for a product, do you really think what LL is asking for the homesteads with the limits on them is market value? No, it is not as they wouldn’t lost 8.000 sims or approx 60% of them, even before the second price increase is done, if it would be market value.

Now to your comment about LL is giving welfare to sim owners, if they don’t increase the prices to 125 USD per month per homestead.

4 mainland sims run on a server, LL gets 780 USD per server with a 100% occupation, as we know that mainland is only 65% occupied they get 507 USD per mainland server and 160 people can “abuse” that server.

And please don’t say now LL is giving welfare to mainland owners, they are not.

For the full sim private regions they get 1.180 USD per month per server and 400 people can “abuse” that server.

For homesteads they will get 2.000 USD per month per server and 320 people can “abuse” that server.

So tell me, where is LL giving welfare to homestead owners if they wouldn’t increase the prices?

Btw, LL is hosting their servers on their own, if you have your server hosted by a professional hosting company it costs you about 80 USD per month and no setup fees! LL is asking for 6.000 USD setup fees for a homestead server!! I guess you know what a good server costs at the moment!

So, I will stop arguing with you about your comments, have better things to do in life.

300 staff + overhead + profit. The standard cost plus monopoly formula.

Close but no cigar The difference in tier is USD$20 a month, that is the only difference between setting up an openspace vesrus a homestead.

Um, no...market rates are what a buyer is willing to pay *and a seller is willing to sell for*.
The buyer doesn't get to set market rates at his own whim. The seller offers at a price and the buyer either accepts or doesn't.

A buyer. Not a "consumer". I think your use that word is a very telling clue to your own thinking. Or maybe it just "sounded cool", as you say.


I can get you a server very cheap if it's not running LL's server code and connected to the main grid services, like the asset and presence servers.

Or were you expecting to be given that for free? Why don't you just bring up a copy of OpenSim in a virtual machine...that *would* be free.



Good idea.

Since LL is still 'repairing' their statistics page, again quoted from Tyche Shepherd's blog ( http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/8523-new-second-life-sims-past-13.html ) last week's island numbers:

*
Another quiet week with a net loss of 55 regions this week. In total 165 new regions were added to the grid and 220 removed, 55 of these being renamed.
This brings the Grid to 27033 regions of which 21662 are private estates and 5371 are Linden owned.
*

Based on Tyche's blog, the number of private estate islands had a net decrease of 4943 from 26605 to 21662, since the begin of November. The number of Linden owed sims increased in this time from 5082 to 5371, which is a net increase of 289.

So that may be a good sign for SL's future. A net increase of 289 since early November. I have optimism that SL will be around for a while yet.

BTW, just out of curiosity, how much in US Currency does a sim in SL cost?

That depends on what kind of sim. For an estate sim, the cost is 1,000 US$, which is a full prim sim, having 15,000 prims. But there are other categories of sims even within the Estates sim area.

But you can find out all this information by poking around this SL website. Go to the land section and poke. It is all there.

No it's not a net increase of 289 sims since November, it's a net increase of 289 mainland sims, estate sims are down over 4,000, so overall there are less sims than there were in November.

The number of islands isn't however an easy to follow stat as some are homesteads/Opensapces and some are full sims. A full sim is worth three homesteads and four openspaces.