Dont' comment until you read the entire message.
1) Turn the "picks" tab into free personal teleportation for you. So you could set your homes, your businesses, your favorite clubs, whatever, into this tab and get free DIRECT teleportation to those destinations.
2) Remove all Linden-owned telehubs. Instead, collect them all into a "pool" of limited telehub points that people can bid on for a several month lease (4 months maybe?). Linden dollars preferrably, but I would understand if LLab succumbed to the vision of more revenue.
Upon bidding success, the person can then place the telehub entry point anywhere on their property. They can also design the entry point for all incoming people. This is what private island owners already have; the Telehub is essentially a super-powerful script/entity that only lindens can set up. The visual bits of it are superficial.
Okay, now before you all slaughter my idea into so many pieces, let me explain my reasoning and hypothesise the potential effects.
First off, my main beef with the telehub system isn't the fact that it makes transportation annoying (it does, but I'm never in a rush to get anywhere... besides, fast flight scripts are free). No, instead I'm annoyed at the equal distribution of the telehubs along the world.
Consider this: Think of your local town in real life. Think of where you shop. Are there clusters of commercial activity along fairly predictable areas? If I had to guess, most of your storefronts (Walmarts, JC Penney, malls, etc.) are going to be along major transportation junctions. So that means highways, major roadways, perhaps even train stations.
Why is this?
Well, the prevailing commercial mindset is "more cars == more people == more customers". And that's probably true. As a result, cities tend to zone and plan around these major thoroughfares as commercial destinations. The rest of the city is then devoted to mostly residential pursuits, away from the loud and hustling "commercial zones". These residential zones are usually in quieter areas, with more landscaping and smaller roads.
Sorry, I'm going into urban planning mode
Anyways, think about this scenario. What if, instead of putting all commercial activity along a certain area/corridor, the city decreed that we must, MUST, put commercial areas in equal distances from one another all around the city, with disregard for topography or current residency.
So, a Walmart will be on 1st street, a JC Penny will be on 4th street, a mall will be on main street, and so on, instead of the current way of "everything is on main street".
What do you think would happen to the city?
If I had to guess, it would turn into a war zone. Traffic would be everywhere, homes would collapse in value (due to the loudness of commercial traffic EVERYWHERE), the infrastructure would buckle, and everyone would be annoyed at the prospect of having to drive everywhere to get 4 things.
Sound familiar?
Obviously no proper city planner would propose such an idea. And yet, in SL, that's exactly what has happened. Every 3-4 sims (which is a rather small geographic area), you have a telehub, which has become commercially desirable, precisely because that's where all people are going to end up, at least initially.
So what usually happens in telehub areas, without massive local interference, is 2-3 sims worth of commercial sprawl clustered around a pedestrian entry point (telehub). The remaining sim and a half is devoted to more quiet pursuits (scripting workshops, homes).
I want to expand the quiet pursuits.
With my idea, you're going to have the commercial bigwigs (Anshe, SecondServer, any mall owner, etc) bidding on these telehub points. Upon getting them, they'll plop them where they feel like it (usually where their mall is). Suddenly you're going to have a lot of telehubs in one very small area, as commercial owners tend to clump together anyway.
So let's assume that there are 30 telehub points. And let's assume that, due to random distribution methods, 3/4 of them are then moved to the northern continent, and another 1/4 on the southeastern side of the grid.
In the middle is suddenly a vast "wasteland" of non-telehub sims. Woah, say the casinos. Woah, say the clubs; suddenly they're 50 sims away from their customers! Evasive action.
So they pick up and move towards the new telehub spots, probably offering the local residential people a sizable sum to buy their land (as happens in real life)
The result is that all commercial activity (all malls, clubs, casinos, etc.) will flock to these new centralized areas of commerce, leaving the rest of the grid "empty". This would be great for houses, quiet places of contemplation, parks, whatever folks want to employ as usual. But without the real chance of an annoying club being opened up 20 sims away from the nearest telehub point.
And if you wanted to shop? Great news, all of your favorite stores are now within 10 sims of one another. Double click on "the city", and you're there.
And if you want to go home? No problem; open up your picks folder and teleport to one of your many homes out in "the country".
Okay, so here's what you're going to get with my proposal, after the winding diatribe above:
1) Telehubs are bid on, placed, and entirely designed by residents (Your World, Your Imagination), giving us more control over the world without Linden oversight.
2) Simple traffic patterns will show that people will go towards the new telehub areas for their shopping needs.
3) Land value around non-telehub areas will plummet, perfect for residential homes (allowing for many people to afford land for the first time without much worry of lag)
4) Land value around telehubs will remain high, perhaps more so than now (special areas designed for commercial use as telehub "owners" design their site with incoming people in mind).
5) Folks get instant teleport to their favorite destinations (with the Picks folder), removing the need for flight for 80% of transportation to their home or business.
6) Folks wanting to shop til they drop get a central business "core" area where all the commercial activities are; you'll eventually see specialized areas develop: Club Alley, Mall Road, Casino Row, etc.
This is probably the best compromise I can think of right now; telehub owners get their high land values, more customers, and great places to plop down a store (leasing storefronts will become a popular and profitable option again). Home owners get Sims that are finally lag-free, devoid of annoying commercial storefronts and blaring activity; finally, a remote area! But not truly remote; you would get instant p2p teleportation to your home(s) free of charge (remember the picks area).
Thoughts?
