Why Free Accounts Must Go-Part II

I love the description for them too.

"Someone pays L$20, you get L$10 and the guy who you got your pyramid from gets L$5."

Me: ...and the other L$5? Gee...maybe the -ing creator?

I don't think unverifieds can get into the forums.

Yikes - if they can't, I think that's part of the problem! There's so much to be learned here. Of course the open hostility toward them by some people may turn them off. But then again, the hostile people would think that's a good thing.

It's burried somewhere in a Linden Answer thread, but the quoted reason was - ironically enough - that allowing unverifieds on the forums resulted in too much spam.

Somewhere in June-July there was a little glitch that allowed unverifieds on the forums and those that got in during that time have been "grandfathered" so there are a handful around .

Allowing unverifieds on the forums would only make them useless for all of us, the noise level would just become overwhelming and when you're an anonymous alt, a forum suspension/ban (resulting in an inworld suspension/ban) really isn't enough of a threat to keep anyone from behaving badly.

Still, it could be problematic for the unverifieds who actually want to be good residents, but don't know how, because the knowledge base that's available to them is so outdated, or doesn't address the questions they might have. The forums have been much more helpful to me than the online knowledge base or the notecards that some newbies receive that contain way outdated info.

Just another example I guess of the bad apples ruining it for everyone else.

Which is ironic, considering that unverifieds are allowed into SL itself, and the objections are the same (and bad behaviour can actually cost people real money).

they used to be able to - Unless something has changed they still can

Relevant threads:

I really do not buy into the argument that unverifieds are good for the economy because of LL's very own economic statistics. There are currently 3,767,478 total residents but in January only 187,860 residents spent money in world. Am I missing something? Why the huge disparity in the numbers? Out of the 3 million accounts registered, you would think the number of those spending money in world would be much higher.

If I may pull apart your remark


Because Labs themselves are flipping the bill for the free account free monies. Its does not take a PH.D you see all that floating monies around indeed is supported by LLabs themselves.

Usagi

Lets go even farther.
Of the 3+ million registered accounts, 1,326,024 of them have logged in in the last 30 days.

1,326,024 logging in and only 187,860 buying things. That means 1 in every 10 users has spent money in any fassion inworld--and that includes Ginko deposits! So, what are 9 out of 10 users doing? They can't be camping, or they'd be dumping all that cash into Ginko (L$1000 becomes L$1001 in a day, a camper can easily garner L$1000* in a day from camping, the compound interest on that is phenominal: 46 days of that and your interest adds up to an extra L$1081, or about US$3 on the open market. 47 days for the price of 46...a whole year? L$66,430, that's nothing to sneeze at).

* At L$2 per 10 minutes, that's L$288 per avatar per day, or just under 4 avatars to make L$1000 per day. A machine can easily run 4 concurrent copies of SL as long as the user doesn't wish to do something else. (4 avatars is L$1152 per 24 hours)

Even accounting for the possibility that gifts don't count towards "avatars that spend money" there's a disproportionate ratio between 4 avatars per camper and 1 in 10 avatars paying money.

All the more reason to get rid of "traffic" and green dots on the big map to discourage camping.

As far as unverifieds being good for the economy... that all depends.

SL's economy depends upon a high volume of new verifieds bringing money into SL and buying L$ from LL and residents.

Without "unverifieds" many potential paying customers would never make the jump from "Non-Resident" to "Verified Resident"

So... from the angle that "unverifieds" are a marketing tactic to draw more people in and give them enough of a taste of SecondLife to make more want to be verified residents... they ARE good for the SL economy.

Free accounts need to go, I agree about the multiple campers on one computer. I think that is total BS. And its only going to escalate too when people start finding out about making 1k per day. I think if they get rid of free acounts and charge people 10 bucks a month, per account, that'll cut it down ALOT.

whoa... the discussion is still running. Well then I - a second class citizen (as I still use a free SL account) - will voice myself again.

I did spend in this month roughly 8US$ in SL, all comitted from outside. Why the hell should I need to upgrade my account? I do something or the SL economy.

The real problem still is elsewhere, as you say it. Campers, multiple SLs on a machine, things like that. I'd never have thought of camping anywhere, because it takes way too much time to get money. I also don't see why people think they need to do that. I have better things to do with my PC.

But: If the payout of following such tactics can be as high as suggested in this thread, how the hell will non-free accounts help? If you can get more money out of the system, than you put into it for a paid account, I don't really see what will stop people....
It is not Free accounts that have to go, but things like camping. a rating system based on traffic rather than on real user opinion.

From that angle, yes, but have you seen the numbers? The number of paying residents has not increased at a speed any different than it did before the registration process was opened. The only thing we have more of is free and less than free accounts (free being verified and less than free being unverified). If we used to get, say, 20 new premium members each month, then wouldn't we see a rise if your statement were true? But we haven't, we're still getting the same 20 a month.

(I wish I had actual numbers on me, I've seen people use them, but I don't know where they get them.)



1) It's still not that easy to make sure that all your alts stay in a chair. Seen the anti-idle schemes VGI has?
2) Even if they do, I think they'd be willing to fork over $10 of their $30+ every month.

then they should remove camper chairs then. its only gonna get worse

Propose a way to do it and I'm with you.

In the year 2005 there were no free accounts , there were less problems and sertainly no preformance issues

in the year 2006 LindenLaps makes it posseble to have a free account on secondlife
in the month July only 400K people signed up 90% payed Resedence.
In the month December 3 Mil people signed up 90% Free accounts.

What went wrong
- heave database load
- griefers
- Spam about making money fast ( the thing that is called on the blog like the Mailspam you get about making money fast)
- Hackers are more active
- in the DUTCH news there is an artical about Childporn in SL i think when kids are not able to sign up will solve this. Maybe make the Kid grid and the adult grid really seperated to avoid atleast a little bit for this but also payed signup.
ect ect ect ect ect ect
endless list!


I have started on 4th of july as a free account. Now i am a payed acccount but even since i started as free, and most of my friends are free users i still vote for Close and delete all the free accounts
i even understood the commotion about the free accounts back then already evendo i was 1 my self and now all the pay accounts still pay but for what????

Send them an email were they can read about 30 days posebility to make your free account to premium. if not it will be deleted. ( this can be done with 1 simple script as most developers know)

Yes you wont have 4 Milion people but Max 1 if not even less. but at free accounts you dont earn money and it gives no fun.

Sample"Gor SL. its no fun because people run around who are playing it as Lord of the Rings, griefers, ect ect

Other sample" Free accounts cant get money into the game and pay out unless they use a friend who has a payed account
So basicly people who pay 10 USD a month , own land wich in mostcases starts from1 5 USD a month ( so 25 USD a month) loos that on there income, a Free account payes nothing only his/her store cost. but always have a win win situation.

To make people have fun in SL is to
1: keep it fair
2: keep it clean
3: no griefers
4: no hackers
ect ect ect ect ect ect ect


What to do for people who pay monthly Tier and account cost

1: refund everything of monthy cost on the Accounts and a part of Tiers payed A person A month since the moment the problems started ( August really started it when euros joined more and more * no offence i am euro*)

Stop charge the monthly cost ATM untill the game , the servers and what ever runs much and much better
we pay for shit, and nothing. I cant even build items for my store because the primjumping.

ECT ECT enough to complain were most payed accounts, store owners and much more have the same complains...

i can contineu write a book about it but it wont ever help unless the lindens are really finaly going to do something about it .

signed out!

Well as long as there is no realy benefit for paid accounts, it's gonna be hard to get people to use them.
the stipend is less than the money invested - so there's no benefit.
The right to first land? Well it probably doesn't interest everyone (I for exmaple play in two RPG sims and have no need for a home yet - besides I could always rent a flat or buy land from someone else than LL).

Well what else is there? Nothing?

So you can either force people into paid accounts by limiting the basic accounts more and more and more or create additional benefits. Hey LL? How about a second account for the people who sign up for a premium account? Or increasing the stipend? Or... well... honestly: Think of something.

I don't want to go premium, but so far that's mostly because I don't benefit from doing so. I don't like to do it, because it would lose me money.

if you give free account les and les privelages why not just abandon them

Would be a valid solution. One I don't like, but it would be valid. I'd prefer the other way though. Gaining something for going premium just sounds a lot more nice to me, than abandoning free accounts.

i am aware of the problems with most ( sertainly dutch ) paypal users with no Credit Card. since im dutch and just resently had my CC ... there should be away SL accept banktrancefers without registration of Paypall , CC's or debit cards

Bank details are checkeble
that way you also make it more intresting for others to pay for there account and gain money and pay money

Dont get me wrong i got a free account who does not these days, so but still i shout to close it. but do it after there are agreements with Europeen big banks

Free or Unverified, and if unverified how did you get those L$2000 in?

I owned land , and spend and gain to much money when i had a free account.
just trust a friend who will hold the land , you pay the friend he brings in your money as linden and cash it out for you

pretty easy to do

Free and verified. I buy my money via LindeX.

By the way there are more ways to improve premium accounts. Small steps but they might include:
- get rid of having to pay for rating people
- get rid of the payment for uploading stuff to SL

Maybe we shoudl spawn an own discussion to see what could be done to differentiate Preium from Basic accounts?