Philip's blog suggests selling developed land

I'm very hesitant about getting involved in this thread for obvious reasons but I think the more people that stand up and make the voice heard, the better chance we have at seeing some of these problems rectified.

Eltee, Michi (,and the rest)... thank you for standing up for the ethics and ideals that I *hope* most SL users want to prevail in their world.

I believe that the Land Baroning process in it's truest form is sickening. I'm not jealous or anything of the sort. If I were here to make money, I wouldn't be giving away as many things as I do.

If ppl want to snag a few plots here and there to develop and resell, great! You're adding to the content of the world and providing a service. If you want to outbid everyone on the auctions on every piece of land so that you can control the prices and make money without adding anything to the world, then I don't know how you can sleep at night. This is sooooo counterproductive to the growth of SL IMHO and I don't know why LL is okay with this.

Here's a suggestion: (forgive me if this has already been tried or debated or mentioned or whatever...) why not have a good chunk of auctions be restricted to people of a certain tier level or less (going by CC not by account so that alts can't be used to scam the system)... like an extension of land for the landless? "land for the non-baron". If there's a particular plot that someone HAS TO HAVE and it's owned by a baron, then great. Buy it. If you're not particular and you don't already own a sim and a half, you can shop the restricted auctions. It's just an idea but at first glance at least, I think it might help things out a bit. But then again there's prolly tons of things wrong with that idea I haven't thought of.

I reallllly hope some good comes out of this thread.

-Meiyo

Nah Meiyo. Every time we suggest any sort of control or limit whatsoever, the barons cry "communism!" and preach hellfire about the free market and supply-side economics.

"Unfettered" is the only compromise they're willing to make. Because they know that their only true advantage is the ability to monopolize the entire market. It's got nothing to do with this coastline crap.

basically jauani yer set in yer ways, good for you really. And its definately in yer best interest that people don look too closely at them... okay.. ya gotta accept that.

the problem comes people *are* looking at what yer doin, and alot of us really don't think its in anyone but yer own best interest that the system continues the way it is running right now.

its not that dis-similar to the previous public land scanner fiasco's... ya got caught with a hand in the cookie jar. Deal with it. Learn from it. There are people who care enough about the game to try and ensure new players get the same chances we had.

Theres no words that can make the SL population at large believe yer doin anything but stuffin yer pocket. There is no real debate as to what the real motivations are, they've already been admitted to, in some cases as yers, eloquently, in others, rather less so.

Its the oldest and most tired story in the book.. you found a way to make money that isn illegal, but isn ethical.. and yer gonna stake yer claim and defend it to the last. Thats yer perogative.

Obviously we've both gone back an forth, many other people will probably be dragged in, many others will get fed up and leave. I used the analogies i did and the language i have to simply remove some of the linguistic pretenses that have been cluttering the debate here. To use a rather jaded radio reference...

what did i learn today:

1) there is alot of sentiment against whats been happening with land speculation

2) those who are making money off of it are, in their own interests, making alot of arguments as to why it should be an acceptable practice, some dubious, some silly, and others actually somewhat salient.

3) Regardless of what they *actually* say, as you have so candidly summed up jauani, they are doing it out of self-interest when it comes to money

4) alot of the rest of us see the grid as a whole is suffering because of 'your' profiteering.


justify whatever ya want to, pick my words apart and use them against me, its how the 'game' of argument is played. So long as yer hurtin SL as a whole by yer self interested actions, theres gonna be alot of people standin up to defend it.

Actually, it is very strong, well established players protecting Second Life from the wave of parasitic greed that prevailed for awhile, at the expense of the community you claim to care so much about. What you fail to realize is that it is not about Anshe selling land. I don't have a problem with that, though the concept of a land developer is still quite dubious. The problem that many have with Anshe specifically is the complete lack of bsuiness ethics and exploitation of the system.

It was the reason for pushing so hard to close off the lack of enforcement of the auction grace period. Why should she be able to skirt land tier fees at the same time of making enormous profits off of the land, while other players legitimately pay the fees for the land they hold? You seem to think this is clever, whereas reasonable people see it as pathetic, and Linden Lab was apparently interested in not letting it continue. If you are going to play the land baron game, then play it legitimately. There are many examples of people doing that - Schwanson Schlegel, Jauani Wu, Billy Grace and others instantly come to mind.

Anshe is not dragged across the coals for any other reason than her unethical gaming of the system for her own purposes, which arenothing except to extract as much wealth out of SL as possible, at the expense of other players. The terrible stress on us all is not a boom and bust in the land market - the terrible stress was the action of people like Anshe driving land prices up to $30/m and having to pay hundreds of USD for small pieces of land. Those kind of land prices keep players out of SL, and cause people to stop creating and building, and in turn are what kills off SL.

As far as accusing you of being an alt, I am not accusing you of being Anshe, but it is common knowledge exactly whose alt account you are. Strength would be not hiding behind an alt account to make your points because your previous incarnations have been nailed so badly in and out of the forums.

As Jauani so eloquently pointed out in another thread, this is at least your most entertaining, and dare I say, coherent alt yet, and a fascinating display of the diversity of the human mind.

Well.. if Microsoft can come under fire in a non-communist society then so can the land barrons in SL. At least Microsoft produces a product (regardless of the hows or the whats).

Anyway, I know Land and Objects are totally different but it seems fishy to me that with the new permissions system proposal, LL seems to really be wanting to put the power of "choice" in the hands of the consumer/end user but when it comes to land, LL is allowing the power of "choice" to be put in the hands of the barrons. I hope this makes sense in some way and I hope I'm not pulling this thread off topic.

-Meiyo

If blaze was so interested in SL as he says he is, he would have been screaming "thank you" for pointing out a flaw in the grace period of the land baroning issue -- after all, with his "how to succeed in business in SL" theories, his own land selling, and other business-related subjects -- he would have seen just how this "flaw" was cutting into his profits.

If you remember, this thread started out without naming names, incidents, and/or pointing to anyone. Only when the guilty party responded and admitted it in these forums did *some* flames appear.

Sometimes, blaze, those flames appear because of the passion that people have for SL. When they see it being abused, drug through the mud, and scammed -- it hits close to home.

So while you may think that these are flames directed to you, mostly they are little jabs trying to make you think about your words and your own actions. I'll debate you anytime you want to bring up the subject of Lessig and his thoughts about virtual worlds and economies. Bring it on, but make sure you can bring it home.

But please don't accuse me of flaming a guilty person.

Frankly, with knowing she got away with a $600 tier fee, I'm surprised that half of the population who ever tiered up for 2 minutes to help a friend, anyone who has/was had their account suspended for non-payment hasn't asked for a refund from LL. It's appalling that these grace periods are permitted, while others are nailed hard for tier fees and back-payments on accounts. The message that was being sent from LL on this issue was not pleasant. I expect that other land barons (and yes, there have been others as well who used this grace period flaw) will be more careful now in picking up their land.

You see, blaze - this was brought to LL's attention not for the sake of exposure, it would have been brought to their attention no matter who was doing it. This was brought to their attention for the newbies who invest $200 in land and tier fees -- those who pay monthly to play. This was brought to their attention for the existing land owners who have paid their monthly bills in a timely manner for months on end. This was brought to their attention so that auctions and land sales can now reflect the true price of land -- not inflated prices because one or two people enjoy making $500 on the sale of land on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. You can understand, I'm sure, the need for correct economic information in making decisions.

Now, about that bridge.

Yes. And how do you know that (some of) them don't?

When someone approaches me for land, I almost never suggest a land purchase of one of my own holdings. I suggest what fits them best by using Find / Land Sales in combination with the map in combination with my knowledge of each and every Sim. And oddly enough, the people who approach me about land usually don't have the experience to use those tools as effectively as I do.

Just a personal anecdote - our current house sale fell out of escrow on day 30 of a 30 day escrow. Our real estate agent was so upset at the turn of events that she said she would personally buy our house if she couldn't find us another buyer within 3 days.

In that case, she was serving our best interest by buying out our property. It certainly should not be the norm, but just because it happens does not mean it is a selfish act on the part of the agent. If someone in SL needs a quick sale on property that is not in high demand, then an SL realtor can be a real help.

The core problem here is a market that is not achieving the proper state for proper competitiveness.

Specifically, there are states now that exist in this broken system such as:

Occurance: Rare
Type: Monopoly - a single seller of a good (note, not the same as a natural monopoly - where over time a single seller becomes the sole provider because of the inherent inefficiency of mulitiple providers, such as power distribution grids in real life.)

Occurance: Common
Type: Oligopoly - a small number of sellers of a good, which *can* lead to a efficient market, but more commonly causes a few things to happen - such as price collusion (agreements among the 'cartel' cause artificial pricing), price leadership (where maximum profit is extracted among members who key their prices to match a large seller). Sound familiar?

Occurance: N/A - doesn't apply here, but provided to be complete
Type: Monopsony - only one buyer of a good. This may happen in some micro-markets in SL, but doesn't seem too likely overall.

Occurance: N/A - same as above, for completness
Type: Oligopsony - a small number of buyers of a good. Similar to a Monopsony.

Thanks for reading through that. My point?

Linden Lab (or further abbreviated as LL from now on) is the sole 'producer' of the 'good' which is land. The set price is determined by auction, or 1$L per sq/m if set public in the system. What we used to have, was a system like this:

Producer: (LL)--->SL Buyer) ... with the possibility of (SL Land Owner)--->SL Buyer)
What is so different, you may ask? Easy, the main difference here is percentages of market 'share'. Many users buying and selling to each other is about as efficient as a market can get. You'll get fair pricing and a multitude of available opportunities to buy or sell the good, in this case, square meters of land within SL.

Now we have a system like:

Producer: (LL)--->SL Land Baron)--->SL Buyer) .. because of ownership percentages, the diminishing occurance of (SL Land Owner)--->SL Buyer). This is, quite simply, a Oligopoly that wasn't needed, but 'inserted' itself into the system due to the possibilities emerging to make profits.

This is also a market with asymmetrical information. What is that? It simply means that the sellers, the Oligopoly I'm pointing out here, has more information than the buyer. This is either through collusion, as mentioned before, or simply because of raw numbers. If I have most of the land available, I also have all the information I need to extract the maximum amount of profit, whether an open competitive market would arrive at this price or not. I control the prices of what I sell, my many buyers (the newbies and other uninformed people in SL) can't know what I know, so I manage to sell with abandon, pulling out as much as I can, in the most market-inefficient way possible.

This is the first thing that needs to be fixed by LL - open transaction transparency. Let me say that again, because its important.

OPEN TRANSACTION TRANSPARENCY

The reason most large land owners don't want this, is because it will kill their markup. Problem is, a market that is sustained by collusion and asymmetrical information leads to a few things, such as - average value reduces (no, this isn't a good thing in this context, it is a symptom), and the market can eventually decay to the point of non-existance.

Seems unlikely, right?

Consider what we see happening in SL:

Overall numbers seem strong - we don't have the necessary names to tie all land purchases to each transaction, so we can only consider them as a whole. This can lead to the misperception that the land market is booming, everything is just fine.

Problem is, there are tricks and loopholes that are allowing these Oligopolies to exist. This could lead LL to believe that expanding availiable land will allow a freely competitive market to emerge. It can over time, but that isn't the whole solution. What is a solution is for the market to be open, transparent and everyone accountable for each purchase. That means, that auctions are treated as immediate closed transactions, not opportunities for 'land kiting' (like 'floating' a check, but never making good on it) and other practices that ultimately undermine the land market, cause market decay, and will eventually lead to people (who are already) avoiding buying land from large Land suppliers because of their markup premiums.

Friendly econ-rant concluded, thanks for reading.

Wow, Lisse, you must have a good agent. My sympathies to you, I know how stressful it can be to deal with trying to sell one property so you can buy another; timing can be extremely critical when it comes to real estate deals.

I don't know how RL real estate agents deal with those types of situations, it would be far too much job stress for me! Just having to occasionally buy and sell my own properties (in RL) is enough hassle for me.

Yes, Shari is wonderful. She sold us our house 4 years ago, and we wouldn't have dreamt of selling through anyone else. She was in tears, literally, when she called us to tell us the bad news. We knew she was serious though, as she does already own 2-3 houses in this neighborhood as rental properties.

It all turned out for the best, though - we found new, nicer buyers the very next day, and escrow closes (for real) on Tuesday next week! Sadly, of course this means my SL time will be restricted as we go through the upheaval of packing etc.

The one problem I see with people providing this type of real estate service in SL is the lack of proper advertising opportunities. The average new people doesn't read the Classifieds forum, or Second Life magazine, or the other web-based trade directories. And by convention, Live Help and Mentor and Instructor events cannot (and should not) point newbies towards specific commercial enterprises to use. The Find menu needs to be expanded to deal with people looking for services, not just products.

I can hardly bear to say the names a chung and b spinnaker without my toes curling up, which is always a bad sign. I try not to use names in the forums but I can't help it in this case. Your collective posts have been arrogant, ignorant and plain insulting.

1. Your assertion that anyone who doesn't agree with your grubby business methods is jealous is completely laughable. Do you think you are the only ones with cash in your bank? Of course you aren't. I and many others have very healthy bank balances in rl and could quite easily buy a sim or two, or more. What you seem not to be able to grasp is that most of us find what you do absolutely abhorant and to do it myself would be to go against all my principles. Do you know what principles are by the way? Ever heard of them? No, of course you haven't.

2. I know bidders are shown after land is sold at auction but i want to see the bidder information as people bid for the property - can someone tell me please, why that shouldn't be the case, apart from the barons not wanting it. If i go to a property auction in the UK everyone can see who is bidding and how much. Same with antique auctions. Open and honest. Why can't we have that in SL, Lindens?

3. It seems that some people are playing the tier game by not picking up their land immediately. Why should this be different from any antiques auction i go to? You bid for an item - pay immediately and take it away. Why can't or won't the Lindens automatically remove funds from the purchaser, either in L$ or US$ as soon as they win the auction. Why should it be any different to RL?

Frankly I am in despair of what is to become of SL. The above, plus dwellopers getting US$ 'development awards', whilst the creative people on here are basically ignored, the new permissions ideas for items.

Quite honestly LL, I am feeling disillusioned. When i first found SL I thought I had found a perfect place to be. But it's all crumbling. If you want a place filled with barons and dwellopers - fine - but this place is worth fighting for - for the decent, hardworking, creative residents. So we will fight back.

The three most powerful forces in SL are IGE, GOM &... Anshe Chung. Why?

Because IGE & GOM have produced a US$ value & market for the all mighty L$ that will intice people to be greedy & in conjunction with auctions has sadly given SL a completely different angle in the process... but that was only a matter of time really.

Anshe... because of deep pockets, she has owned & sold the most amount of land & has figured out a way to move it well, which is easily equated by all to power & RL profits.

The thing is... I personally haven't witnessed Anshe do anything that is immoral or against the tos. I have been offered fair prices for land I was trying to sell & I have bought extremely competitively priced plots from her. I have always kept an eye on the prices of land she has for sale around plots I own & recently they have been so low... I'd almost say she has been driving prices down in certain areas.

Does LL need to take measures to more efficiently make auctioned land become owened & tiered for? Big freaking YES on that one.

The seven day period pick-up enforced... is a huge step in the right direction. But we need more changes than just that, this shouldn't be something put on the back burner either. It would be in LLs best intrest to really think about how to make the auction system better & prevent it from being gamed.

Do we need to make the records of land sales public? Big freaking NO on that one.

I don't think LL would ever do that anyways though.

The alts two cents...

Latonia,

Great post - the more people who stand up against this kind of behavior the better. I wanted to respond to two things that you said.

First of all, auctions are billed immediately upon completion - that was not the problem (though some weird situations have come up). The issue was that once the land was paid for, it was still unclaimed - which is an odd disparity from how land works when you buy it in world. If you buy a piece of land in world, it is yours - you have 24 hours to tier up or lose the land. In auction, it is marked for sale to you but is still owned by Governor Linden, even after it is paid for, until you claim it That is how the tier evasion game worked Land was left unclaimed but paid for as long as possible - so it is kept off the market but the player is not incurring land tier fees on it until the move out an equivalent amount of land in sales to be able to take it into their current tier. It is unfair to players who buy land in world, and yet another way the auctions treat the land market unfairly. The 24 hour period to tier up should apply across the board.

As far as slient bidding, I understand why you want to see it. Actually, the land barons had nothing to do with it going private - it occured before their rise. When the auction system first went into use, without time extensions, what you would often see would be patterns of punitive bidding - people bidding on land just because someone they disliked wanted the land. Mind you, this is when a lot less land was available. When auctions came online in January, it was the first truly new land in months after all of us being on top of each other bitching about no land and no prims lol. So to level the playing field someone so that someone could not punish you for going after a piece of land, the bidding was hidden until the end. Should it still apply? I'm not sure, since 9 out of 10 times you know a land baron is going up against you anyway. It would be nice to know that in advance. I encountered that a couple of months ago when the snow land came online. I was bidding on a simple piece of 2048m of PG land, and ended up paying $20 a m for it because I was bidding against none other than Anshe Chung, who kept spiking the bids. I still won the land, but I would have liked to know who was doing that at the time.

Since no one else seems to have suggested it in this thread, Why not have a requirement that when someone buys land in an auction (only) they cannot resell it for 30 days. If they decide they don't want it they can give it to the Lindens. They still should have to pay the full auction price. This should eliminate people buying land at auction who need to turn it over quickly.

It's a very interesting suggestion. It would be nice if people focused more on making these types of interesting suggestions rather than focused on 'flaming' and being 'forum trolls'.

However, you may wish to consider referring to Philip's blog. The CEO of SecondLife is trying to encourage people to resell land. Ideally, I believe he wants it to be developed. The first post in this thread has a link to his Blog.

However, it's an interesting idea.

Cristiano Midnight

First of all, auctions are billed immediately upon completion - that was not the problem (though some weird situations have come up). The issue was that once the land was paid for, it was still unclaimed - which is an odd disparity from how land works when you buy it in world. If you buy a piece of land in world, it is yours - you have 24 hours to tier up or lose the land. In auction, it is marked for sale to you but is still owned by Governor Linden, even after it is paid for, until you claim it That is how the tier evasion game worked Land was left unclaimed but paid for as long as possible - so it is kept off the market but the player is not incurring land tier fees on it until the move out an equivalent amount of land in sales to be able to take it into their current tier. It is unfair to players who buy land in world, and yet another way the auctions treat the land market unfairly. The 24 hour period to tier up should apply across the board.
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Thank you for explaining that Cristiano, I didn't know that. Well then LL should remove the option to delay paying tier on land, surely - why have they not done so? This seems to me greed personified. The barons want to buy all or as much land as possible, preventing others from doing so. Then the land is locked until they have sold enough of their current land to put it into their current tier. I am dumbfounded that this is allowed.

Is it beyond the realms of possibility that a Linden would come on here and explain why they allow this to continue? I somehow think they won't but I think we deserve an explanation, don't you?

PS I also agree with Essence

PPS when the question of residents' government was suggested there was massive opposition (quite rightly in my view) and a new group was formed - the Anarchists. Why don't we have an anti-baron group?

Latonia,

Haney Linden did post about this issue in this thread, and they are in the process of making changes and strictly enforcing their own policy. That is how this thread got off on this tangent. Anshe gloated about those working so hard to get that loophole closed were just jealous (or as she put it, jelouse) of her mad land skillz. LL is aware of the problem, which ultimately costs them hundreds in land tier fees a month, and are taking steps to address it - and people will be watching to make sure it does not go on anymore.