P2P - How to make it work?

Alrighty, much has been discussed and debated. Fact is Lindens decided to bring P2P teleporting. However, there is some problems that I think need some creativity to find solutions:

I. How can we maintain traffic at telehubs?
II. How can land owners get value that reflect the higher auction prices for telehub land?
III. How to encourage commercial zoning / urban development near those centers?
IV. How to discourage malls/clubs/stores spread into remote areas?
V. How to maintain privacy?
VI. How to prevent lag from P2P-zappers (=people teleporting every 30 seconds)?
VII. How to still give people sense for geography/space?

Please add other issues you see to the list. Above are the problems that have come to my mind and I tried find some solutions. Unfortunately I have not yet found answers to all the questions.

Everybody know that I am largest telehub land owner in SL. So of course I also have my own interest here. Like hundreds or smaller telehub land owners I don't want any free gains, but all of us paid high prices to have access to high traffic business locations and would like our land maintain attractive business location and retain value.

Here are some ideas that have come up in discussion that I found interesting:

1. People paid more for the land. Give them the hardware they have pay for! Two processor per telehub sim, double prims per sqm!

2. More prims the closer to the telehub. For example: 0m-25m prims * 4, 26m-50m prims * 2, 51m-100m prims * 1.5

The better hardware and higher prims not only give the telehub land owners value that reflect the high price they actually paid for it, it also encourages the developing of urban center. This in turn provides attractive urban areas and at same time discourages the stores spread to the remote areas.

3. P2P teleporting only for premium accounts

This has following effects:
- increase conversion rate to premium and bring more money to finance Second Life
- maintain newbie traffic at telehubs

Since newbies would continue travel through these areas, providing newbie content and information at telehubs might be good idea.

4. Teleportation fees, maybe 10 L$ per P2P teleport.

Advantages:
- Discourage "P2P-zapping". Some people might otherwise click around the world and teleport like every 20 seconds, which would create lotsa server load
- People would still sometimes fly, at least short distance, or use telehubs
- Money could be used for higher dwell payments or event support

5. Higher dwell payments or event support near telehub. Maybe even money chairs to encourage people hang out there and meet.
- Money used for this could come from P2P teleport fees
- Would add traffic and encourage urban development at telehubs

6. Allow land owners to disable P2P on their land. This could be on 3 levels:
a) everybody can P2P teleport
b) only people on friends list can P2P teleport
c) nobody can P2P teleport

7. Allow estate owners set P2P options for whole estate

8. Make some remote sims on mainland no-P2P sims. To those sims only people on friends list of land owner could P2P. This would provide quiet areas for people who don't want to be bothered and would strongly discourage the commercial building there.

9. Restrict P2P to all or any of:
- Events listed in events calendar
- Landmarks in inventory
- ???

This option I am not quite sure yet what the effect would be. Maybe one approach to P2P would be to first enable it for events or landmarks, then observe result and decide if and how to go on.

10. Add less new telehubs. Maybe only one telehub per 50 sims. Maybe even less.


I invite everybody be constructive. Constructive means to find solution that is as fair as possible to everybody involved. Ideally, changes and P2P would only make the winners, not the loosers. I think that would be good goal. How could it work?

Okay, Anshe, I'll bite.

I'm all for P2P teleport for premium account holders only. Though I deplore your tactics of late, I don't see any reason to completely screw your investment.

I'd say premium-only P2P is a-okay.

I could live with that.

We don't. Nor should we. Traffic should be based on content, not location.

There are no future high telehub land prices, therefore there is no need to worry about any compensation for such. The vast majority of past telehub land buyers have long since recouped and surpassed their original investments. You are therefore asking for profits to continue to be artificially supported. Such is nonsence and needs not to be a concern of Linden Labs.

Commercial areas will continue to be created based on content provided and simple business sence. It is better for a new store to be in the same area as an already successful store. There is no need for this to artificially supported.

Again, this will be desided by simple business sence and human nature. The telehubs were never able to stop this from happening anyway. Our land in Yamato is no where near a telehub and has a next door sim that has been completely taken over and turned into a pleasure/shopping area owned by one group.

The best plan for this I have seen is the option of setting landing points for the P2P teleports.

People can do this now, zapping from telehub to telehub and causing the same lag. At least now it will be spread out over vastly larger areas. It would seem they would cause themselves more problems/lag/crashes than those around them.

I am not sure I have any sort of sense for "geography" now. My main objective is to teleport and as quickly as possible follow that red pole and arrow out of the telehub area.

Again, the vast majority of telehub land buyers have long since recouped and surpassed their original investments. There is no need to artificially support their continued profits.

That seems like a worthwhile idea.

I could live with that, but not for any of the reasons you listed. Money sinks as a whole are to the benifit of the SL economy. Don't think it will happen.

Again, the vast majority of telehub land buyers have long since recouped and surpassed their original investments. There is no need to artificially support their continued profits.

I am also confused by the switching you do from "lag is bad for everybody" and "lag is good if it makes me a profit" - You support some of your points, like P2P zapping, by saying it will cause lag and therefore should not be allowed, and then support other points, like money chairs which cause lag, by saying they are a good idea because they will make the land owner more profit.

This seems like good idea. It is an option I would like to have on my own land.

This seems like a good idea.

I doubt if you would get many people to purchase land such as this.

This would seem to defeat most of the reasons people have wanted P2P to begin with.

If you wish to make P2P only available to premium members then this is a huge pain in the ass for non-premium members. If the teleport hubs completely disappear, this is a moot point.

This is an evolving world, and LL is good about experimenting to see what might work. Some things work, some work but don't scale well, and others don't work very well. Everything that LL experiments with needn't remain in place forever. We shouldn't assume things are permanent. If shops are worth going to, they will still be worth going to when P2P gets here. Landowners who rented out their land which was valued high due to the proximity of the telehub made more money, presumably, than landowners renting non-telehub land. Nothing lasts forever. We want it to be possible to have experiments that will pay off in the development of a better world. Every failed experiment shouldn't end up with LL shelling out to compensate people. Every change will help some, hurt others. This change may hurt some temporarily but will benefit everyone a great deal.

I support P2P but believe we need the other half of the equation - better ability to find interesting locations, events, long-term events. The classified ad thing is only useful for finding things that generate money for the owners, really. for instance, I wouldn't pay to list The Photography Studio because that is something I already spend money on. P2P requires knowing where to go - let's have better tools for that.

Keeping the telehubs (working as normal) but making P2P 10$ would work.

It would be like bring back 2 older features while keeping the current one.


Just please... no bringing back prim taxes

No offense, but this is simply nonsense.

The value of telehub land has been impaired and will never recover in value.

LL has no responsibility to compensate those who have lost value.

End of Story.

Successful lobbyists do things like send government officials on recreational trips, lavish other gifts upon them, support the officials' initiatives, create seemingly pro bono publico organizations to give the impression that there is greater public support for the lobbyist's agenda, etc.

Unsuccessful lobbyists do things like publicly deride government officials, grandstand in ways that demonstrate they have the opposite of public support for their cause, attempt to martyr themselves as a ploy to bolster support (and fail) and snipe publically at their competitors and remain puzzled when they've exhausted the empathy of the community.

I think someone forgot to read "How to Win Friends and Influence Quasi-Governmental Corporations".

instead of making P2P make it so there a telehub in every sim.....meaning there will be p2p but still one Teleport area to start off at , or even a telehub at every 2 sims..... so that you dont have to fly more them 400m or w/e a sim is hehe

Actually, I dont believe that it is ... and I think a lot of people would agree that they think the original investment in telehub land has in a majority of cases been recouped, many times over.

Particularly when one person buys telehub land, sells it at a profit, buys it back for less when the new owner cant make a profit from the rent, then selling it again ... rinse, repeat.

Even if this is /not/ the case, I believe proving it would be quite difficult without opening the books entirely. So the perception will prevail. And denial will likely not be persuasive.

P2P for premium only sounds awesome to me!

Then there can be a scheduled date for P2P for everyone in the future. That way the value of hub land can ramp downward as that date approaches.

I agree with almost everything Saul says! Aside from newbies and explorers, I don't think telehub land generates much more traffic than non telehub land unless there is an event or attraction or successful business. Many of the store i frequent are FAR from telehubs. I know I don't spend more than 5 minutes anywhere near a telehub so where is the traffic contribution? I don't see many people sticking around for long when they TP in next to me, we all take off and follow our own little red flags to our destination, many times quite a long flight from the telehub. The one exception that I've seen being the welcome area.

I think the value of telehub land is completely percieved and talked up by people trying to sell telehub land. I don't think LL should bend over backwards to compensate people for paying more for land that's really not all that much more valuable. As for whether or not they've surpased their investments, I suppose that depends on if they were successful. Honestly, RL strikes again, Person buys valuable land, a trash dump is built but the city next door, suddenly the land is less valuable. City has a right to do what they want with their land, owner has to eat the loss. Is it fair, not really, but how often does a single land owner win against the city in a case like that.

Chances are, unless someone has RECENTLY bought telehub land, it's worth more than they paid initially anyway, regardless of traffic, success, etc., so recouping their initial investment shouldn't be a problem even if the value of telehub land does drop some due to P2P TP-ing. I see nothing wrong with all land being of equal value, though those pretty water front plots will still be more highly valued over crowded inland plots.

I think p2p for a fee would be a better use of the feature than to make it only for premium members. People signing up for premium accounts would put more $L into the economy and more US$ into LL's pockets, yes, but p2p for a fee takes $L out of the economy and therefore raises the value of the $L for people who care about that kind of thing. This way people who want to pay for the feature will and those who don't have the $$ for it will still use telehubs, annoying as they are!

some good ideas in your post anshe, i hope people will listen to the real concerns and look past the initial land barron flaming and/or thier own lil convienence they see with p2p, i too have invested in telehub land and will lose alot as well as many other merchants as this does not just affect land barrons, but my personal loss aside my main concern is commersial/residential zoneing, sure some will say its allready a mix but believe me it will only get alot worse and i feel this issue needs to be addressed befor p2p or things will only be harder to deal with later, i hope LL takes its time and seriously considers the important issues here


peace

If this is true and the hub land has not turned a profit, why have you continued to invest in it? It is surely possible that if you only recently pruchased hub land, that particular tract has not paid off yet, but having gone against conventional wisdom and invested in something that had every appearance of disappearing, I don't see how that speculation should be insured by LL.

At least one other hub land owner has stated in a previous P2P thread that his profits have indeed surpassed the cost of the land. Is this individual just ahead of the game?

and ppl who think that telehub land owners have made the money back allready have wierd ideas, in past 2 months ive bought 500k of telehub land and have not made anywhere close to that back yet in those locations as this was an investment for the future, now that investment doesnt look like its gonna pay off, this effects any merchants who have bought land in hopes of business, mabey some who been planted thier for long time have seen thier investment return but to say that ppl with telehub land have made more back then what they spent is just not true for everyone

The real concerns appear only to be hub land owners recouping their costs and artificially maintaining profit centers in the face of a world evolving away from the current hub business model. What exactly will get worse about the "residential" areas of the main grid? None of Anshe's points are a concern for this resident.

So you should be rewarded for failing to heed the obvious signs that P2P was in the works?

I'm sorry but if a merchant is counting on location for their profit they probably don't have a very good product. If a merchant has a quality product, their location will not matter in the least. If they bought telehub land and have a lot of sales because they have a good product then that will continue regardless of people not using the telehubs.

I hardly think that something that will benefit the entire population of SL is a "lil" convienience. Some of the comments over the last few days remind me of the old saw about buggy whip makers who refused to see that they'd no longer be needed when cars became popular.

And what the heck is "it" anyway?

Buggy Whips, Baybeee, Buggy Whips.

did i ask for an award? i believe i said my concern was zoneing

Oooh!! That would be a great book to put in the future Neualtenburg Library!

zoning has never been a concern of LL, why should it be now?

Fair enough.