10% Tier Discount Unfair?

Hi,

I've been having a conversation with a few people in-world and I'm curious to see how a larger segment of the population feels about this issue. What I'd like to know pertains to mainland rental operators vs. island rental operators. Does the ability of mainland rental operators to get a 10% discount on their tier bill through the exploitation of group tools give them an unfair advantage over island rental operators?

If you answered yes, why? Also, what would be the best way to level the playing field in your view? 10% island tier discount? Remove the 10% mainland discount? Do nothing because, while you do feel it is an unfair advantage, you still feel that it is appropriate?

If you answered no, why?

Please though, let's TRY to limit this discussion to rental operations. I know that there are a few groups out there on the mainland who are legitimately using this tool to enable group projects.

Island owners have much better tools to allow their renters to control the land they rent. So, the 10% is just somewhat of an offset. I still think islands are better suited for renting then the mainland.

I'm not sure. I know little about how the Island tools work, and don't operate a rental operation in either place.

But I was under the impression that Island rental operations have access to special estate tools that are unavailable to mainland residents. If that's the case, and those tools make renting more efficient on Islands, I'd say that having the 10% bonus on the mainland levels the playing field - but in the other direction.

Really not familiar with the Island tools, however - so admittedly I could be completely off base.

Interesting viewpoints. Obviously my group (group of shareholders that is.. I think Cyberland definately counts as a group project! ) gets a large benefit from this additional 10% discount. With this in mind, I'm 90% sure that I wouldn't want to see it go away for groups like ours that really put it to to good use. When you really think about it, I suppose that a rental empire COULD be considered a group of people who is putting the leverage/discount to good use. I've just been having this conversation in-world, playing devil's advocate on both sides, and trying to figure out what I think about it. Thank you for sharing with me how the community as a whole feels about it.

I DO think though, regardless of any other factors, that being able to offer 10% lower prices with roughly the same profit margin does put the mainland rental operator at a distinct advantage to the island rental operator. I guess a better question to ask would be, taking into consideration any possible other factors, is this fair?

Shaun - you cannot discuss the fairness/unfairness of land renting vis-a-vis mainland or private island and yet ignore the one huge imbalance in favour of the private island.

You must be aware that several private-island landlords are (mis)-representing their rentals as sales. This means that they recover their entire capital land costs from the renter as a non-returnable deposit inaccurately described as the purchase price in a "land sale".

This is possible because such a landlord can appear to pass over almost full control over the land, and yet take no risk, as no actual sale can ever take place, and the landlord can still repossess at whim, ignoring the claim that it was a "sale", and over-riding with a single click the fact that he/she went through the motions of "deeding" it to a group.

I believe that a mainland landlord cannot do the same thing because of the way the tools work differently. If I click "deed" of my land to a group under the control of a tenant then I risk having it seized from me - something which can never happen off the mainland.

If I am right then the private-island owner has a huge advantage over his mainland equivalent in this ability to recover his capital cost from his tenants, and quickly move on to buy sim after sim. The fact that many regard this practice as disreputable, and refrain, doesn't alter the fact of its availabilty.

So please Shaun, dont lets mention fairness and leave this glaring imbalance out of the picture.

If I am wrong, and exactly the same thing could now be done on the mainland too - then I would be very grateful if someone clear-thinking would put me straight. But I think the situation is as I describe.

I believe the most significant tool is a single "reclaim" button which over-rides all previous actions and agreements.

Including undoing the deeding of a plot to the tenant's own group. Which is what lets the naive tenant imagine he/she is the owner.

We already went over this shit. It's not harming anyone.

When I first got my island I was told you couldnt deed it to different groups in parcels, they ahve changed it since then. I was curious about the reclaim land since i really never noticed it before because i don't split the sim for anything.

I set it to a different group. didnt wear that title of that group and was able to reclaim it. Personal I think it is a great feature for land renters. it ensure your hard earned money isnt stolen on the island.

But wait, LL does the same thing on the mainland grid. If you "buy" land on the mainland grid, and then break rules resulting in your banning, or fail to pay your maintainence fees, LL "reclaims" your land in just the same manner and "sells" it all over again! So with this in mind, I don't see it as glaring.

Is your problem with the fact that land can be reclaimed at all? Or, is your problem that resident estate owners rather than only LL (the mainland grid estate owner) have equal authority to enforce their own rules within their own domains? Don't you think that if you break the rules of the island grid, or fail to pay your maintainence fees, the owner SHOULD be able to hold you accountable?

And what lets the naive mainland owner imagine that he/she really is the owner?

How many times does this same issue need to be rehashed? The consensus has been exactly the same every time.

Didn't you notice. Lo. what this thread is about ? I am not rehashing shit. The threadstarter asked to discuss the relative advantages/disadvantages as between private and mainland landlording, and raised the issue of relative "fairness".

I posted on exactly this question, to point out a relevant issue which was being left out of the equation. You think such an advantage irrelevant, or trivial, or non-existent ? Then why not post and tell us why ?

Til they get the answer they want of course. How silly are you!?

I refuse to get sucked into such philosophical posturing, Shaun. You know perfectly well that proper landownership is not at the whim of another anonymous resident, and one would have to be blind not to see the difference between such a person and Linden Labs, the non-anonymous owners of the entire operation.

I am afraid your posting shows that you didn't really start this thread to solicit opinions on the relative advantages/disadvantages of how these two groups of landlords can operate. I point out something offering one group a huge financial advantage over the other, and you just step sideways.

You think that quickly recovering the capital cost of your sim whilst still owning it is a trivial advantage ? Surely the 10% tier difference you are concerned about is totally trivial in comparison?

Can you really disagree with that, Shaun ? Or regard it as irrelevant to the questions you pose in your thread ?

The answer the threadstarter claimed to want to discuss was the relative fairness as between the two sorts of landlords. I pointed out a significant and factual advantage enjoyed by one. This is entirely relevant to the question, and the poll, in this thread. I did not raise this fairness issue, Shaun did. Would you care to comment on it from that point of view, Kendra ? If you dont see this as ann advantage to one side but not the other, I would be fascinated to hear why.

Forget the morality issue. What we are discussing here is the powers/facilities/advantages available to the two sorts of landlord. How they may or may not be unequal.

One can without risk recover the capital costs of each plot as he rents it, and persuade the tenant this is a sale. The other I believe cannot. How can this be irrelevant to what we are discussing ?

It is a huge, simple, financial advantage which completely alters the economics of the landlording operation as compared with the mainland.

You think that pointing out something so significant and relevant is somehow emotional and irrelevant and boring ? You leave me amazed !

relax, darling. Have a cup of tea.

With the greatest respect, Kendra, if you have no interest in the issue, why post to the thread ? Why imply that those who are interested, and post on topic, somehow need to chill out ?

I could go do the same in virtually any thread in the forum. Would it be adult, or constructive ? Worthy of admiration ? It wouldn't even have the merit of being amusing unless I could do it with lots of cleverness and style. Which I don't see here, sadly......

I have great interest in this thread. Obviously my humour is not your cup of tea.

You seem a little bit stressed, if you don't mind me saying so. At any rate, no I don't really see any difference between a resident's huge continent and LL's huge continent. Both have the same incentive to conduct fair and honest business. Imagine having hundreds of private islands and suddenly nobody to rent them? What continent operator in their right mind would want to go THERE? And for what? To rip one resident off for L$5000 or whatever reclaiming 1024m2 from them when in fact they hadn't violated the rules or become a deadbeat on their rent?

Maybe I'm just crazy here, but I don't see this as a realistic scenerio. Is this the kind of thing that you were concerned about when citing the island operator's ability to reclaim sold land at any time etc etc?



Don't be silly. I most certainly did start this thread for that reason, and I'm not stepping in any direction at all. I'm only attempting to carry on a conversation, explore your viewpoints, and try to better understand them. If you didn't actually want to discuss it then that's fine, but don't try to make that my fault lol.



Sure. That sounds like a great advantage but ONLY as far as initial capital recovery. I'm not convinced that having to either charge 10% more, or accept a 10% lower margin, compared to mainland operators, wouldn't zero out that advantage and tip the scales back over the long run though.

Like say for example, an island gives up that 10% vs. mainland for... 2 years, through either lower aquisition/retention rates of higher rent (customers leaving for the cheaper mainland, or not signing on at all) or the lower profit margin of charging the same price in maintainence fees. At what point during that two years would the island's initial advantage of gaining 5/m2 or so from the first owner of each land be wiped out by the additional costs of doing business?

I don't know, I'm just not convinced that the initial advantage amounts to anything at all long-term. It certainly does facilitate more rapid growth, but then a year or two down the road one is only left with MORE land which is performing poorly compared to mainland operations. With THIS in mind, I still think it may be an unfair advantage.



I don't know if I agree or disagree. I don't remember saying that you were off topic though. I'll have to re-read my post. This IS a very interesting aspect to discuss.

Nice to see you again. I was wondering where you were off to. As a person that doesn't deal with islands at all, I was wondering if you could tell me if I was understanding right. I was under the impression that islands could never list their parcels for sale. Am I understanding you right that, island renters are not listing for sale, but selling their land through a web page or the classifieds, and then calling the deeding process selling, yet they have a reclaim button that lets them take the land back? I'm not being sarcastic, just trying to figure out if I understand right. If that is the case, it just reiterates my advice to some newbies I've met. If you don't click the Buy Land button to get the land; someone else technically owns it. Have you encountered anyone taking advantage of the reclaim button?

Maybe you think I was replying to you; I wasn't. As an aside, you had some good points.

OK Shaun - I reacted to the fact that you seemed to have ignored what I thought a very relevant point, as though I had never made it.

But now we have a discussion on our hands - thank you.

Yes, I take your point - a steady continual 10% will add up month by month in a way which even getting your sim for free will not.

I think the importance I give to this advantage is exactly the one you mention - facilitation of more rapid growth.

Taking things to extremes to expose the principle, it would be possible theoretically to amass 50 sims without ever putting up the capital to buy more than one. "Sell" one to its tenants - use the cash to buy the next - and so on. Whilst your "mainland" competitor is having to wait and save from income for each one.

Normally a business like this would be growth limited by the capital available, but here we can "sell" the land and yet retaiin ownership.

It's my believe that adopting this practice (which as you know I consider dubious) was a significant factor on one barons ability to leave competitors behind through explosive growth.

I see the "pseudo-selling" feature as a short term advantage, the 10% discount as a longterm one. In my opinion the whole SL economy is so young and rapidly changing that long term equilibrium conditions are of little significance, and calculations on such assumptions questionable. A short-term advantage is more worth grasping than a longterm one at this stage.

But your point is well made, and it could be argued both ways, Shaun. We could examine the breakeven point in a spreadsheet, but I fear the assumptions would have to go dangerously far into the future. And how do you weigh the advantage of expanding more rapidly than your competitors, and what capital do you assume to be available ?

Interesting though, isn't it ?

Hi Dark. I think you have it exactly right. No big abuse of the reclaim button has been reported yet, but my guess is it's only a matter of time if more landlords take this path. Little incidents so far I guess, but maybe the odd confiscation is justified.

Personally my concern is not to oppose or denigrate any form of landholding entered into freely and with understanding. I am concerned about people being misled. But this particular thread is about fairnes as between the different sorts of landlords. Possible tenant abuse is being discussed elsewhere.

I got bored with forums - I've been off building and scripting and selling. No more - this is off Shauns topic

Sorry, Lo. Thought you were talking to me. Thanks.

Just a couple of points:

1. One can also "sell" land on the mainland in this fashion. I "bought" my land from Nexus Nash when he was still ON the mainland.

2. One of the benefits of this set-up I didn't think to mention yesterday was the services that come along with it. When thinking about profits from land sales by private owners - such as the situation in Azure Islands, where I live - and when trying to decide whether these situations are fair or not, remember that it isn't labor-free for the landlord/"sellers" to provide this set-up to us.

When I "bought" my land from Nexus, I got a lot of things I don't get when I buy land from the Lindens as First Land or from my next-door neighbor who has decided to move.

I get a whole zoned Sim. I get Nexus and Adam making sure that the rules of the Sim are more or less enforced. (When I say more or less, I mean they aren't like Nazis about it or anything, but strive to maintain the atmosphere which we bought into.)

They also provide the landscaping. This can't be stressed enough. For example, when they put in the sim next to me, it was all these little islands! Wonderful! Of course, you can still fully landscape your own parcel, but they provide a whole WORLD. A realistic one, not a crazy-quilt patchwork of everybody's individual parcel put together in a way that makes no sense.

It's a pleasure to see these two guys expand their sims. They put in a tall bridge to the shopping sim that spans the bay. They put in a snow sim that is simply GORGEOUS and I don't even like snow sims!

There are roads, and common areas. Boardwalks. Of course, on each parcel, people can get pretty much as nutty as they like, within the constraints agreed to for Azure Islands, which are hardly draconian. But the whole thing STILL pulls together, because it was designed with a bigger picture and on a bigger scale than the rest of SL functions on.

We are buying all THAT. And Nexus and Adam are still there, to manage all that for us. That is labor, folks, and I sure as heck hope they DO make a profit off it. Ditto for Anshe.

I invite anyone who just can't understand why people would "buy" land in these places - April, Elle, and whoever else - to come visit me and see why I love it there. All the reasons I love it there are part of the package I "bought."

And personally, I think investing in this stands a whole hell of a lot more chance of ultimately paying off in resell value (should I ever decide to sell) than my 512 and purchased land around it will ever pay off in Rosieri. Which is why I BOUGHT.

As for the trust factor, I didn't have to make a very big leap to trust Nexus and Adam as much as I trust Lindens. After all, we are all living on a house built on shifting sands, and we all know we could lose the whole she-bang one of these days.

Come and visit me, and see for yourself. Maybe you will see why I think people like Nexus and Anshe provide a service to us, one many of us appreciate. And it's WORK to do it! Work I'm glad I don't have to do myself. And it is a labor of love as well.

coco