Land Barons

You obviously don't get the distinction between a purely competative market and a limited monopoly. In a purely competative market, those who work in it are price takers. That is the market is swamped with sellers and producers, all of whom have a common quality product. Nobody makes the price, it is based on what the market will bear and everyone keeps up with that price or suffers the consequences.

In a limited monopoly, a small number of people have total control. They are price setters (or givers). The price is not as dependent on what the market will bear but on what the few that produce the product wish to charge. There is some kneeling to the market on the behalf of the price setters, but if the product is desirable, they know they have control and can charge the highest price they can. Limited monopolies can also weather buyer fall out better, in short, play chicken with the consumer, so there isn't much of a chance that a consumer can wait out the seller, for the market to fall. It IS artifically propped up by the hand full of owners.

Despite your conclusions, SL is still dependent on being a GAME. Most people here are here not to use a platform, but to enjoy a virtual world for entertainment value, wish fulfillment. Outside of outright monopolies, (and thanks to open sourcing, Elanthius can't create a true monopoly) limited monopolies stress the greatest number of people for the benefit of the fewest. An entertainment medium that does that does that won't last.

Why can't LL do both! BTW, EXCELLENT IDEA, Vito!

I think most peoples concerns are not that there will be a smaller group of people able to sell land competitively, but that they won't be part of that smaller group.

Assuming no action is taken by the Lindens against Elanthius, I guarantee he will not have a monopoly. There are plenty of talented programmers around sl, many of whom could fashion something similar in intent (if not in implementation). That many of the current barons do not find themselves part of that group is neither here nor there.

In fact it's rather hypocritical given that they themselves justified clicking on the Search button every second or so, taking cheap land away from people who couldn't justify spending that amount of time looking.

Check out and vote on Proposal 2783 at http://secondlife.com/vote/vote.php?get_id=2783 calling for an end to automated land buying. We have over 800 votes from over 120 users already, but desperately need your vote as well.

how many votes each user has?

The land she had for sale was purchased at the exact price she offered it.

Brazil, each person has 10 votes. They can use those on whatever propositions they wish, except that they have to use one for each propostion they create.

All 10 of mine are currently on the one mentioned in this thread. I guess that's the best way to express my opinion on this topic.

I think that it is very unfair and selfish for someone to do that, I've allocated all 10 votes with hopes that someone at LL will take notice quickly and put an end to his/their actions. I understand a Trump complex but even HE used his natural wits, theirs nothing automated about the process. Spend more time combing the land sales just like the rest of the SL world, why should they be exempt?


VOTE NOW!

Before I express my opinion, I'll tell you the truth, I'm not a user of this bot so this is not a biased opinion in any way.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with the bot. When you buy "cheap" properties, you're doing the same thing as the bot -- taking advantage of other people's inexperience, so don't go around pretending you're any better than the bot, because you're not!

A real baron buys sims from LL. There's more money to be made in that and you don't have to rip anyone off in the process. The only people whining about the bot are people who can't afford to buy sims and like taking advantage of inexperienced players.

And if the player isn't inexperienced, it's even worse... Taking advantage of a player that forgot a zero in his listing for example. At least the player in question did some work to create this bot, which is more than I can say for some of you who expect a 'free lunch'...

If you really want to make money in land, buy a sim, a private island, or just buy larger lots and subdivide them. There's plenty of money to be made in all of that -- I speak from experience, you can easily make 1k usd a month using any of those approaches efficiently, assuming you have around 500usd to work with and a couple hours each day.