Tier - how do people pay it?

Pardon me but am I missing something fundamental about the SL land system?

Unless you have a store generating good amounts of funds, how do people justify to themselves paying say $180 per year in tier for a 2048m2 castle that practically nobody (including themselves) visits. The same thing goes for rent / leasing large (often very beautiful) plots.

I love sightseeing, wandering around them in wonder but um yeah... is it some form of architecturally driven community service?

Are these people stupid rich in RL or is something else going on here?

They could be rich.. They could enjoy and visit it more often than you think and make sacrafices for it.. Or they may place a shop or some form of generating revenue on that land, and pay, or partially pay their tier with that..

When you put it in perspective, $180 per year is cheap.

If you buy one soda from a vending machine per day, you will spend well over $270 per year. I just skip the soda.

See? Sacrifices

I simply look at SL as a entertainemt expense for me. When I owned a sim it broke down to about 50$ a week, a typical night out costs more than that and I can enjoy SL much more than one night a week.

Exactly.

I fund mine by using my invenious RL invention that can fish letters out of post boxes and transmit to me whether there's cash inside..

I mean.. Patent pending, patent pending, patent pending

I also print my own money in RL. Send me $50 and a SASE and I will give you detailed instructions.

I've got 3 quid and a cleanex, what you got for me..

Um....meet me out back...don't tell a soul....

Ok.. *IMs Willow* Guess what!!

I'm currently paying about $480 a year on tier, but so far the shop (Winter's Creations - in the Find menu) has paid for itself... just barely. I have yet to make a profit, but I have yet to lose money on the deal.

Later on I'm considering purchasing a private sim... However I can think of a few better ways to spend $2,340 ($3,590 if you count the cost of the new server)...

Such as a nicer computer to enjoy my SL experience with.

I'd be glad to stick with my $40/month tier to save for a nicer computer.

...


And as for filthy rich, I am not. But I've got a great job that pays well, so tier isn't a real issue.

I started out hoping to make tier on 4096m within one year's time. Otherwise I would let SL land ownership go, forever.

So I made things I thought people would like to buy. Make a long story short, I was able to meet my first goal fairly quickly.

Simply try, always always do your best, and actually finish what you set out to make. Then take a deep breath and put it out there for sale.

How do you justify paying $180 per year renting videos, going to the movies, going to concerts, going to clubs, going on vacation, paying for cable TV or satellite, eating junk food at McDonalds, etc.?

On my budget's categories, it falls under Entertainment Expense.

Thanks for all your good (and some amusing) answers.

I pay $US 1,200 a year to support half of a private island.

Actually, our business supports it, however, I work harder in our business than I do in my RL job for less $ return - and since I think time is more valuable than money, being finite... those hours are actually a bigger sacrifice.

I think you have to weigh your enjoyment vs. your investment and decide how much you can afford.

You could also take into account that comes along with 25,000 L$ which is ~90$ USD.

So, in fact, that 180$ is actually 90$ or about 8$ / month for something that can provide almost unlimited entertainment for someone who has a creative mind.

Edit: If they pay on a yearly basis their total bill would be less than 180$, about 50$ less I believe. Which means, that with the L$ payments, their total annual bill comes to 40$ USD which would be about 3$ / month.

I pretty much stopped going to see movies since I started SL, I suspect I've saved over 1000 USD per year because of it. I could probably tier down my cable service as well, but I think my wife might object, saving myself another 400 USD per year.

Personally, I think 180 USD is a very small price to pay to hang out with creative types from all over the world.

I collect and sell human hair for wigs.

And I ain't picky.

My limit right now is 1/16th of a sim, and I had to give up buying soda pop for home (can still have soda at work or at Burger King though). If I can get my DSL transferred to the other phone line, cancelling my unused phone line might save me enough money for another 1/16th...

Edit: I thought it was going to work, but to get the DSL moved to my new phone number, even though the home address is not changed, will cost me a $50 moving fee. So I won't be saving $13/mo. after all...

SL is actually quite cheap relative to the other MMORPGS out there, that - to me at least - don't offer as much opportunity for creativity or meeting people.

I have a modest success selling the games I make, and it's enough to pay my 4096 tier. Mind you, building the games was what the fun was all about .

Considering the thoughts of playing another MMOx (x meaning whatever you want it to be)...

Most massively multiplayer setups charge anything from $10 to $50 per month to play, and you (usually) don't make any money in return.

Second Life, however, only charges according to the land you own. Currently, I own $40/month worth of land. Now, considering the fact that the average MMOx probably never really charges more than $30/month, that may sound like a lot of money. That's $480 a year! Compared to the $360 that you COULD pay to play X.

But consider the fact that I host a shop on my land, and it does pretty good business... I make around L$10k - L$11k per month (around $40). Thus, my tier is reduced to around $0 per month (net).

I find it much more valuable to pay tier in SL than to play any other MMOx out there. Tier takes care of itself, while I enjoy being with wonderful people of various cultures.

Huh? Stupid rich? $180/365 = a little under $0.50 a day.... This is supposed to be the adult grid so if you are an adult and you are not able to cover $0.50 a day I would suggest getting off the computer and finding a job.

I thought a private sim was 195 dollars a month? That's 195 divided by 30... 6 dollars a day.

I need to lose some weight though... maybe if I go without eating! See, you can lose weight by getting a private island!

dont forget the initial 1250$ for the sim

*looks for the reserved for Land owners sign b4 posting*

I know this discussion is about land teirs but i saw renting mentioned earlier and wanted to add to it.. right now i am renting from Desire Rentals(great ppl to rent from) @ 350L a week for a mid size prefab and 400 prims with the option to rent more at 1l per prim per per week. THis is only a temorary thing until i buy a piece of land.. but the math tells me right now that I am doing pretty good price wise... 350 a week is only 1400 a month.. so in reality 400 prims for under $5/month... cant be beat....

And to pay for it all I play games..poker and pizza mainly but a good night of either and i have my rent for the a couple weeks. Which leaves plenty of times for just enjoying my 2nd Life.