Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

All you are doing is hurting other residents.
Linden Lab is only affected if people abandon sims and mainland.

If you are bound and determined to destroy Secondlife then my recommendation is for you to close your Secondlife accounts, leave immediately, and stop logging on to LL web services.

Correct. Frank Ambrose came from AOL (who was rumored to have been dismissed from AOL for "unprofessional conduct" back in April).



No, that's a different Mark Kingdon (Mark E. Kingdon, to be precise). Our Mark (D.) Kingdon hails from Organic.com, an interactive marketing company, as CEO.

Though you certainly couldn't tell from the way this fiasco has been handled. :-/

Very succinctly put Imogen.

We're all supposed to be buying the rubbish mainland that can't be given away at the moment. Then the price hike.

Anyone remember the Open Letter movement and how the Lindens said they agreed and understood its meaning but still did whatever they wanted?

Trying to talk to Lindens has proven time and again to be useless. They just don't care as long as they get their payolas.. M or Jack even admitted in another blog that Premium Accounts don't mean anything, there's always some newbie to replace those that came before.

So, Mr. M and Jack, where are you? You promised to discuss this through out the day and yet we hear nothing as usual.

Oh and your comment Mr M.. "I’d like to close on this thought: An area of concern for Residents over the past year has been platform stability. Through the hard work of many, many people, including Residents, we have made great strides that are very well documented. Crash rates are down. Substantially. Period."

Really, crashes are down? Funny, I've been crashing/lagging more than usual lately. What game are you playing?

We paid $500 USD for our then "void sim" and were happy to pay it. Yes, the prim count (then about 1800) was well less than we would have had ANYWHERE else, but anywhere else wouldn't have been the wonderful community in which we were buying land, and to which we were happy to contribute. The sailing sims are open to all, and with VERY few and VERY regulated exceptions do no commerce at all (and in the case of our estate, OS sims do NO commerce. In fact, the OS sims subsidize the art galleries and mermaid dens of the full sims). One person or group takes over a sim; one person or group thereby subsidizes the rest of SL being able to sail and have a great experience through that sim and, by working together, through a community of sims. The result has been a lot of people creating something terrific that I fear this is going to kill.

I truly wonder how much the people who blithely say "oh well, you should have read the fine print" (ignoring the fact that there WAS nothing even close to fine print) are realizing how many of their wonderful SL experiences have been underwritten by OSs farmed out by estates under very strict covenants. The estate owners simply CANNOT afford to pay for the dozens of sims that are required for a true sailing experience, even if the new version of OS sims allowed for any kind of interesting and beautiful scenery (which I don't think they do).

We are all losing from this.

SL residents have proven time and time again how creative and adaptable they are when LL makes a giant shift in policies. I think we will pull through until the next big change.

You are too funny here!

Yes i see that you did read the comments and suggestions carefully and took out what makes your idea of ripping us off even more dollars for you!!

You allow still OpenSpace... just rip off 400% of prims for the same price!!!
Great, thanks for that, this is awesome!!
Next you offer now homestead... nice idea... ok, you rise the price a bit slower to calm ppl down and again listened carefully and do more restrictions on what it used to be on OpenSpace for 75$ a month:
Now you offer same prims, less avis, most likely script usage cut down for a higher price than before.

Indeed thank you for listening and taking all good suggestions into account to make your initial idea of just rising the price 67% to now add more restrictions as well.
I am really impressed how you try to explain this as "we listened to you and take your concerns into our new policy"

We are. Well tbh I think there is now so much resentment, distrust and outright fury that it will take an AWFUL lot of spin to put a nice face on it.

Katt: to you.

The old chestnut. If someone has good service they may tell 5 people about it. If they get lousy service they will tell EVERYONE about it.

When people are this fed up a few cheery words on the website is like putting out a bush fire with a postage stamp. A dry one. I'm glad I don't have your job either.

But as a marketing professional, I'm impressed. Linden Lab has managed to convince its customer base to demand what LL was planning to do all along--and happily take a cut in service and a hike in prices, along with it. You guys are getting good at this. Marketing and public relations have never been one of Linden Lab's strong points, but this speaks well for the future.[/QUOTE]

The Lindens don't need marketing help, they need public relations help. I've been in the business many years. From a PR standpoint, they couldn't have handled it worse. No transparency, no nothing. Then they claim the tired and worn out excuse that they listened to the people and came up with a solution. Ugh! It's the same solution as before. Little compromise.

The fact is they've handled this situation about the same as the oil people handled the Exxon Valdez situation, too little too late. Instead, they should have handled it the same as the Tylenol people handled their crisis situation. Above board, get out there and talk to people and get them comfortable with you again. Tylenol got back 80 percent of its market in less than a year. Don't think that will happen here.

Lindens, you may know your computer stuff (maybe), but you certainly don't know how to handle you clients.

I was just about to buy a openspace sim to live on with my partner rather than where I'm at. Don't think that is going to happen. I feel bad about leaving SL, it has been fun. But when you get ripped monetarily by a company, it's time to leave. You've got some of my money, but you are not getting more.

History shows that when people get ripped off, the government steps in. I don't want the government putting its nose into Internet regulation, but this situation has been a big step backward into that happening. You know someone is going to talk to their congressperson about this or take it to court. It only will stir up the government to pass regulations.

Lindens, how could you screw this up so bad? What were you thinking?

You BELIEVE the limits will be enough? You're CONSIDERING OPTIONS? But you're already advertising the product and its price!

It's interesting, too, how you don't answer the strongest points, only the ones you can answer without actually trying to justify either (a) the business calculations showing LL are profiteering or (b) the ridiculous, and continuing (see my first paragraph) incompetence in assessing, consulting on, solving and communicating this process.

I disagree, I buy my lindens directly from LL and then spend them in the world. I am not a creator, I don't sell anything in SL or make money there , so it does hurt LL. Sadly the victims are the creators

Yep and also let's use the analogy of a plastic teaspoon.

You can reuse them if you wash them.

However you abuse that and the plastic will weaken until it doesn't shatter, it just sort of stops caring about keeping it's shape as a plastic teaspoon and warps into being useless.

Many people are simply to the point of not caring about LL any more. Which is fair enough in many ways as they probably don't feel very cared for. It's a business and there are business needs as I have said MANY times over the years.

Making your customers feel valued also is a business need.

I'm sorry but Katt Linden has a mouthful of popcorn right now and cannot answer you - please leave a message after the beep and it will be ignored in due course....*beeeeeep*

Falling foul of gambling laws ...

German TV coverage of "child pornography and pedophilia" ...

Banking laws ...

Money laundering ...

LOL

We are with you Renee... On Dec 27 we abandon our 5 sims and walk from SL.

No..dont IM me..they arent for sale.

This shows me that much consideration and care thought is being put towards the residents. I appreciate that and can appreciate the reasons for needed change. Im not sure what to consider mysim as its based largely in trees and water and a moutain... my sim doesnt have high traffic on most occasions its simply my getaway.. More than anything its my creation a world i myself would like to live in and is quite lovely... but is it an openspace as is intended im not sure that its quite that.. is it heavy traffic no its not that either... is it a lovely beautiful addition to the beauty that is second life and worth a trip in seeing.. most definately... If i had money there is no doubt I would have a full sim. But real life denotes that that will not be so for me... The prices are better considered but i think also those of us who paid full price purchasing our sims through someone else should have an option if we choose to convert to a full sim.. whats your opinion
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imdypaine/sets/72157607417313042/

Actually, this is an interesting point.

LL has placed most of its development work in the UK.

LL has placed most of its support work in the UK

(incidentally, this as much as anything is the reason behind the VAT hike - LL's turnover likely exceeded the UK VAT threshold with the influx of employees down Brighton way).

Ergo, their UK arm is at least bound by UK law, even if the parent company isn't. Scratch one and the other may well bleed.....

My opinion is that alts shouldn't be so flipping obvious.

Jack Linden proposes an OS sim for $125 tier. We all shouted "NO".

M Linden now proposes an OS sim for $125 tier + limits on avatars and scripts and you say "Yes?"

Please explain why? I am obviously missing the point here!

That is completey true and brings it to the point. What makes me so angry is that they just misuse the fact, that so many users have invested so much energy and creativity what they dont want to loose, and that there is no equavalent alternative on the market at the moment. They destroy more then only the dreams which we all created, they destroy the trust into the whole SL world and create an irreversible damage with the ruthless hunt of easy and fast cash.

you might consider buying 3 from the forums, they are likely to be much cheaper atm then the 250 setup fee

It would not seem to make sense to just abandon your sims when you could sell them for a low price and most likely get someone to buy them right away and you would be able to get some money back. There are still plenty of Estate owners buying up sims if the price is right.

But where will this end? I shudder at the thought of the next step LL decides to make. It feels like we're being pwned big time. And all I can do is go along with it, coz'I love this place and the people in it.

Caught between rock and a hard place. All I can do now is hope that my wife and me can get full ownership of our soon-to-be homestead island.

I hardly ever crash any more, and I can't remember the last time I had a sim crash on me.