Cancelled My Premium Account Today!

After trying in vain to sell my 512m piece of mainland property, I abandoned the plot earlier today and sent the following feedback to Linden Labs:

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Dear Linden Labs,

Today I abandoned my 512m on the mainland. This was a necessary move on my part, as the proposed 66% increase in tier on the Openspace sims will mean that my other parcel of land will soon see the tier nearly double. As much as I wanted to hold on to this piece of property as a workspace, the RL economy is such that I must cut back expenses where I can and it just seemed crazy to spend the $9.95/month to be able to keep a piece of land that I wasn't using that much.

I'm still curious as to how you can justify such a huge increase in tier on the openspaces. A 66% increase is not a trivial one. After reading the knowledgebase entry about these openspace sims, I think that the "misuse" of which you speak was simply inevitable. Sure, you outlined that they were intended for oceans and forests, but you never outlined any penalty for misuse. The knowledge base article simply states that "we do not advise more serious use than this and will not respond to performance issues reported should you not use them in this way." If you truly wanted people to only use these openspace sims in this way, you should've outlined a very strict set of guidelines, including serious penalties, for misuse. Providing this from the start would've gone a long ways towards preventing the current situation from happening.

And in the numerous conversations that I've had throughout the past few days, its clear that the "misuse" that you're now complaining about was the direct result of the raise in allowed prims from 1,875 to 3,750 earlier this year. Doubling the prims was the crucial step in making the OS sims usable for things besides ocean and forests. Keeping the allowed prims at 1,875 would've effectively prevented the "misuse" from happening. Again, it seems that your own decision was a key factor that led to what you now label as misuse so severe that a 66% tier increase is necessary.

I myself had been recently considering purchasing a sim of my own, as I had developed lofty aspirations for building new content for Second Life. But its hard to want to do business with a company that seems to abuse its residents in this manner. I would urge you to make some kind of compromise on the openspace issue, or else you will risk losing the trust and respect of many devoted SL residents. Think long and hard about how you want to treat us.

Respect,

Hanjo Kamachi

So did I...but I just couldnt summon the enthusiasm to write them an explanation. Good for you!

I will cancel my premium account too this month. It has no value to me at this point - the Mainland is too ugly to live on, even if one lives up in the sky, the stipend I don't need since it is cheaper to buy Linden dollars directly, and the technical support is so atrocious it is not worth using. And besides, I don't want to support LL in any way now that is unnecessary after this outrageous increase in OS tiers.

Two suggestions:

1) Do not abandon your land. Set it for sale slightly below the current minimum market price and wait for it to be snapped up by a landbot. This usually only takes a few seconds or minutes. By abandoning land you make a gift to LL, because they may auction it afterwards.

2) When cancelling your premium account, wait until your current subscription expires. When you cancel before that, you forfeit your L$ 300 weekly stipend. Again, this is a gift to LL.

I have two properties on Mainland and they are in nice areas. Maybe they want more to move to Mainland? I am not impacted I think by this new rule. Sorry for you all.

I have both an OS and a 2048 lot on mainland. I love them both equally because they are unequally different. As IRL I wanted a summer and winter home. Something that I most likely will not attain IRL. So SL has afforded me this luxury. Well....until now. Only reason why I won't downgrade my subscription is because of my love for my mainland property.

There are very lovely areas in mainland. I am blessed that my mainland property has not changed in the year and 1/2 of ownership. I honestly don't know what I am going to do with my OS. My partner has an OS too and he is sickened/dishearted because he just SOLD his prime mainland lots. I will wait to hear what M. Linden has to say before making any final decision. My partner and I have been mulling over options. Well as I always say we will see when its shown.

Irrespective of any sweetening of the OS pill, maybe now is a good time to reconsider the allocation of $75+ of monthly spendable budget. Given LL's track record of disruptive policy changes with financial impact (Island repricing, VAT, the current OS mess) SL has become a place which is, in my view, too risky for significant financial engagement.

I have often thought how ugly the mainland is, I've never wanted to live there. I could never understand why it's so "sort after"

*shrug* I love mainland. There's a full-sim walled castle being build behind me, I have a techno/magic mall, I have a SWRPG neighbor who as a "Sith Treasury, and an escort club across the street. It's always changing and dynamic, and I like it a lot. The neighbors are awesome people, and I help and protect them every chance I get.

I think in alot of ways mainland success depends on where you are and what your visions says about the land.

A long time ago I bought a truelly crappy bit of Marungere (spelling?) it was a valley, impossibly to flatten, and had 2 highways meeting high above it. But that isolated hidden little spot spoke to my muse. I built a gorgeous little house and put in a river and waterfalls with lots of trees. Most peaceful place I ever had.

I know one sim Chillbo that is nearly if not all owned by one group of folks. Its entirely residential and nearly lag free. I am sure Chillbo is not the only one out there.

we have 1/4 sim now in brimsen. We are past the point of bothering with a "home in SL", so we just have our texture shop up and might be restarting our prefab business. We just work on a skyplatform over it.

I still wander the grid wondering when that next bit of mailand will inspire my muse to build something lovely. It will happen. It always does.

Because of that post Jack Lnden made I already lost 4 clients..totaling 8 OpenSpaces so far..........they all lost interest and trust. I doubt the remaining tenants I have will stay, they do say they want to wait and see what Linden has to say based on the feedback and protests, but I doubt it. All the people I have done business with in SL lost enthuasiasm and slowly my business is going down the drain.......If things don't get better by Springtine I may have to close down completely.........just move on to other 3d platforms..........

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

Islands added so far in November, as of November 4th: -117.

Does that minus mean Islands removed?

Looks like. Could consist of both islands abandoned and islands lost during conversion to full sims. Hard to know the details. But does anyone ever remember it being a negative number?

Firelight

Yes, the -117 islands lost so far in Nov is the difference between Oct and Nov figures (26422 - 26539 = -117).

That is, in 4 days in Nov. Linden lost 117 islands. Let's keep counting. What a joy to see!

I've actually found more people looking for mainland rentals, but it was a poor move by LL regardless so I dropped my alt back to a free account.

On the other side of the land sales equation....mainland

Land Sales by Resident
Month Total Square Meters
Sold by Residents Avg L$ Paid Per
Square Meter
November 2008 - MTD 11,839,216 $2.0182
October 2008 127,417,424 $1.6023

Price is up but volume is down. Extrapolating the MTD "land sales" figure would yield below 90 Msq for the full month, much less than the October value of 127 Msq. But I think the MTD figures need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's still very early in November, after all.

downgrading to basic happens at end of the period you have paid for.
The OS sims have no market value now and there is a $100 transfer fee. Abandoning means that Linden have to find new buyers and I don't think that is going to be easy.

You are right for OS sims. Just dumping them is currently the best course of action, pending an adjustment of the published OS policy.

My suggestion was referring to abandoning mainland ... this is never a good idea.

Islands added so far in November, as of November 6th: -167.

The Key Metrics links on that page haven't been updated since the end of August. Would be nice to see something more recent.

I noted that too. Now with one quarter w/o updates to the datasheets it would indeed be interesting to get an economy update.

But maybe these are not the times anymore to publish SL economy figures to a wide audience? (insert favourite conspiration theory here)

LOL.. Yeah.. I tried to avoid doing that.

But you gotta admit it's not easy to miss seeing a connection between the recent pricing changes and the detailed stats stopping.

Islands added so far in November, as of November 7th: -228.

edit on 11/09: no update since 11/07..

I just cancel my premium account as well!