Open Space Fraud

Personally i always knew i did not "own" my OS even though i paid $500 for it.
But the owning part of it can be very misleading,i just checked a very reputable estate agent and the price list for OS includes the purchase price for an OS
It states in black and white a purchase price for an OS,this type of wording leads to all the misconceptions about owning it

So basically, the low prim house of Cristalle you are selling makes that people really own what they bought from you, right? You don't even own your name and avatar in SL Cristalle. If Linden Lab goes bankrupt or pulls the plug, what will your customers own then? Nothing! People don't even really own mainland, although some (make) believe they do. Linden Lab owns all in SL.

It's all about the trust you want to give to someone else. Be it you, an estate owner or Linden Lab. Now Linden Lab is doing a fine job breaking down their trustworthy. And yes, maybe for people that don't "own" an open space, it's hard to understand what it does for those that do.

Most estate owners treat their customers like they really own the land they bought. But there are some scammers around that take advantage of the system. As there is in any business. When a customer buys a low prim Cristalle house from you, they trust you that the house will be in the box they bought. And they trust you that you will treat them as a customer when something goes wrong. Now how many people bought a freebie or an empty box from a scammer? How about that buying system not being scam proof?

This whole discussion about owning... it's all about the trust you put in others! And unfortunately some are not trustworthy.


BTW, how about the signatures with advertising in it in forum responds. Is that what the signature was meant for? Or is that taking advantage of a system too maybe?

From the sublime to the ridiculous...

No s---, Sherlock. What is the point of this? I suggested that LL give people tools in the UI so they know what is actually happening, so that those estate owners who are dishonest cannot scam people. What are you attacking me for?

This thread is about FRAUD. I suggested that the new Linden put in tools in the UI so people knew what they got when they hit the "Buy Land" button. What is wrong with that? I never called for the business model to be abolished, although that is the simplest way of getting rid of that particular problem.

And if you don't like the signatures, turn them off.

You misread me if you think I am 'reasoning'. I am pointing out what a total con Second Life is. And in light that they have silenced and blocked several of the ranters, now they have me to contend with.


Now go away.

Gone. Sorry.

Consider this:
LL sell land with a fair amount of prim allowance, but now tell you they intended it to be used as open space such as a forest or sea.... so why so many prims? That's a lot of trees, whales or fish?

Isn't this perhaps another ploy to get users to pay for infrastructure that any good governing body would provide?

Technically, the OS are simply multiple instances of a sim running on a single core of a server (16 per 4 core class 5 server), the trick (hope) is to memory swap each instance in and out of memory as they are used, on the basis/hope that not all 16 get used at the sametime!

Financially, when you look at what is actually being paid for, OS represent a higher cost to all owners. 4 'sims' per core is still 4 times the cost of a OS that runs on what is designated/equivilant to a standard sim usage for a server.

Once the market was firmly hooked, LL realised the potentials for changing the rules and gain more revenue. This could be justified, IF, they now provide greater resources to running the OS's. IF NOT, then, misrepresentation of goods, is the main play here.

What is perhaps clear here is, LL change the rules to suit themselves, never admitting any error on their part, then sit back and watch the internal fighting/blaming that goes on. A Dog eat Dog mentality. Their knee jerk reactions are typical, as historically, they have never been able to manage any situation, with a single thought to the users.

That will all revisit them, when the competition grows. Look closely at the statistics. The membership is truly in decline. We have not seen the ever increasing jumps in population that we have seen over the past. Account retention is on the decline, if you measure the total accounts reported, against the active users online, the increases are declining dramatically.

Personally, I would not consider investing in Virtual Land with LL. I only ever rent land as and when we need it. LL lack of long term investment and the huge sums of money they have, and still are, wasting, is truly amazing. They only get away with this, because they are a cutting edge company, providing a service (albiet a poor one) that no one else can.. for now. Anyone considering any form of long term investment with SL (measured in months in a VR context), should seriously consider their liabilities.

They are putting extra resources into it. Prospero's thread on the server deployment has some information on how they will be running three to a core. The USD$375 setup fee and the USD$95 tier fee start to make sense based on that. This is of course not what people purchased and nowhere have LL blogged about this, but the comments from Prospero are most definitely there.

This is part of the problem, one part of Linden Lab doesn't seem to be aware of what another part is doing. They're not singing from the same song sheet.

There is still absolutely no justification whatsoever for the USD$125 tier price.



This will very definitely revisit them in many ways. People feel cheated, people don't trust Linden Lab over issues like this and people remember bad experiences for a long term.

To put it simply, had Linden lab merely said they were increasing tier to USD$95, to put openspaces at three to a core due to server load and that the new setup price was going to be USD$375, there would have been nowhere near as many complaints. However Linden Lab went down a very destructive route instead.

Even now the blog mentions an email, the email has already been sent. They need to get their house in order, their act together but most important of all they need to apologise to their userbase.

Thanks Keokipele, I read that wrong. Wishful thinking on my part that they were going to at least try and justify the increases with improved performance ratios

and takes one last look around her island home.

I am a renter on an os, I've put my heart into what I have there, I love my home and don't want to lose it, but apparently, just my being there puts me in violation. Once it's upgraded to a homestead, IF it's upgraded at all, I am not sure I will be able to afford to keep it.

All of this makes me sad, I understand the server load capacity reasons for keeping OS space, well open,(the less on the sim the more they can put on one server for hosting purposes, slimming resources used to suppord the sim) however I feel like the real people being punished for this will not be those who bought OS and then rented it out, but people like myself, who would just like to keep our homes at a reasonable price. What options do we have? Really? With the increase in rent costs on private island sims and the commercialized nightmare that most mainland becomes so very quickly, we are getting the raw end of this either way you look at it.

bah, leave my home alone LL. seriously.


Dia.

Shoot, I was hopin' you were gonna come back with something . . . oh, well, we can still hope . . . 'tis the season for that!

See here is another thing.... lack of transparency.. always the waters are too muddy to see things clearly.

When you consider the revenues that will be generated:
375USD setup per OS, times 3 to a core, times a 4 core server = 4,500 USD
95USD Teir per OS, times 3 to a core, times a 4 core server = 1,140 USD every month.
Thats a nice little earner for something very few will actually gain any revenue back from.

I've been a business man for over 25 years, I have been in SL for over 4 1/2 years. In all that time, I can honestly say, I've never once been able to fathom their business plan.

What is plain to see more recently, M Linden was brought in to create one, to apply diciplines where none existed. I can see the attempts to make stability a priority, although failing miserably. Its all a little too late. Greed, lack of accountability to its customers, bad management practises, treating its users like children, when in reality, many are more qualified and experienced, then any of them.

Ill thought out services, that are badly implimented, and then they knee jerk it, to make it 'right', but never once, recompensing its customers. What about the million or so items that have been 'lost' from ppls inventories? 750,000 items being reported recently, having been 'found' and thats not the first time. Does a customer have ANY recourse? No, this is 'just a Beta Game' remember? The fact that it has been in Beta for the past 5 years, yet earns millions of USD every month, says a lot about the state of affairs.

Every Computer Programme is considered Beta, otherwise you would never need to 'update/fix' any of them.

Hello everybody,

My name is Myndiana and I was only reading the postings in the forum and not reacting untill now.

We rented an OS, never been told that you could not have your little shops on it and build on it. You could. And "Abuse"or not, it is all behind me. I learned a lot about SL.

Dia, I looked for the last time to my home and shop, did all the things you mentioned in your post. For me, I couldn't afford to have an homestead and ever a fullprim sim, although it is my biggest wish. For me, SL itself is just a game on an computer, for me the people I met and knowing them is what counts, only the people I feel behind the Avatars ar counting for me. Don't get me wrong, our OS was our home!

I looked to the future and did not wish to hurt myself looking to the first price raise, struggling to keep our sim and knowing, about a few months we were not able to keep it anymore because it would be even more!So, after looking around me on the sim I left, we gave the sim back to the owner.

We are now on mainland with a little shop and this will be the place I stay for a while. We have very nice neighbours although I would love some more prims hehehe.

Question to all:

Fraud? Maybe yes, maybe no. I laughed my head off, when I was looking for land to stay new.There was someone who "friendly" talked me out of buying a piece he had put up for sale. Next day I returned and the land was split up in four parts, so that the price could be higher! That is fraud I would say? And I should say, that that was exactly the same price hike from that resident, was it? Or is it then .... and demand???? Ehhhh, my english is leaving me in that I'm afraid.

Ofcourse, I didn't buy it. And the lady we "bought "our land from was totally different, she kept the price she was asking no matter what. She even reserved it for us, so that we could think it over.

And I noticed, that prices on mainland are drasticly higher then it was....

To be exact... WHAT is Fraud, or does it depend on who is doing it?

Love, Myndiana