Demand side issues

The whole 'emphasis on the economy' and promoting SL as an income rather than fun is not my idea of a good time either.

Lewis

NewsFlash: Linden Labs employs (real) people who command a salary. To pay those people to keep Second Life alive, they have to turn a profit. In order to turn such a profit, they have to leverage Second Life's economy in such a way that benefits Linden Lab's bank account. That result appears in the changes you disagree with. This leaves you with a choice. Accept the new policy of (Money 1st / Fun 2nd), or cancel your account and find somewhere else where the policy is (Fun 1st / Money 100th).

If LL follows the course you want, their bank account will be dry as a bone and one day when you go to connect into Second Life, the message you get is: "We are Bankrupt. -Mgmt"

There lies the difference between looking at the economy from the object POV or from LL's POV.

Nobody is disputing that LL need to make money to keep SL alive.

Without talking about the technical and PR difficulties of implementing this idea, lets focus on the economical side for the moment. The way RBD had proposed to increase demand on $L is by putting in a new tax/ additional cost of ownership, it adds cost to residents and business owners alike; it does not encourage growth, it slows growth. Also with existing private island zoning rules, it would be useless except on the mainland --> speeding up the migration of users off mainland --> fewer small lots owner = lower monthly tier revenue to LL. The only people this benefit are the permit traders, which is why I would prefer it to be a fixed fee direct from LL, if it were to be implemented.

The reason I bought up zoning was because of the florishing zoned living on private sims. Many prospective/ex land owners decided against owning land on the mainland because of the chaos right now. LL is losing on Tier and Premium subscriptions because of this. Could Zoining be implemented by LL?
On the flip side, it will increase competition on land renting/ management market for the private sim owners.
Or should nothing be done about zoning on mainland and let it remain the wild west of SL?

Actually, as usual, you're wrong. Tweaking stipends won't make a lot of difference to their income, it just means people will spend less.

Linden Lab will, in most cases, get far more income per month from a premium account holder even with no additional land tier, than a basic account holder who buys a few dollars of L$ each month play money.

Giving people an incentive to upgrade to premium and own land gives a steady and projectable income stream much more reliably than the offchance that people might just buy money on Lindex to give them an income.

I happen to work for a charity. One thousand people faithfully supporting us at $10 a month enables us to plan ahead far better than hoping that maybe, possibly, someone might leave us a legacy of $10,000 in their will. Sure, that helps when it arrives, but you can't rely on that happening.

Lewis

No, there should be zoned areas that limit the use of scripting cycles, guest avs and textures loads per square meter. In fact there can be zoned areas for each and other zoned areas for any combination of them. Whether people build a house, park, store, theme park, game hall or whatever won't matter so much as the fact that everyone will be able to enjoy the area under reasonable restrictions that respect what the hardware can and cannot support.

I guarentee you that living in a residentially zoned area is not going to solve your lag problem. Not at all.You answered your own question. PI owners can maintain regulations because they own the land. Lemme rephrase that, PI owners can maintain regulations because they own the land. Sorry, that didn't rephrase very well, I'll try again, PI owners can maintain regulations because they own the land. Okay well nm, there's no clearer way to say it. LL are steadily adding tools, such as the script identifier, that help estate owners maintain regulations on the land they own. Unfortunately, the tools are all sim based so the best we can ever hope for on the mainland is being able to use them if we own an entire sim.

And no, LL tried a few zoning experiments and found that they demanded too much manpower to reasonably maintain the regulations. I expect we won't see that on the mainland ever again.

If I'm mistaken, then you've been on vacation the last few weeks. Because Linden Labs is tweaking the Stipends. Tweaking them the point of ending free stipend payments in favor of having to purchasing L$ if/when you need it. I donno what MMORPG you are playing, but in this world, the era of stipends is over. And the only people who will spend less and the free loaders who aren't spending anything to begin with.

I've been here, watching with dismay as LL slowly chip away at one of the most useful things they give us : spending money. Unless they reduce the cost of premium accounts (which is already likely to be a problem when you have people paying the same amount for two different packages) then they are making a big problem for themselves.

You seem - for reasons unknown - in favour of killing stipends, yet you offer no suitable alternative incentive for people to go premium, or in fact keep on playing. Don't forget that I spend far more on my monthly fee and land tier than I would buy game money if it was a choice of one or another, because I am skilled enough to be able to make most things that I desire to have.

As noted, you're an unverified basic account with no payment details.

Lewis

Yeah sure, and we can issue Non human avatar permits...
and gorean slave ownership permits........


The only permit I'd want to see is a posting fatuous bullshit permit .... preferably priced out of your range.

Besides, what most of you "buy your money" people don't realize is that for a lot of people part of the fun is earning your way in Second Life. What kind of challenge is it just to plunk down RL cash and become a Lindenaire?

It's like preparing a wonderful new recipe for dinner versus ordering pizza from Pizza Hut. It's like wiping your brush and standing back to admire the inspiring landscape that you just painted versus picking up an Old Master knockoff at Target. It's like earning your black belt versus hiring a hit man.

Sheesh.

I would wager that's how most content creators in SL feel. Which is good, but at the end of the day someone need to pay you $L so thay you can "earn" it.

Also at the same time, you must feel that spending your time in SL creating "stuff" worth your time and possible subscription fee. So far it is fun for you, is there way to make it more fun for you?

From a content creator POV, maybe better content IP right protection? Especially something to prevent texture snooping? What about build tools?

What would make it more fun for me would be some occasional recognition and maybe some economic perks. Also maybe a free sim...