Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

No.. Please don't.. The posts will just get deleted and you'll get in trouble..

Yeah, they may raise your tier more

They will never announce such a change in full estate sims, because they know their sales would immediately stop. LL likes to sell stuff right up until the day they change it, so it will be a nice surprise for people who have owned their sims for only a week.

Surprises are good, right?

Not those sort of surprises

Thanks Ciaran

Full-sim private island tier went up 50%, almost exactly 2 years ago..

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/10/29/price-for-new-private-islands-to-increase/

Well, I think LL would disagree. These surprises are worth millions. God knows how many openspaces wouldn't have been sold if they had told us ahead of time they were going to do this.

You can't tell people about the switch if you want them to take the bait.

For my purposes the sim performance was quite adequate. The landlord split the sim into 4 parts - and sold it as 'residential'. It worked adequately for that.

You are correct. It is the cost per month (per prim, if you will) which is pushing me out of SL. I seldom encountered performance issues while on my property.

However, I was never informed that the property was hosted in an OpenSpace/light use sim. I guess I was lucky not to discover the reality the hard way.

I did not read any other of the post other than this one - it was one of the first, and I just wanted to quote it and second the motion.

While this particular issue does not affect me directly, it affects plenty of close friends of mine and countless business owner across the grid.

Really. Next time send out a warning - privately if you wish, via emails - to those who are in error, and make a general warning post on the blog. It astounds me at this late date, that LL is constantly surprised at how things turn out, and are not prepared for how residents are going to use (or abuse!) the tools given.

"LL lost many points with many residents..."

Yes, include me in that number. It should not take torches and pitchforks for you to formulate policies that makes sense.

Well I see it's the same old Linden Lab Double Speak, just change the wording around to try and think we're all not noticing its basically the same policy rewritten. You seem determined to drive everyone away from Second Life and its purpose by sheer greed and short sightedness.

Remember it's we the resident's that make Second Life what it is, certainly not anything that Linden Labs has done with their tired excuses of everything is always resolved only to break yet again. The credibility of management clearly shines through in this latest round of myopic policy making, today Open Space Sims, tomorrow full sims will be jacked up in price, at what point does this madness end gentlemen.

Lets be realistic there is no way the costs you're proposing is even remotely justifiable for what we would get, frankly it's a total rip off and scam at best that yells of deceptive practices.

It's sad and unfortunate that you have chosen to enact such an unfair policy and fleece us even more with your "spin". When the last resident leaves I hope someone turns the lights off at Linden Labs because it truly will be a dark day for all of us that you've so callously treated.

When the blog 'Update regarding the OpenSpaces announcement" dated 29th of October was *EVENTUALLY* opened to comments, you were the first person to post, and immediately received a big pat on the back from Jack Linden for your "constructive" post and "good ideas".

Jack Linden then disappeared from the blog - obviously having heard what he wanted to hear - ignoring the hundreds of useful suggestions and pertinent questions desperately worried customers of LL posted to the blog, the jira and the forum.

And quelle surprise, M. Linden's announcement was, to all intents and purposes *your* proposal.

Seriously, Qie, do you work for LL, or have a vested interest in selling mainland?

Those of us who bought OpenSpaces just months or weeks ago should NOT be punished because LL made a 'mistake'.

All OpenSpaces purchased before the announcement should be grandfathered. A modest price increase would be tolerable, but the 67% price hike planned for July is completely unacceptable!

Unfortunately, based on their history, they will most likely raise EVERYONES tier.






Then there needs to be grandfathering with a restricted service ... ie. One of the reasons for the cost increase they say is to offer Homestead support. They can hold that back for grandfathered OS's ... we're used to no support.

Those who want the additional support can convert to a normal Homestead service at $125 with support.



I'm not too sure how this product can "cost them so much money". And if it is, it won't be once the capping is implemented so users can't 'abuse' them anymore ... so grandfathering is a viable option.

Even if its grandfathered at a slight increase - $95 tier ... many existing owners may be able to absorb that. But $125 for a reduced service!!! Unlikely!!!


Extremely poor business ethic
.

It may be worth millions to them ... but I wonder how many people have lost trust in them ?
Once trust is gone in a relationship, it takes a lot to get it back .. or its destroyed for ever...

I love my island, and I bought it in good faith, from I think, a good person.. hes cool, I don't think he had any intention to rip me off .. I think that's much further up the food chain.

And here the lies begin already...IF we were "residents", you wouldn't be treating us like that. You would show some respect...some common sense...some business ethics...but none of that is apparent in what you say following your paraphrase of McCain's "My Friends".



Not true, or you have not been listening.

What you have done is avoided the obvious solution (deliver what you have sold, and what we agreed to buy from you, and you agreed to deliver).

You also avoided the obvious solution for the future handling of OpenSpaces.

The best that can be said about this announcement is that LL is going in the right direction, but taking the wrong steps in attempting to get there, and putting up unnecessary roadblocks to itself.

What can *not* be said is that LL will regain stature with us paying customers.




The relative failure of that original product said enough about it's features (or rather: lack of features). It was overpriced for what it offered, so there were hardly any takers.

When a product does not sell (well enough), there is a reason for that, and usually the reason lies within the product. Not the customer (ok, "stinginess" aka "price/benefit awareness" could be considered a customer-flaw from a business POV. What we are left with is the impression that you are taking this view).



Lest we get into the habit of re-writing history, let's remember that "*Upgraded* Openspaces was wildly popular". Not OpenSpaces.

These were the features that made "OpenSpaces V2.0" wildly successful (in descending order of importance going by feedback from my customers):

- Privacy (could be placed anywhere as isolated regions, thus offering the only level of actual privacy SL offers);

- Increased Prim-count (enabling residents to have both a homestead and landscaping; not having to decide between either. A homestead is not a home if it has no landscape.);

- Increased Prim-count (enabling residents to be creative with the landscape, and/or the interaction of landscape and residence);

- Relative Affordability for the resident (and I suspect that this is the actual issue where you are hurting from your decision to make the OpenSpace product useful. Compared to both Mainland and property on private estates "OS v2" offered more benefit per buck for a certain clientele, especially the clientele that uses SL as "*my* slice of Utopia, *my* way". Renting out your estate can be frustrating, and often is, but that was one of the aspect of this business I looked forward to every morning: to discuss ideas, come up with how-to's, watch ideas take shape, be part of that creative process, .... now mostly gone. Just a personal note of sadness.);

- Relative Affordability for the Estate Owner (I know that I'm not the only estate owner who has set aside (at least) one OS v2 as her personal sandbox, to test concepts, to develop terrain ideas, to showcase ideas, to play with terrain textures, to use as a safe place for customers to experiment with terraforming tools and/or land- and estate-options, ... . All things that cannot be done on mainland, and can't or shouldn't be done in private regions shared with many customers. US$125/month is too much of an expense that would have to be covered through tier-income from "regular uses" of themed or non-themed full sims, both of which have taken a serious hit in occupancy with the emergence of "OS v2". If I were in your position, M, I would be *very* worried about the sheer number of estates being put up for sale almost every day (and to be abandoned if no sucker steps in), given that private estates make up the majority of what SL is, with mainland not even being a close contender (McCain had more of a lead on Obama than mainland has on private estates currently). It doesn't take a spreadsheet to figure out where your revenue comes from / will fall short if you go down your current path; yet your amended (..*cough*...) policies seem to be based on blissful ignorance of this very obvious fact);




Maybe you have been listening, but you sure haven't heard us.

WRONG!
The original OS product was too expensive to begin with, given the benefits it offered.
OS v2 ameliorated that situation to a certain degree, with some caveats.

OS v2 used as a void (that is: enough prims to actually sponsor events involving primmy objects like yachts or spaceships that don't look like elementary-school-exercises in basic geometry, or what have you.... , or to provide "mere landscape" adjacent to a full sim so that you could actually create a landscape that doesn't look like a post-apocalyptical digital wasteland (my apologies to the fans of that meme, but most people don't feel comfortable with that), but an actual expansion of a themed (full) sim is too expensive at US$75/month. US$95 makes it prohibitive. I can create more landscape on a 1,024sqm plot on a full sim at much less the cost than that, and people appreciate it. So why should I as an estate owner spend that much money for mere decoration when I can provide more decoration by setting aside a mere 10% of a full sim?

As you have no doubt noticed, but chosen to ignore, the US$75 tier level, combined with the willingness of estate owners to do business in creative ways, was at the top end of what you sold us as Homesteads, aka OpenSpaces, aka OS v2 (before you decided to pull the rug and re-define the product you were so eager to sell us in the months past by playing word games on us that will cost us (and, in the end: you) dearly).

A Void, as you and Jack want us to use OpenSpaces, is worth US$35/month in tier, and US$50 in purchase, at the top end (I'm thinking luxury-resort style estates here). A more realistic pricing would peg it at no more than US$25/month a piece. At that level an estate could actually add that expense to a full sim's plot-tier, and customers would be willing to add that expense to their monthly personal entertainment expenditures.



WRONG!
Again: you may have listened to us, but you sure didn't hear us.

When you doubled the prim-count for an OS, and "dis-connected" them from full sims, you told everyone: "OpenSpaces are *your* personal regions to do with as you want within some technical limits (the prim-count; and BTW: Full Sims have their technical limits, too. Never mind Lindens pointing out to estate owners that even OpenSpaces v1 could be used residentially, a suggestion (*cough*) which many of us estate owners resisted for the very technical reasons both you and Jack cite). You can have privacy, OR you can build a business on an OS, or you can base your Real Estate business on selling OpenSpaces, or...surprise us! Well, guess we *did* surprise you. Which questions your (and Philip's) visionary power. At this point in time it seems that Estate Owners have and had more visionary power than you, Jack, and Philip combined.

Which leads us to a very simple, yet essential question: how come you are not hearing those who take Philip's vision farther than all of you were able to imagine?

Is The Revolution eating it's children (you, Philip, Jack)?

Is the revolutionary (Philip) only good for throwing incendiary devices at the status quo, but lacks the qualities to actually overcome the status quo / develop an alternative? (History suggests so)

And, maybe most crucial: why is the "revolutionary" not able to actucally hear those in whose mandate he claims to act?
History (and that includes business history (yes, trhat means "Linden Lab") is so full of failed visionaries who failed to understand the implications of the revolution they tried to incite that it is vomit-inducing. In that sense LL seems to be poised to be just one more of those who didn't understand what they were doing. With dire consequences for the survivors of their amateurish attempts to create "something new". Never mind those whos' corpses were left along the path as milestones of their "progress".



Given LL's track-record of listening *and hearing* resident's comments and requirements and suggestions, that statement would be breath-taking, if it weren't for this follow-up:



You just put lipstick on a pig.
A pig with Dow-syndrome, no less (my apologies to those who are affected with that; no insult intended; I know that RL-situation first hand).

It's still a pig that doesn't even raise to the level of being a true pig.



Belief and Reality more often part paths than they join. This is a case in point.



- If you consider our input "very, very constructive", why are you ignoring it?

- Why do you the ignore the "very, very constructive" input when it comes to how to improve the client?

- Why do you ignore the "very, very constructive" input when it comes to mainland issues?

- Why do you ignore the "very, very constructive" input when it comes to private estate issues?

- Why do you ignore the "very, very constructive" input when it comes to matters of the first VR-economy?

- Why do you ignore the "very, very constructive" input when it comes to what those who cannot afford the huge up-front and "maintenance" fees want (who are those that the responsible estate owners try to serve in helping them to acquire their very own slice of utopia, according to Philip's often stated, but as-yet unrealized "vision"?

- Why do you ignore the "very, very constructive" input of those who are not "Quereinsteiger" (it's a German word, and I really urge you to look it up and try to understand it's meaning, because (I'm sory to say), at this point in time, it describes you, M, perfectly)?

- Why do you even spend money (in the form of wages, benefits, etc...) on people like you, and Katt (who doesn't know enough about SL and it's technology to realize when an (admittedly pointed) question is not "off the topic", but speaking to the very essence of an official statement, M?

- Why, when you could have all the expertise it takes to make LL and SL an overwhelming success, for free, by just *hearing* what we are *saying* (Estate Owners and "mere residents" alike)? Heck, I have residents on Full Sims who are outraged at how LL treats buyers of OpenSpaces, even though they can't afford even a quarter of an OpenSpace themselves. I know hat you have access to those IM's, and I have been in the DB-business long enough (more than 20 years) to know that, if you were *truly* interested in resident's sentiments, it would take you and your staff less than an hour to find out what your livelihood (us) thinks.




Sure you would.

Because, again, you don't know the facts.

Never mind that the reported "stability" of SL is mostly due to the client's inability to accurately report crashes.

But Hey!..if you own the statistics, you own the truth, no matter, how skewed it is ) (You know, that was when I felt, for the first time, real pain for McCain...the delusion of statistics you base on irrelevant numbers to suit your delusions. It was a very sad moment... why did you have to bring that up again?).



No, you weren't.
Again: learn to *hear* instead of just *listen* what skewed statistics tell you.
You want to end up like McCain, a once-honorouble man who gave up his honor for a shot at power?
As you were....

You want to advance SL, the vison of tens of thousands, *and* your livelihood?
Learn to *hear*.
Don't just "listen".
Learn to Hear.

Don't be just one of a gazillion of Quereinsteigers who ruin what started out as a great vision.



No, you haven't.
If you had, we wouldn't have this "discussion".

You defined a product..you sold the product..you took the money for the product..and then failed to deliver.
That is not "deliver on our promise".
It is the abject opposite of anything worth being labeled a "business relationship" (never mind a "vision".

If there was any vestige of business sense (and that excludes the learned "wisdom" of Quereinsteigers like you, M), you would have done something like this (not discussing details here, just broad outlines):

- you would have maintained the original conditions of OpenSpaces for decorative purposes, but at the prices/fees that would have taken into account the actual cost of the product vs. the subjective value it offers to residents of private estates (US$25/month each to US$35/month each at the extreme end);

- you would have offered the "new" Homestead product right from the start, when LL increased the prim-maximum and loosened restrictions on placement, PLUS improved the product by hosting at most 2 (in words: TWO, AT MOST) homesteads on one core per server (it's been how long since you first learned that residents use things like pose-balls and "showers" and dances and seasonally responsive plants/windows.... ? It's been how long since LL-employees pointed out the potential of residential uses of OpenSpaces even _before_ the upgrade to OS v2? At the very least 9 -10 months according to my sources). It took me less than three months to learn about these things, and I signed up in 2006. Supposedly SL is older than me). Are you actually that clueless, or are you just pretending to be that clueless to keep a straight face (at least virtually, pun intended)?

- the economics of hosting at most two (in words: 2) OpenSpaces/Homesteads per core are pretty simple too; too simple, in fact, to even bother to put out your pocket-calculator; as anyone with a minimum of experience in running a commercial company could have told you: it is better to keep 70% of your customer-base at a 50% reduction in profits per unit sold than realize a 67% profit on a customer base reduced by 50% (IF we want to be optimistic). Even a Quereinsteiger knows that. Why don't you?




So far you have offered a lot of bullshit (well, you *did* say "Thank You" for our candor ).
I'm still waiting for you to show entrepreneurial competence, but I'm not holding my breath.
I will wind down down my estates in the face of your bullshit, since my customers are stretched to their limits already. It's not not much for you, I know that.

But: as there is strength in numbers when things go well, there is force in failure, when leadership fails, too (you do know how to spell "George Walker Bush"?). My estates certainly will not count for much of your revenue. But multiplied by hundreds, if not thousands, from what I hear in private conversations...you better update your resume (by that I mean: delete the paragraph of being LL's CEO, or at least make it sound like you have been railroaded into that job).

Without any intent to be incendiary, inflammatory, insulting, offending... but just speaking from both RL and in in-world experience (and, in spite of your leadership (and Katt's failure to facility much-needed dialogue because of a total lack of understanding the underlying issues (the two of you remind me so much of McCain and Palin, it's not even funny any more), so far,), and, in spite of your leadership still hoping for SL to survive,


ChatNoir

Honestly, I am beginning to think they don't care. They have a lot of turnover in SL. How many people do you see with birth dates earlier than 2007 these days? I think maybe they think that with turnover like that, offending a lot of oldsters is a decent risk, given they will probably just wander off eventually anyway.

Especially oldsters of the class, who would rather put up the money for their own sims than pay L$100 per meter for Bay City foolishness. I have seen this happen in other venues. They bring in people whose interest is business, not THE business, and therefore have no love or care for it. Bad stewards, bean counters.

Since it was my understanding that the unrestricted openspace sims with 3750 prims is taking up half of the cpu core rather than the quarter like it was supposed to, the $125 price seems fair. Should you decide to lower that further then I would like a tier decrease on my full sim. It would only be fair. Thanks.

just wanna make sure they will read this one.

Oldsters add huge amounts of insight and help to any community, be it online or IRL ... Lots of young people think these days, that money is so easy to get, what with credit cards and what have you ... well sorry there is a huge world wide recession happening here ..

Money is not going to be so readily available to young people or the oldsters any more .. that's the one thing I don't understand about this huge price increase .. don't the Lindens know or realise whats happening in the real world ?

Read my posts, all of them on this subject. It's easy enough to do; there's probably about a dozen, between this thread and the feedback one. Then see if you really want to ask those questions.

I've been pretty explicit about what I think LL did wrong in this, and what I think the consequences will be.

But I do want this problem resolved in a way that residents--and Lindens--can live with. Not because I actually give a damn about OpenSpaces, but because I care about some people who are invested in them, and about what those people bring to Second Life.

And no, as should be obvious from my postings, I surely don't work for LL. As for a vested interest in selling Mainland: I only own a little over a half-sim total, scattered in weirdly misshapen adfarm-defeating parcels over five continents. None of it is set for sale, but drop me a PM if you're in the market for some really sh!tty land.

Best post of the year

I, for one, would be willing to pay $125 a month for a Homestead that could be used for residential or light commercial use if I were allowed. I do not own a full sim and do not want to own one because I do not want to budget $295 a month for an online form of entertainment in case I could not rent out the full sim which is pretty likely with the current real estate market.

Right now, I have an open sim and pay $111 US a month in tier to a sim owner vs a $75 payment. As of Jan. 5, if I keep the open sim, I will have to pay him $133 US a month vs the $95 payment. If this trend continues, I would be paying $163 a month vs $125 a month in July which I will not do.

My questions for Mark and Jack -
1) Are you going to require new open spaces to be next to existing sims?

If not, you're going to have people living on 700 prim sims scattered throughout the grid even though you tell them they cannot "live" there.

2) When will your decision be made about script limits on Homesteads?

Many of our decisions to even keep our existing open space sims beyond January depend on this information.

3) Since Homesteads are no longer going to be for the sole purpose of providing open waters and scenery space for full sims, why can't individuals like myself who do not own a full sim purchase them and thus only have to pay the normal tier price of $95/$125 a month?

I know there are many people who would keep theirs if they did not have to pay the extra $38 tier a month like I have to do on top of the $125 price.

Because that wouldn't be profitable for LL. People who can't afford full estates are supposed to either bankroll people who can with rent, or go pay tier on the mainland. That's one of the main problems with this situation. Too many estate owners are letting friends have openspaces for cost.

I think it is obvious that they just want to discontinue the whole openspace idea completely and send as many estate rental folks back to the mainland as possible to help with sales of their new areas. The only way they can think to do it is to make the deal as inhospitable for people who want to live on openspaces as they can.

The problem is, how do you take $250 from thousands of people in the Summer, and sweep them under the carpet in the Fall without them being all lumpy and tripping over them? Maybe they could bury us in leaves...

It's all just too expensive now.

Looking past whether I am pleased with being informed of unilateral decisions that effect me and mine without first being consulted on possible solutions.

Setting aside whether I am willing to continue in a business arrangement that I never agreed to.

Not allowing my indignance at the presumption to be a factor.

Admitting that a business can charge anything they want for their product, and I can choose whether or not to partake.

Admitting that an endeavor of this nature is inevitably a risk, and setting aside my disappointment that my belief that I was assuming a risk in a "partnership" with LLs to build a mutually beneficial situation was naive.

Trying to not let my fear that the end of grandfathered full sims and tier increases of full sims is right around the corner effect my here and now.

It's just too expensive to be here now for anything other than "how can I squeeze a buck out of it" business.

I really don't especially want to surround myself on a social level with nothing but opportunists. I can get that all day long in RL. It's not why I am in the virtual world.

I'm exploring other options. Thanks for all the fish.

Linden is just another web hosting company offering 3D Social Platform.

A web hosting company will never change it's monthly hosting fee for the server that the customer sign up and will never force you to upgrade to a higher class server due to performance issue.

Every detail including Processor, Monthly bandwidth, Hard Disk Drive, RAM, Operating System, Port 10/100/1000 Mbps are clearly listed out and configurable.

On share hosting, If someone overused the CPU resources, that particular account will be shut down or suspended as some of you might have seen it before. No question about it. They do not punish everyone by raising the monthly hosting fee.

Resident buying islands from Linden to sublet are their resellers. Linden should treat resellers as their best friends. They put in time and effort to beautified your island and get you more users.

If a product is not tested, do not market it. You need beta testers to test your beta product just like any software. Do not release it till you fixed the bugs.

Remember, your customer is always right. They are the one that pays your monthly salary.

exactly Daisy Kwon! i too have an open sim that i "rent" from an another, an estate holder. and if i want to keep it, i will be forced to pay more for less then what i originally bought.
i invested an initial 150 US, plus pay just over a 100 US a month for mine.
what was getting for that? An Open sim that had no AV restrictions, had no possible script restirctions, and had a 3750 prim count.

If it had these prim allowances why in the hell wouldnt we use them?? we are all prim junkies here and lindens are our dealers...

i knew what i had was an open sim and i actually was carefull with it. i had a small build on it for my personal use, and a few trees. the rest was empty, i loved it for its landscaping and it gave me room to play and build.

Now i am either faced with being forced to pay more for less, and abadon it and lose all that money i invested. Money i work damn hard RL to get, i may add. i never minded paying for things in sl before, it was my only bad habit... but now, with these suits in the Linden office changing what sl was supposed to be about into nothing more then corporate Prim dealers, i dont feel good about it at all..

You built something for creative people to come and use our imaginations and create worlds.. well you got what you wished for, but maybe you didnt realize that with creative minds come creative thinkers, and passion... and now your crying and pulling shit like this. thanks.

tomorrow my tier is due., i will have chosen to give up my land, my premium account (that aparently means nothing) and my payment info... it will be the last i spend in sl