Your Favorite Land Baron's Bill Is Getting Paid By LL?

Now that you have arrived at this, I will discuss this point with you.

Why transparency? The lindens have a formula they use, simple. Suffice it to say, it's universal in scope and is offered as a bonus to people who contribute to both worlds in an extraordinary way. It's far better that formula remains a mystery, because some people will simply "game" the system.

Remember blaze, it's "incentive" and "bonus", not rules or schemes.

Well, there I disagree.

Secrecy is a recipe for irrational favoritism.

If the dwelloper bonuses are to be LL's secret way of picking who they want and who they don't want then very few sophisticated investors will want to have anything to do with them.

Ok there has to be a full moon, because:

a) I agree with Blaze - I think transparency in understanding exactly how these are awarded would certainly help dispel any accusations of wrong doing and provide even more incentive for people to compete for them.

b) I think Anshe deserves the developer incentive she received - why should she be any different? It is unclear how much of it is based on dwell from the massive volume of malls that she owns and how much stems from the private islands, but whatever the case, I would have been more suspect if she had not topped the list on sheer volume alone. Love Anshe, hate her, or somewhere in between, there is no denying that she has been very successful at what she does, however she does it, and the award reflects that. Congratulations, Anshe.

I agree with blaze, and then Cristiano.

In a real place, there wouldn't be silly developers' awards like this, anyway, of course. Or they'd actually be more subjective, but a multiplicity of subjectivity created by a respected panel of Lindens and prominent business people who would give out these awards the way, say, a Chamber of Commerce of something gives out awards to whatever, the 42nd St. Business Improvement District Association of what have you.

I'm for them publicizing this formula to justify the way in which they calculate it, and for discussing with the community ways to find incentive for other kinds of activity in this game besides mass volume mall and land barony.

What is the big secret? The magic Linden computer adds up everyones dwell for the month, then the people in the top 2% get the DI. The actual amount they get depends on how far up the list they are. Those at the top get more than those at the bottom. Does it really matter what the precise formula is?

If it is so important to know exactly how much people on the list get, then try asking...

If you're earning enough dwell to get on the list then that is only because other people are choosing to be on your land, for whatever reason.

Well, I suspect they are chosing to be on their own land.

That does open up a fascinating question - given the sheer volume of the number of sims Anshe owns that are now being used for private residences, if a significant number of people living on the islands spend most of their time on their own plot of land, that could definitely compete against the dwell of a popular place attracting people to come to it. Interesting issue.

In my opinion the question is, what kind of behavior is the Developer Incentive award trying to motivate? I've always understood it to be motivation to create content or events that enterain LL's guests. I think Anshe has done commendable work providing venues and support for events and for that she deserves dwell and awards. And I'm sure she puts a lot of work into her land business too. But is the DI award meant to reward hard work alone, or to reward those who create entertainment for other players? As blaze said, getting DI award money for people sitting in their own homes seems to go against the spirit of the thing.

ok here is my oh so ACID spit

i have nothing agains Ashe as a person, each time i talked to her she was very nice

HOWEVER in RL and in SL i have some kind of allergy to middlemans i personally consider its some kind of leech that pump money somewhere nobody really need them.

In my ideal point of view, acting as middleman should be a suffisent rerason for TOS violation, but i am not Linden Lab. To me the only peoples having the right to make business in SL are the one that offer in return something to the community.

Yeah i could make ther same stuffs Anshe do but i havent the same kind of cash backend, i am just a porr student after all. On topo of this i consider that i have a bit of talent to create stuffs for peoples so its my way to provide something to the community.

WHat i see is that linden lab seems not to have any problems to dump money in these talentless middlemens and is forgetting all the creators that really provide something and arent just stacking money.

disgusting

My concerns is not how much, buy WHY? Point me to one worth while thing Anshe has made for the community. She is not a developer.

Ya know, everyone harps on Anshe for everything under the sun.

Is she a corporate monster in SL? Yes.

Is she unstoppable? No.

If you dont' want her to succeed, DONT BUY HER LAND. Period. Start up campaigns that educate people on... whatever it is she's done wrong.

Of course, this won't happen, people are more than content with shouting at linden labs to fix the "Anshe Problem".

Yes, she decimates entire continents. She's ruined the auctioning system. She has competitive business practices similar to Walmart.

And yet, the community lets her continue on.

Blame yourselves, not LLabs.

LF

Lordfly, I have nothing against Anshe because of her business. All my things against ANshe are for personal reason from one encounter with her. She works within the rules and cornered her market.

But LL needs to change the name of this incentive, Developer is totally the wrong word.

Yeah, allergy to middlemen is exactly the problem you have, and it's time you took some Claritin.

Let me give you some Claritin here on the useful and necessary and even vital function that middlemen perform:

1. Middlemen keep land liquid, that is, their propensity to constantly buy and sell land, trying to buy low and sell high, keeps land flowing, and keeps it from getting locked up and backed up somewhere. It means that people can always have an option for a "just in time" purchase. That purchase may be higher than what they'd like to pay, but they are paying for that service of the land becoming available "just in time."

2. Middlemen keep prices stable. They value land and try to make a profit off it. They are not interested in land prices falling because it devalues their ownings. So they are willing to use their capital to buy up cheaper land and hold it on their tier, paying for it when others will not, and keep it available for "just in time" purchases.

3. Middlemen are available to bail you out. When you have to leave the game, when you breakup with your boyfriend, when you want to move to a better sim, the middlemen are there to buy you out, to "liquidate" you by enabling you to make a quick sale based on their liquidation prices, i.e. they might pay $5 for mature regularly, whereas if you had to bail out without them, you might have to publick your land or put it to sale for $1 or $2 just to get out.

4. Middlemen in SL help make it possible for people to take their time with projects. Often, middlemen are holding half a sim or more, keeping it on their tier, paying for it 30-60-90 as people in the game take their time to tier up, slowly add to their holdings, bring in others to projects, etc.

5. Middlemen keep alive SL's auction. There are days when what the Lindens put out wouldn't sell if it weren't for middlemen. They buy every day. Without them, the auction would fail.

6. Middlemen can get together investments for large projects, whole sims, residential communities, etc. whereas individual buyers would have trouble.

In exchange for these very valid and real and productive services that middlemen provide, they charge. They make a profit. The profit motive is a legitimate one. It is what makes the world go round.

We could explore why you and others in your country/culture/region have an allergy to landowning commerce. But that would take us far off topic. Suffiice it to say that everyone coming into SL from whatever country or culture would do well to look closely at their allergies, chief among which is the allergenic reaction to businesspeople, land dealers "usurers" or what have you. It's a cultural allergy, and one that new technologies and education can help to remove. It has no validity, given that land has value, people value it, it has a price, and the highest price will be paid for he who wants it. This reality of marketplace economics is what secures individual rights and the basis of civilization. If you want to try another idea, rolling out land endlessly for free and having people treat it as "not theirs," then..you should think about how that actually results in SL. It results in ugliness, griefing, and stupidity.

Ok. I am about to defend Anshe, God help me...


She is a developer, she is a land developer. With her private little islands, I am impressed. While I don't think the terraforming is excellent, a real effort was put into it. That takes effort and talent and she hired people to do it. She has what a dozen malls that are mostly full, that takes talent. She has her littled themed area etc. She is a developer, and developer of content, just because she isn't making Disneyland, that doesn't mean her reseidental sims aren't Developments contributing to the community. They are. People love suburban hell and she is providing it to them, that is a service.

<------lover of surburban heaven

I agree with Eboni.

coco

Anshe makes money because Anshe assumes the responsibility and risk for the land.

If anyone wants to "stop" this, they should propose a better technological solution for groups of people to share land.

I stand corrected.

If we are talking about estate land deeded to a group, a simple fix would be that Developer Incentive dwell for that land should only accrue to the estate owner if s/he is a member of the group to which it is deeded. This allows for estate owners to use groups to manage their own land, and also for land to be sold/rented/whatever to other groups of which the owner takes no part.

A more complex fix would be a total overhaul of the DI program, group land ownership, and traffic/dwell. I'd rather see a simple fix now, and then take the time to work out a long-term solution.

1. Dwell is NOT a lot of money.
2. Dwell is NOT a lot of money.
3. Dwell is NOT a lot of money.
4. If you own the land, thus promoting people to reside in it, thereby helping to drive people into SL and keep them residing in SL and not moving on to another MMO, why don't they deserver the dwell for that land?
5. Dwell is NOT a lot of money.
6. I think we'd all like a dwell overhaul... incentives to developers are definitely incomplete; developers who make vehicles, scripts, and attachments receive essentially 0 developer awards other than the money they make off selling the items.

Hiro forgot to add that DWELL IS NOT A LOT OF MONEY.

I know daily dwell payments are not a lot of money. But DI awards total thousands of US$.

It's not a question of who deserves what - all of this is artificial and the point is for it to be fun for us to play while LL makes money. The question is, why should LL provide an award to someone who only owns land? If the DI award is meant to motivate a certain kind of behavior, is it doing that if the money is going to land resellers?

Agreed - it does seem unfair that land "owners" in these sims, who have been bombarded with the semantics of "it is no different than buying land from LL" should not be elligibile for incentives on their group deeded land. Yet another way it is not the same.

At the same time, these sims are residential, not commercial - and I don't think their stated goal is to attract the kinds of crowds necessary to make it onto the DI list anyway - so in the end, it may not matter if they are elligible or not.

Oh snap! Thanks for the reminder, bro.

... divided by a whole bunch of people. And?


1. A person logs in. That person finds somewhere to hang out, and stays online. Linden Lab makes money.
2. A person logs in. That person finds no place worth hanging out at, and logs off. Linden Lab does not make money.

Obviously we want 1, not 2. So, how do you encourage builders to bring people to and keep them in SL? You reward them for people staying in your land - because it means you're giving players reasons to hang around online instead of logging off.


"Only"? Do you have any idea of the time it takes to manage THAT much land?


1. Define "a certain kind of behavior" in the terms of the DIs.
2. I don't like how Anshe runs her land reselling business, but it's far from the only thing she does. I would imagine the majority of dwell she gets from her other projects, and not from her reselling land that no one is even hanging around in since it's unbuilt.

but ll thinks it's enough to encourage certain things.

it's not a lot, but it might be enough.