Crisis in Second Life

I have been a member of Second Life for awhile now. I searched for a niche and finally found one in land or so I thought. I deal in land because it brings me pleasure; this I readily admit. I stand alone not belonging to any groups, though asked, trying my best to keep area's free for homedwellers to have a low lag places to live. Now I have found myself caught up in what I consider a sever crisis in Second Life.
First off I am not and refuse to be a member of any "Land Barons" or any group that may chose to manipulate land to their benefit in Second Life. I am also extremely concerned about the "new generation" of individuals that are looking to make Second Life a profitable business for their monetary gain. I have refused to join these people and their endevors also when approached. I personally find them a dreadful influence on Second Life as a family.
Yes I could buy a private island to be free of this. But I feel that the future in that is a dead-end for what Second Life started out as. I haven't and won't buy one as I was delighted when I first joined to find Second Life a real community. I had been in V/R's that didn't afford this opputunity and had the majority of their worlds in isolation. I feel that if Second Life continues along this path it will suffer greatly. To me it was always the community spirit that counted in making Second Life such a wonderful place. It is truely a sad and bleak image to see Second Life members cut off from each other in such a manner. Perhaps I am reading into the furture but still this worries me greatly.
I also feel that a responce in dumping large are's of sim's (ie snowlands & deserts) the incorrect appraoch to the situation. All they seem to be doing is leaving the very people theyare trying to help with worthless land that cannot be sold. Yet at the same time nice sim's going for sale in auction are going for a VERY high price. I wonder what is being accomplished by this. It seems to me only leaving an opening for the very people that want to use Second Life for their own purposes and profit. In essence turning Second Life into a money making machine and manipulating Second Life and it's residents for their own profit.
Second Life has changed as any growing thing must. This to me is a good thing if handled properly. Ijust ask you, my Second Life family, to think and realize just what is going on and whom is responcivle before giving a knee-jerk responce. You have the power to change Second Life into the best place it can be. I hope you excersice this power with thought and fore-sight.
As a caveat I think that open coding is a wonderful thing helping Second Life to grow in fantastic ways. Yet it is a powerful thing that i hope is used with discreation and for the good not the bad.
Take Care All

So, what's the crisis?

LF

The lack of enter keys.

Que?

Instead of a knee jerk response, you gave the jerk response.

exactly what i was going to ask.

cristiano = awesomeness

And the election results are in!

Cristiano in a landslide win for "dripping sarcasm post of the week."

Congrats, Cris; please step up to the podium to accept your golden bib.

I don't see you offering any sparkling insight into the OPs post.

Kuro, I believe you when you talk with genuine kindness in tone, but you couldn't sell me a bridge made of cotton swabs no matter how hard you try. You -have- taken part in the land baron business and you -have- contributed to the 'severe problem' you suggest is on its way. If it's starting to affect your wallet, pull out now so that you don't have to deal with it for a long amount of time.

Yes, I did not comment on the thread because the land barons are evil posts have been well documented. Silence is better than a bitchy post on the something as trivial as formatting.

Then I offer my profuse apologies that your sense of humor is stunted.

you guys are my rolemodels.

Yeah, your business model failing is not a SecondLife crisis.

If you wish to profit from reselling land, consider doing the following

1. Buy the cheapest possible land and markup a small percentage
2. Sell goods and services on the land itself so you can profit from the traffic
3. Develop the land and the area to make it attractive for people to buy into the area.

I'm sorry Kuro - but this has been a long time in the coming. If it ever was a crisis (which in hindsight I don't think it was - more an evolution) it was embraced and became a part of Second Life. Second Life has gotten bigger, and it's direction has visibly changed since when I started.. Second Life is evolving the way of the Web - and with that comes the get rich schemes, and other dregs exploiting a new technology.

Things are changing and they will never be what they were again - it happened with computers in general, it happened with the internet, and now it's happening with Second Life. As for me, I'll just enjoy the things I've always enjoyed and not let it change my views.

My only consulation is that with the dot com boom came the dot com bust - and I certanily won't be shedding a tear (tier) on that day. Maybe after that we'll see some more community and innovation.

Siggy.

can someone please explain what the crisis is supposed to be? i can't make anything out of that post.

Shortage of drama crisis. In related news I just ran out of beer!

Crisis = Noones buying L$ Everyones trying to sell.

Crisis = People that sold L$ for Tier or to buy land cannot therefore its a problem for those who counted on it.

(Its about time that things sorted themselves out so the land, L$ and RL$ are finally calming down so maybe people will take time to enjoy SL)

People with RL$ either saved from the exchange of L$ or jsut in general will own alot as has been seen in the last few days with a few very prominent changes in SL.


Weeeeeeeeeeeee Welcome to the Future.... Unless of course someone buys up alot of L$ and makes its so people can sell again.

Who knows only time will tell.

The land-resellers aren't that bad I think just hope I will never see spammers in SL (maybe they already exist, but not in the same amount as e-mail spammers).
Good thing that you can't really spam anonymously in SL. You need a creditcard for each account so I'm still positive that SL will stay (more or less) spam feee

If Land Barons are taking all the land and the prices are not affordable to anyone..that is probably resulting in less incomming newbies..hence..one post wondering where everyone is at. If this is true..maybe there should be a cap on how much land you can buy and or how much you can sell it for depending on the economic state of the game. Iam not familiar with land prices, but; how are the Land Barons staying in business if their land isn't selling? Someone must be buying something unless the Land Barons are making money doing other things and just eating up all the land for nothing and I would think that the competition would keep prices reasonable if their intention is to sell land, unless they just want mulitple pieces of land to build apartments so they can rent them.

Land is cheap these days. SL was growing a lot faster back when we actually HAD land barons.

I personally don't give a crap anymore, I have my basic 1024 and the new sandboxes, the rest of the land-dealers and CLUB SEX0r can go to hell.

So, I'm fine.

How many "Land Baron Crisis" threads does this make???

I was under the assuption that posts were for voicing one's opnion. In the hopes of getting relative and enlightening feedback. With very few exceptions all I saw was a total waste. No I do not put any money into Second Life in the hopes of building my future empire nor do I think that the furture of the "game" go in that direction.
Just because the web is growing does not mean that Second Life should be used as a money making tool by the few that can afford it. I do not invest in Second Life for this reason and have never taken a penny out of the game. I invest in Second Life, without the hopes of return, to keep it alive and vital; for truely V/R's are the furture. This to me doesn't mean that Second Life should turn into a money making machine.
This has enabled me to make contributions to worthy causes. Not I assure you in the hopes of glory or praise for my "selfless charater." But to help others in need. Charity for others always struck me as a thing done selflesly without expectations of renumeration. This to me is a far cry from using a "game" to futher one's own economic status.

For more then 4 months, whenever somebody needed sell land quickly people like me were able to help, make a fair offer and allow you unload your land so you could reduce your tier and buy something else.

This time is over now. Because of big never ending flood of land I had to decline several requests of people who wanted sell land. There are certain type of land, especially in some less popular PG areas, that are so hard to sell they simply don't justify keeping those on tier if at the same time you have to claim auction land within deadline. So, there is people who have land they can't sell. Some I have seen release it for free. Some canceled their accounts without selling their land.

Part of that land has ended up with Linden Lab. Which means, nobody is paying fees for it but Linden Lab still has to maintain it. Such as that parcel in Thams that was put for reauction yesterday. But nobody has bought it, nobody bid. It went unsold, with 0 bids on it, like several other parcels. Because of crash in land market none of us "land baron" was able to afford to pay tier fees for that land, so it remained with Linden Lab and the growth of land ownership in Second Life slowed.

If you look at total land sales in world, well, last time I checked it was 650000 sqm during past 7 days. Several weeks ago we had volumes more than double that number, despite much higher land prices at that time. So there goes one myth that you only need lower land price and land ownership will increase. At this stage, you would not only have to lower tier fees, but you would also have to restore trust of people in value of land. With high tier fee and neglectible land cost at low end of market, you no longer buy something you own, but effectively you just pay rent. How attractive is it for people to rent something as opposed to owning something with perceived value? This is one psychological effect, nothing rational of course, but I feel it might matter to many.

It is also naive to believe that you can let one sector of economy crash, such as land market, and not have effect on the rest of economy. People who sell cars or animations might be able to afford cheaper land for their shops, but when they go to GOM they now get 40% less in exchange for their L$ compared to height of land boom - while cost for their animation software, radio station or tier fees remains same.

So, yes, Second Life has economic crisis. Which is good for some (consumers) and bad for others (producers). If you have US$ and want buy things you get many things cheap. But if you try to grow SL and finance your land tier by making L$ profit, then you face more and more difficulty. For example most of the land that I don't have for resale, but developed like the snow village in Svan, the malls, Mahulu, they loose money now since L$ dropped so much. Most were profitable before. It will probably force me to shrink and close the less profitable places, definitely slowing growth of developed area. Many other land owners probably face same situation now.

Of course every crisis has its chance. It forces people try harder, sorts out less effective business. Two and a half month ago you saw everybody and her nanny play realtor speculating with land. Those who wanted quick profit with high margin and bad service have been first victim of market crisis.

But some people who built nice things in SL also became frustrated and quit. One friend of mine who is student in Macau is doing RL job now instead of developing land in SL as result of devaluation of land and L$. Several other people I know who had developed sims in large scale have sold out and closed business. Usually people who loose money or go bancrupt with business don't want talk about it for fear of loosing face. But during past two months we saw huge number of businesses in SL go bancrupt - quietly. This is good as long as it forces people reconsider and do something they are better at. But at some stage it will eventually hurt SL and slow its growth, when less and less people see opportunities.