Robin's Comments on Teluhubs, p2p tp, compensation for people near telehubs

Well 'keeping telehubs' would involve continuing to add them to new areas - yes.

Still it's not really an answer to what I asked.

But still I think I've seen enough people that 'get the question' respond that I don't think I'm alone on that train of thought....

I like the idea of user submited hubs. Also I'd think it'd be nicer if more of the hubs were like WAs like Waterhead for example. Themed areas that you enjoy to go for because they look neat. While it does take more time to build, it also causes people to stick around sometimes. More of an actual "hub" and less of a "thingy with a clock that I just fly right by".


I think it'd be nice to leave both telehubs and start doing P2PT (free of charge). Giving people *choice* as to what they want to use. My biggest frustraition is that I don't even get the choice to not use a telehub, a forced inconvience when I don't want it, but may like it at some point in my day.

Robin also says, "Our goal is to make sure when you click on a link from outside SL that you go directly to the landing point you've chosen." Their goal seems to be inclined toward P2P porting. If they follow through with direct secondlife:// links and give us an in-world browser, it seems like we'll be given a nice P2P hack.

I hope that takes into account any settings that Land owners could set. So say if I do a secondlife link to a plot that does NOT allow direct teleportation... it sends me to the nearest telehub or doesn't work at all.

Someone else also had an interesting idea... charge 50L$ (or some other ammount) to allow direct teleportation to your land parcel. You could perhaps do this a one-time-fee or a weekley like the Land Find listing. This would create a nice money sink too. I personaly would rather see this than paying for each teleport.

let's not use southern californian sprawl as an example of something to aspire to.

Trust me, I drive it every day. My point is that a community should reflect the needs of the users, and that telehubs do not meet this need. And they have thus far not accomplished much in the way of community building.

If one wishes to build a community, they should focus on what the residents actually do. And my sense is that most resident behave in a pattern closer to LA than new your. and the telehub notion was based on the development of new york.

The concept of telehubs 'building a community' was, and continues to be, laughable.

And the failure of this to happen should not have come as a surprise - telehubs are hubs of SL's rapid transit system, the SL analogue of bus stations, railway termini and airports. None of which have been observed to assist in the 'building of a community', in the social sense, in RL.
Why should it be any different in SL?

However, the thing that really worries me is that the adoption of a P2P TP system will mean that malls/'x'ingo parlours/clubs/casinos and so on will no longer need to seek out telehub sims, or those close by telehubs.
Instead they will be able to site themselves on the cheapest large area they can find anywhere on the mainland.

This will impact on everyone who owns or rents in a nice quiet location - imagine logging in one day to find your nice quiet home, located in a fast sim, now with a 'x'ingo parlour on one side and a mall on the other...

All my properties are located in sims about as far from telehubs as possible, and for a very good reason - peace and quiet! If P2P becomes a reality there are two possible courses of action open to me:

1/ Buy up the surrounding sims to protect myself and my tenants from being over-run by the blight of malls/'x'ingo parlours/clubs/casinos and so on that will spread across the mainland - this would result in rents having to be set at 2-3x present levels, which is not sustainable.

2/ Move everything to private islands

I fear that if P2P is adopted the mainland will become a wasteland scattered with lag inducing and unsightly commercial ventures and the population will migrate to private islands - is this really what LL want SL to become?

I don't share this fear, because I remember how the SL world was before Telehubs existed. And this prediction did not happen then any moreso than it already does happen with Telehubs. So personally I just can't see this being an issue any more than it already is *with the hubs*. And if it were not an issue right now (even though we have the hubs), there would not be so many threads where people were expressing their belief that we need zoned sims.

My thoughts at least on this one concern.

Some excellent discussion.

I see the privacy issue, and that would definitely make me lean toward a p2p tp system where a landowner chooses whether or not to have their own tp hotspot.

This way, people could not just say "Haha! I'll tp right to Flipper's place!" Instead, they would need to pull up a location in Find and request tp. The request would bounce against the ban / access list for the plot, and reject the request if the person was not permitted.

This is another doomsday tale but it's unfounded in fact. Clubs are often sited kind of near telehubs, but often not next to them particularly. That seems to be more shops and things.

People go to clubs because they make a big noise, get the advertising cranked up, give out money, have events... Not because they're near a telehub. And that'll continue to be the case as soon as telehubs go.

Once they do go, will there be (another) geese flocking of clubs moving to the dustiest, quietest corners of SL? No.

People know where they are, and I'm sure the owners of the clubs are happy with their current locations. Just because a telehub ceases to be as useful, it doesn't mean you have to move to the country.

And besides, with no telehubs, it'll be even more important to make whatever location you have worth visiting, so they might as well get stuck in where they are now.

Finally, what makes you think all the clubs will come find you. Even if they all did flock around like geese, why all in YOUR back yard? They could go ANYWHERE in SL. Most likely they'll stay put, cause if they move, all their customers' landmarks to the club are wrong.

The existing clubs will most likely stay put. But SL is growing 20% per month, which means 20% more people, 20% new clubs, casinos, malls and *ingo games. These new business owners will seek out the cheapest land for their venture if everyone can simply click the TP button to arrive in their business. They won't seek out land near hubs.

As it is now, businesses do concentrate near hubs. This works in two ways to help the average user. 1. price for land far from hubs is cheaper. With p2p all land would be basically the same price except for the landscape. 2. the land far from hubs is quieter.

The hubs may not be the social centers they were intended to be, but they do create natural zoning.

The slight inconvenience of flying thru a laggy hub area is nothing compared to having a laggy home with malls, stores, clubs and *ingo games as neighbors.

We can't compare the old days, when the world was tiny with few residents to today. At least that's my opinion.

Businesses will spread out. But I don't think malls and the like will appear right in the middle of quiet areas.

I think businesses are better when they are zoned. Nobody likes a city where a Wal-mart is in the middle of a residential area. I think businesses will still tend to clump together in areas because frankly it looks better for the shop owner.

And clubs will certainly not appear in PG sims. So that is the best zoning, saying what can go in a sim.

Trying to zone areas by saying "You can't go where you want, when you want" is the most rubbish solution I've heard to a problem in a long time. If I proposed that solution to my manager as some software, he would fire me on the spot.

Point is, telehubs don't really do that good a job of zoning, and any small benefit they bring is at the cost of the freedom of movement of every single citizen in SL. There are ways to zone, but telehubs aint it.

So when you come to buy a plot for your new mall/'x'ingo parlour/club/casino/whatever, you are telling me you won't look for the cheapest suitable land you can find?

Hmmm, great business acumen there...

Not really I wouldn't look for the cheapest land, no.

You can site your little box house wherever you want, but a business has it's image to think of. You can't just slap a business anywhere and expect it to do well. You have to have a good location.

Be realistic, what kind of business you thinking of running? A trash dumping business?

Define 'good location' from a business point of view when telehub proximity is no longer desirable? What other factors come into play?

I've seen lots of stores/malls/clubs that are around 2 sims away from a telehub. I don't buy the arguement that they are going to suddenly appear in the burbs.

They're already there.

If one TPs into a club, who cares what it looks like outside?

2 sims is close to a hub.

Dood, it's quite apparent that most club owners don't give a shit what they look like now

Well let's see, somewhere that looks picturesque, a seaside maybe... High up on a hill with good visibility, store can be seen for some way... Next to a river so you've got some attractive dock area... Next to roads is an obvious one, you dig the whole image that there you are going down the highway and there's a shop on the roadside... Makes for a good image. Near to tram lines, another good one... Train tracks, another good one.

You'd have to be the dumbest rock in the pile to just shut your eyes, throw a dart at the SL world map and drop your shop down on some unremarkable little corner somewhere.

Edit ==>

And even if a shop owner did, it seems apparent they're making stores wherever they want now anyway

Fine, you just described the area surrounding my properties - because you just described the areas most likely to also appeal to potential non-commercial residents.

So, that kind of shoots down the proposition that new commercial enterprises, freed from telehub dependency by P2P won't turn up in nice peaceful residential sims, doesn't it?

And that sort of land is dirt cheap compared to telehub sim land or that in close proximity - ask Anshe, she just paid US£3.4k for a telehub sim if memory serves. 'Ordinary' sims she won't generally go over US$1.3k for...

Two sims away from a hub is not 'the burbs' - I'm talking 5-6 sims away.

And with P2P you could be as 'remote' as you like, it wouldn't matter.

The idiot point of this is, a LOT of SL looks desireable. And there is not one club per head. Not even close. And there never will be, unless the club owners like to live ALONE in a garish, neon building, in which case it's none of your business.

You shouldn't spread doom and gloom about clubs popping up everywhere. There aren't enough clubs to go around for that.

Clubs may move a bit away from telehubs, but per head, there aren't that many of them, so it's very likely you won't end up next to one or two or twenty.

I can see the truth in many people's assertations about this, and likewise I feel some are not necessarily true:

1. The pre-telehub world was too different to really draw a comparison on the effects of the telehubs. SL was not as commercialized at that point. $L were practically worthless. Less emphasis was placed on running a successful business to make $US than now.
   
2. The current telehub system is painful for the average users. It is a waste of reasources to download the hoard of textures you have no interest in. I feel for those with ISP's that limit bandwidth.
   
3. Existing clubs and stripmalls probably won't move. It would cause future stripmalls and clubs to be more open to choose your backyard in bfe than they would be with the telehubs.
   
4. The idea that telehubs create "community centers" has failed. The average user skirts away.
   
5. I don't believe that telehub land owners should be compensated, since as pointed out, LL has not done compensation for changes in the past. I know I personally lost a hoard of land in the 1.2 shift, lost the ability to hold it (for a US$ price I could afford) and lost a lot of L$ I invested in the land which I was forced to sell off for a reduced price. I think LL needs to just go along with their "things change" mantality in order to keep things fair to all.
   
6. I believe a mixed system of free telehubs and paid for p2p could happily co-exist.
   
7. I agree that the ability to turn off p2p for a plot of land would be a valuable thing.
   
8. I think hippos are cute.
   

Absolutely. Agree 100% about this - there most definitely should not be any compensation; you just have to accept that SL is pretty fluid, and if you've put all your bizznizz eggs in a telehub shaped basket... tough tits for being so blinkered!

We'll see. Meantime I have a plan B in place if it happens.