New Tier Fee

Linden:

I am wondering if SL will ever add a new tier fee between the 40-75 usd fee? That is quite a big jump now that I think of it. I would like more land but I just cannot conceive of such a big jump. Would like to hear a Linden's reply. Of course all other responses are welcome.

Thanks

I agree. I would probably end up at the $75 point anyway, but I like to go up in increments. If there was a midpoint, I would already be there. As is, I vacillate between moving up or not on a daily basis. Result = I stand pat where I'm at.

Can we have a 10 sim tier fee? No really i'm serious!

Ya 40 to 75 is a big jump. But once you are over 4096 (personnaly) I don't fiddle with little lots anymore.

I love to fiddle Black Mountain Rag is a real crowd pleaser.

Can't rustle up the quote, but from Philip's "townhall" discussion in June, there is a strong chance of an overhaul of tier coming along soon.

I guess the difficulty is mathematical. If there were no discount to larger tier holders, then it could be priced at a fixed L$ for each sq m, with no tier boundaries at all.

But the moment you put discount in, you are forced either to use a mathematical equation (which would freak most of you out - go on, admit it) or fixed tier steps, as now.

It's the tier discount that forces them to use fixed steps.

You want more steps, and I agree. But keep adding them in, and soon its a graph or equation, and people start moaning its too complex and confusing. And the tier definition table is two feet long, and everyone is logging on to change their tier level every five minutes. Because if residents needn't specifically log on to pre-approve a change in the charge then LL would have endless complaints of faulty billing from people who misremembered how their land holdings had changed during the month.

Incidentally, a flat-tier system would have to face this increase in billing complaints to some extent too, but it is a lot easier to understand.

Gives us a glimpse of the difficulties LL face in designing a tier-charging system to best fit the situation.

And that's why they don't do it more often - for instance, why should anyone be charged for PEAK usage over an entire month? Who wouldn't change credit cards if interest was calculated on the peak balance per month?

Its not necessary - most calling plans (and online billing systems) easily handle hourly, daily, etc real-time usage for billing purposes... How do we know that our prims aren't in fact used by someone else when we're not online? We don't have security codes... Why couldn't LL over-sell 1.25x prims per sim (for instance) based on when residents are "statistically" present in-world? Could this contribute to lag?

Let's face it - compared with practically any reasonable business model we're being over-charged out the wazoo! So why would their investors accept anything less than the present tier unless it could be shown that a substantial amount of new business would emerge? The obvious answer is that the present business model is not scalable, at least beyond more that 1,500 to 3,000 people in-world at the same time...

I'd help them if I could - I'd rent prims to others in the same sim when I'm not online if they'd let me. I'd even pay them a couple of Lindens to let me do that! Helps me and helps them - but the present tier structure is insane if I can't remarket or otherwise share my prims when I'm not using them. And I'm one of the people who on margin "invests" in what they are doing. Who else would be so foolish?

I think LL should simplify the tier fee structure and use a progressive rate instead of fixed increments.

It is frustrating that if you buy ONE meter too much, you jump into a whole new tier in a huge leap. Sometimes people have to release two or three square meters and end up with a griefer billboard next door in order to stay insde a tier. That's just stupid.

A progressive fee would use the tier schedule to calculate a marginal rate per m2. You'd pay an incremental rate for excess land, not a whole jump to the next tier. (If you owned 515 m2 of land, youd pay for 512m2 at the rate for the first 512, and for 3m2 at the rate for the next tier.)

Attached is a table of tier costs per m2. At the $5 tier level, you pay a total of $14.95 per month for your account, and you can own 1024 m2 of land. That's 1.46 cents per m2 per month. At the $195 tier level and using a group to own land, a land baron pays a total of $204.95 per month, and can own 72,653 m2 of land, or 0.28 cents per m2, which amounts to roughly an 80% discount.

Buster

Careful now, Buster. You'll rouse the masses if they see that table too clearly.
Might be better kept cloaked in the interests of inter-group harmony.
I really don't think many people realise how huge the tier discount is, or it wouldn't be so readily accepted.
Information can be dynamite.
Lets see if you get a bang.

Well I certainly wouldn't want to rouse the masses! Ignorance is bliss, it'd make 'em all miserable if they were accidentally informed.

Buster