How Many Islands have gone so far?

These numbers are of course of limited usage since as I thinkhas been discussed before these, unlike LL's latest numbers posting, don't take into account the conversation rate from OS to regular which is turning 4 sims into 1, if you're talking pure landmass that's a 3 sim loss but without at least noting that each time you print these numbers you're not being accurate especially given the stated point of posting these numbers here which is to make people aware of how many people are giving up their land.

There are indpendent statistics Gordon that back these numbers up, this stat is supposed to count the number of regions online. LL's claims are somewhat controversial, but Tyche Shepherd over at SLU runs her own stats:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/8523-new-second-life-sims-past-12.html#post560762

Worse than the loss of landmass is the loss of the dreams of thousands and thousands of people, destroyed by LL.

But if you believe the statistics quoted in you're thread it isn't a 1:1 since as I stated above if someone does a conversion that isn't necessarily a lost dream just lost space on which to express their dream.

If I were at LL I'd probably be underreporting them too but I think the accurate number probably isn't either, it's probably somewhere in the middle since the people reporting the stats posted here and on SLU have their own agenda which is of course to make LL look bad.... well worse, by saying "oh look at how many sims they've lost" and speculating without base that each sim represents a broken dream which simply isn't true. And of course LL's best interest is to underreport and to say how it is no big deal and it was an expected loss and most of that loss is actually people converting to another product so it's all alright anyway. So I agree with you that LL's numbers are indeed controversial at best but the other numbers given aren't necessarily without doubt either.

Have you read Tyche's thread? It started in March Gordon, there's no agenda from Tyche to make Linden Lab look bad, she did this as a project.

Your right, I should have said the people propogating this not posting this, I didn't mean to say that Tyche had an agenda however it seems like most of the other people who are propogating these numbers around and, for the most part it seems, discussing these numbers have an agenda to overstate not just the numbers themselves but also the general meaning they have.

Gordon, what is your problem? All I do is moving the LL numbers into this thread to accumulate them. What hidden agenda are you assuming?
Your repeated mantra 'its not so bad, its not so bad, its not so bad' is not constructive at all.

Well the meaning of the numbers is obvious however you dress it up, we've lost business, which is something that should concern us all. This narrow thinking is something Linden Lab do at their peril, it demonstrates yet again a lack of thinking systemically, something they've been guilty of for too long. Even those who have kept their openspaces as homesteads face increased bills and for some that's going to mean less inworld spending, that's where they will make the saving to pay for the increase and that has a knock on effect for others who've never been near an Openspace in their SL lives.

I can assure you, I want more people using the platform. However Linden Lab seriously need to sort their customer relations out.

It's more constructive than the mantra that it's the end of the world just because LL raised prices slightly. People don't like it they're of course free to complain about it which they have done en masse and of course the smart and logical thing to do is to back it up with hard numbers however in a case like this there is a context to that numbers that seems to be purposefully overlooked and that is that those numbers while accurate are incredibly misleading when there is a +/- 3 point margin of error for each numerical point. With a relatively (compared to the data size) number of exceptions you don't know whether sim owners gave up/sold their sims or voluntarily converted to another product.

I agree. When I first skimmed that last sentence I read it as knock their customer service out, which I think many upset people probably would have approved of as well

Just for you, Gordon:



from: /352/c8/302580/4.html

For you, again S-L-O-W: So we l-o-s-t a t-o-t-a-l of 3-7-0-0 openspace sims.

Quarter 4 includes October. There was a positive growth until on Oct. the 28th: 26665.
After that:
Island growth in the days 29th-31st Oct: -126.
Island growth in November: -1977.
Island growth in December: -2007.

Am I saying anything different than the All-Mighty-Truthful-Zee-Linden? Even Zee admits that you have to look at those number as "sims lost". Admitedly the number looks better if you take away the 410 sims added before Oct. 28th, and count the converted ones as "not realy lost".
BUT THAT DOESNT CHANGE THE FACT THAT IN THE NET COUNTING SL HAD 4110 SIMS LESS!

I think a 30-some-odd-to-66% increase is a little bit more then "slightly" in respect to the price.

Sorry for not replying quickly Pandorah, was half-way through writing a reply and had to run to watch Grand Torino.

One major issue I think is that since LL only gives us a partial picture other than their quarterly or whatever reports which are controversial and possibly biased the data is open to interpretation.

My view as I think I've made perfectly clear is it is a big deal and that it was a bad decision on my part but that there is a spin effect going on with the numbers being given meanings that keep being blown more and more out of proportion each time someone comments and that maybe not due to anyone's fault but by omission people are getting a slanted view.

The other side to this of course is the argument that LL is understating the numbers themselves and downplaying it. I don't believe that the numbers are inaccurate since while we all know for a fact that LL will spin, decieve, and even trick when it comes to interpretations of wording and meaning I don't think they're stupid enough to try to lie on something that they wouldn't be able to wriggle out of if they got caught in a lie. Are they downplaying it? Most definitely they are and you would to if you were in their position and I think everyone else would to.

They're doing spin control vs 3.0 or 2.5.3 if you'd rather which is essentially the same thing they keep doing, apologizing and saying they made mistakes in implementation but not backing anything up that they don't have to, not backpedelling, and even I'll admit at this point they're not doing the honorable (if there is such a thing in business anymore) by making commitments which I'm guessing is at strong urging of their PR team and probably their lawyers.

Gordon:

I don't see how posting the losses is spin in any way. Linden Labs *NOT* posting the sims lost *IS* spin... or at the very least a form of denial. You are welcome to your opinion but accusing others of spin because they are posting their opinion is not very endearing. Spin by my definition is the purposeful distortion of facts to suggest something that is not supported by the facts. I think the conclusions that many people are coming to from these numbers are perfectly reasonable; I don't think it can be defined as spin. I also think that your conclusion, although different from mine is also probably not spin. What Linden Labs is doing is close to spin if not actually spin.

Even if there were no abandonments and all of the sims lost in the past months were due to consolidations, that would mean over 6,000 openspaces were converted into 1500 full sims. (actually probably more than that assuming that people were buying new sims at similar rates as previous months) this would mean that the vast majority of openspace owners decided that the new terms were so bad that they did not want them. To me these numbers are not really an improvement, and also I know for a fact that this is not the case. There were mass abandonments.

That is why I feel that the 3/4 conversion argument falls completely on its face as a challenge to the validity of the sim loss numbers.

Sorry, but somehow I don't get your logic. So, if I safe my money for a long time, buy the car I dreamed about all the time and then someone destroys this car, it is just a destroyed car, my dream is still alive? Sure, I can still dream about it - what a great comfort that is.

Thanks - I have no agenda other than reporting changes in the Main Grid and for much of time that I've been surveying and reporting figures on SLU , SL was experiencing rapid growth in the total number of regions. I'd also add I don't have any real financial interest in the Grid,I'm not a business owner, just a consumer, I was a concierge Mainland owner for a while until I recently downsized for purely personal reasons and nothing to do with LL.



I will carry on surveying and making a weekly report regardless of what LL or anyone else do or announce . At the end of this month I'm also planning on a more in depth survey to estimate the proportion of Private Estates which are full, homestead or openspace, similar to the one I performed back in August last year. I'll cross post the results of this here as well as on SLU.

Your postings at SLuniverse do go back to at least March, 2008, when the grid was growing. Hmmm, what was your agenda then?

Am I correct in in looking at the trend right up to date?

The way I see it, looks like the carnage is essentially over...... as of like yesterday.... and the upswing back to regular growth has begun.

AT the best, with SL not working hardly at all this weekend and with fresh blood from the OS debacle still on the carpet, people with money for land are not going to hand it over to LL very easily. Those people who have dumped their sims because they were robbed - they won't be coming back. And getting new people with deep pockets interested in supraexpensive magic Legos will be challenging - most people with that interest were already here to start with and now they are gone. So for the next 6 months, in a global recession with a markedly unworthy business partner, 0 growth is the best we can hope for.

And when the next price bump on the Homesteads occurs in a couple of months, expect virtual Ragnarok.

I'd imagine this to be the case, January was the first month of USD$95 tier, those who didn't want to pay it will have already made their move to convert or abandon.

If the July increase happens (and I don't think it will) then we'll see another downturn. Also watch out for LL's new land products.

Ironically, LL had better put through that increase in July. I cancelled by Open Space sim because it claimed this price increase was going to happen. How in the world can anyone make any kind of business plans if LL keeps changing the rules and pricing at the drop of a hat? I would have have invested a lot more money into SL, but will not now invest one more penny into this crazy world where those who run it can not be trusted to provide a stable economic environment.

They have a history of this, they announced the new openspaces and then about a month later they changed pricing. Plenty of people weren't exactly happy about that.

Zee mentioned in the economy thread that they were keeping an eye on the issue. I really can't see it happening, they're going to introduce more land products throughout the year, with a RL economic crisis likely to still be in full swing come the summer, I really can't see them raising tier pricing again.

Actually, it is closer to correct to say that LL changed the requirements for OS ownership and increased the prims in them, focusing on "1/4 of a sim for 1/4 of the price". After getting a huge number of people in and paying 1/4 the cost of a full sim, they then raised rates by 66% with no grandfathering for people already owning OS. So people had the choices of giving LL their wallet one way or the other, or losing all their investments in SL.

No they introduced the changes to the product before they lowered the pricing initially. When they first announced the changes to the product they didn't lower the purchase price to USD$250, that came a month or so later.