Basic Members....would you be willing to pay a SMALL yearly fee?

And how many Nepalese are in SL right now?

It's true, the entire population of the planet are not all able to get a credit card, but chances are if you have the kind of high-speed internet connection and high end computer and graphics card to even log in to SL, you live where you can get a credit card or paypal account.

The fact is that LL isn't even asking for a verified email address anymore. They have made it clear that this is the "future" as they see it and nothing is going to change.

These poor people that must be unverified because of lack of a credit card or pay pal acct. are going to have lousy time, will never be able to rent land, because they won't be able to buy $L either.

Ethnocentricity is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. I know that not a soul in here will admit to that.

Some of you people need to take a more global view of what Linden Labs has done and not think only of yourselves.

This debate is mute (or moot) for so many reasons, here's a few:

1) LL has no intention of trying to do anything to limit the amount of users involved with SL

2) LL has clearly stated that paying for premium membership grants the ability to own land, not the ability to be in SL.

3) So many paid members feel that basic members are draining the resources the paid members are paying for.... BUT the paid members are paying to own land and for their own land. If you don't want basic members draining YOUR resources, then restrict basics from your land.

4) Would you pay $10 a year for myspace? NO! so why would you expect others to?

5) Basic members contribute financially to the economy. They buy things, create content, participate in events, etc. Just because they are not paying LL a fee doesn't mean they're negatively impacting the society.

Underlying all of this charging a fee for basic members doesn't accomplish anything. It would lessen the total number of users (which LL would never try to do), not somehow convert that paid money into ideal SL conditions, or no lag, or no griefing.

I think your estimate of SL's revenue is a little off the mark. There may be only 36,000 premium members, but they're certainly not paying an average of just $6-10 a month.

Think about it. There are over 3500 sims in the world right now, right? Almost all of that land is owned. For every sim owned by a single individual, that's $195 a month LL is taking in. For every sim divided into 512M plots, that's $640 a month. I have no idea what percentage of people own what amount of land, or what the average plot size per owner is, so all I can say is LL takes in somewhere between $682,500 and $2,240,000 per month just in tier fees. I'd say a safe lowball estimate for the average would be somewhere around a million dollars a month.

That's quite a bit higher than the $216,000-$360,000 you accounted for, and it doesn't take into account all the other ways LL makes money (Lindex, new land sales, etc.), or the fact that the amount collected in tier fees increases constantly as new land is added.

I'm not saying you're wrong that perhaps free accounts should pay at least something (at the very least they should probably be charged for tech support), but your supporting facts & figures could use a little tuning.

Best point yet.

Musicteacher- You're discrediting people that start with nothing and work their way up using only their in-world resources to start a business. Nothing says they HAVE to buy L$ to start, nor must they cash out, but they can do things that other's value and pay for and, in some cases, save up enough to rent land.

FWIW- LL pays more to charge 10 people $10 each than they do to charge one person $100. If they can charge fewer people more rather than many people less it works in their favor.

I'm one of them. I'm so very weary of the verfieds vs un-verifieds debate. It seems to come up constantly. I propose LL do something like salon.com. They have ads on their site. If you subscribe ($30/yr I think) you can avoid all the ads. If you aren't a subscriber you watch an ad which gives you a site pass for a certain amount of time. While the site pass is in effect you can read the articles. So in SL's case unverifieds would have to deal with ads. Maybe before tp'ing to any location. Or some sort of graphic that reamains in the corner of the screen. That would probably annoy me enough to go premium! Until premium accounts offer more benefits than land ownership I don't see a reason to have one. I do agree that LL should at least verify e-mail addresses. Even simple message boards require new members do that.

That is fine when you are talking about the world, it makes no sense when you are talking about the users of an online game. Including people in third world countries without access to telephones let alone computers with dsl and graphics cards in a discussion about credit cards is silly.

My case stand rested.

Uh?

Susie, the average yearly income for Nepalese is $230 dollars and half of them live below the poverty line. Getting credit cards to play an online game if they ever got to a computer is not only the least of their concerns but should they ever get to the point were they could SL will probably be a distant memory by then. I'm talking about the reality of people who are using SL now and in the near future. If you are talking about Phillip's delusions that SL is going to be the next internet the argument still applies. You need a computer and access to the internet to get at SL to begin with.

I had beta account it was never verified and I hadn't used him for long due to illness so he is no more. I have to pay the basic fee to reactivate the dude.
Basic account isn't free any more. You have to use some type of credit card to at least verify you are adult.
Its not free it says its free but you have to have some way to pay it.
Or am I missing something?

Two things:

1) WoW isn't quite so unwieldy as SL, and has a pre-determined "point" to it. You go around and smack things.

2) SL is one of those things you either get or you don't. Some people come in and feel as though they've found a second home; others sort of scratch their heads puzzledly, shrug - and wander back to WoW, which has a much wider appeal.

No that I know but what is it going to be like when you tack on the addition of "oh and it's ten dollars a year" to non-exsisting players. People will normally give free a chance. They won't give reoccuring fee groups nearly as much of a look.

hahahaha - erm - no - no fee for basic membership.

Stupid idea, plus Linden are making an absolute fortune already! What a tremendously pointless suggestion!

Yes i would still stay if there were a small yearly fee.
But that would just mean the revenue from my original content would go towards the new LL fee rather than towards purchasing other player's products. And I'd buy fewer Linden Dollars for spending money, as I have a limited entertainment budget. (I assume everyone does.)

Actually, if their chief financial officer is to be believed, they're barely breaking even.

I was talking strictly in terms of membership fees and the fact that if they would just charge basics $10 a year they could make $15,000,000 more a year.

Hmm. Make that $1,500,000.

9 out of 10 of those 1.5 million are unlikely to pay that $10.

That's still an extra 125,000 a month, and hey... less lag for all to boot!

Yay!

I've actually only been in SL for under a week and this is my first post so I really don't know how much of a right I have in this discussion, but it can't be all bad to have a newbies perspective right?

I spent about 4 hours in game the first night I downloaded and I fell in love almost right away. There's some glarring issues obviously, performance is a big one for me, I have a fairly high end computer that my BF and I just built for me which runs huge MMO's like EQ2 very well at high end and I can't seem to get SL to run decently just yet.

Anyways, not to loose track here, I had convinced myself that last night I was going to upgrade to the premium account because I just want to dive in, get that extra stipend, maybe find a roomy and a job, really start up my SL.

Unfortunately last night was a complete mess, I could barely log into my account, I couldn't leave the area I was in there was absolutely not communication or support with me (as a newbie) to refer to and see what was going on.

Not a big deal and not the end of the world of course, but it really made think twice, do I really want to step into SL when there seems to be so many issues at hand? When apparently people who do have premium accounts don't get treated much better then I do.

All that to say though, I do feel with what I've experience (appart from last night) so far would be worth a nominal fee for the basic package, most especially if it would help in the overall service dept because last night, this morning, I've really felt at a loss and really considering whether to just uninstall and be done with it.

Anyways, just my 2cents as a dorky newb.

That is what I don't understand, if you like the game enough to stay isn't it worth a mere $10 a year? You are taking up database space, server space, etc...why not pay for what you use?

If someone can afford a computer capable of running SL, and has a high-speed connection, then they probably can afford a small yearly fee. For those for whom this is a hardship, set up a sponsor program from more prosperous players or SL.

My experience is that people frequently place a lesser value in something when it is free.
If you are here, you are investing one of the most precious things you have; time. If you value it that much, why would you not be willing to make a small payment?

instituting this could be the single most effective way to get rid of griefers and their alt accounts. How many $10 alt accounts would they be willing to make if they must do so each time they want to join?

Lets get this straight. If LL chooses to go back to the old registration they used when i first registered (1 time fee to get in, then you have a choice of basic or premium), and show more communication/support, I will pay them for their troubles. However, they have yet to do that. The grid is still being flooded with greifers and unverified accounts, they never answer their emails, and they give you the runaround when you need help leading you back where you started. SHOW A LITTLE SERVICE! as was posted earlier. No i don't believe basic accounts need to pay a annual fee at all. It used to be that if you wished to play SL, you paid a 1 time fee for a basic account.

Once your in your in. If you choose to go premium that's your plan. Now it's totally messed up. When LL gets all their apples in the right barrel and starts to show their serious, then i will go back to a premium account again. Premiums need to be more valuable since right now all they offer is 400 linden a week and land control. But if your making good money as a unverified account (by creating or working) then you don't see 400 as worth it, plus you can't simply RENT land from another resident as a unverified account. You see? There is no reason to be premium. I chose to go to basic because i don't feel LL is worthy of being paid my money right now.

No fee is needed for that, just mandatory verification in whatever form that minimizes abuse.

It shouldn't be that difficult to simply require that a valid email address used is that matches the ISP used to sign up with.

( Waits for the "but some people live in a country where they don't have valid email!" replies )

Stipends were lowered down to $300/week starting November 1st (or around that time).