No dwell - no point in free content

I'm actively sponsoring a few 'just sights' places myself. It comes ouy of my own pocket, and I don't make 10k lindens a day.. but I give my share to help keep the places I love afloat.

I agree, LL expects subscribers to provide the content that attracts customers to SL, then they need to give those who do some kind of break to offset the massive tier costs that they charge. I dont think that a SL where you have to pay to visit anything worth seeing is a viable model. Most people simply wont pay to visit builds, so if you want to make some income to help defray land tier costs you have to sell something at the site, which results in more commericialization of SL, which is already over commercialized.

ArchTx-

Not to be hyper-critical... but even the most dwell-income deserving places are rather ineffective at drawing people INTO secondlife from outside.

Quality content is for people who are already IN SecondLife.

Another problem is that places with high dwell don't necessarily encourage people to run off and become land owners either, which Linden Labs would profit more from.

I agree with part of your point though. "Most people simply won't pay to visit..." (which is why the basic account fee was removed, imho). However, I strongly suspect that the addition of a tip-jar, wishing-well or gift-shop-vendo-mat to nice builds won't destroy their esthetic value.

Besides, it only takes a very small number of generous patrons to compensate for thousands of L$ mandatory entrance fees to a build.

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I built exclusively for dwell... and I've moved on.

Why not? As long as the traffic is high enough, and it can be done in a tasteful way, maybe a name and store co-ordinates branded into the wooden park, images on the side of a Gazebo or even images on the pathways in the style of those ground paintings you see occasionally. Just look at the real world, people advertise everywhere on everything as long as the advertising doesn’t ruin or diminish the experience there’s no harm.

So the thing is, are venue managers supposed to come to you begging for money? Because that's what it looks like to me. I had a hard enough time going to content manufacturers asking for prizes for contests when DI dried up and we could no longer afford to offer cash for prizes. Asking for money for tier.. geesh. Thats rough.

But it's less of a problem to get it from LL?

There's no begging. in fact, you play your cards right and folks will beg you for the chance to throw money your way. That's how the entertainment industy works.

Doesn't matter whether they're drawing people in or whether they're a reason to stay in. If dwell was scaled (appropriately) according to the "value" of the resident to LL it wouldn't matter if it was a place that encouraged them to become a landowner or merely one that a landowner found worthwhile spending time in.

Places that are valuable to LL because they're valuable to LL's customers should be compensated, whether the customers are directly compensating them or not.
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I build for me, but I'm here for all kinds of reasons... and some of them are here because of dwell.

I don't know, you tell me... I keep hearing about ways to pay for events and other things that really don't need it, but nobody seems to be talking about ways to fund the things that do.
I grew up in Sydney, where it is (or was, when I lived there) against the law to have a sign more than a certain size visible from the harbour. There are comparable rules and restrictions on advertising on publicly funded parkland all over the world, even the United States.

Im really surprised that it took as long for dwell payments to end as it did.

Im also kind of surprised so many people didnt see it coming?

Next to end I predict is the $50 stipend to all basic accounts.

people were really surprised that the lindens got rid of the ratings bonus too ..

I think its kind of predicatable all and all - The only way that the economy will work is if people reemburse content and entertainment providers in some way shape or form.

Now I know most work for the equivilent of slave wages - but they do work - try to take that away and many wont.

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As far for people paying for entertainment - I think the live performers are the best example where we should be willing to pay to watch them perform. I always tip the performers when I go. Im sure they dont perform for free in first life. (many are in fact professional Musicians)

It's not a matter of "didn't see it coming", it's a matter of "knowing it's a stupid idea". I have this annoying habit of hoping for a clue infusion in companies that have traditionally had horrible-clue-deficit in certain areas. When Steve Jobs drank two pints of his own blood at MWSF 2005 and backed down on "no ugly monitors on nice Macs" and "no Flash iPods" that was a really bad "enabler" for my hope addiction. Of course he broke my heart again since then, but as mehitable says wotthehell wotthehell
Before or after the phasing out of premium accounts?
Absolutely, which is why it's daft for the Lindens to make that so hard.
Why should they? This isn't real life - you buy Lindens without having to have your avatar turning a crank to make them pop out - it's a virtual vacation spa.
And I'm not interested in even going. I don't go to live performances when I'm on vacation either.

By remvoing dwell, LL will be removing a majority of the 'public attraction' places, the art galleries, the clubs hosting music, the creative contests, all most all other creative gatherings.

It is unfair for a government to erradicate a form of business in their society after encouraging it. I, once again state, I am not out for money. I am out to play the game of second life. The game of SL for some is effort & time turns into real profits.
To me as a event creator, and not a building/buyer/seller, SL is pointless when the only business left will be selling pointless artifacts to show your friends. That is so lame that LL and even some users are telling me I need to beg for donations to survive... and "it will be a common understanding that object sellers will make us grovel and beg for donations. Im sorry, but i do not feel it is fair to force me to live off of tips!

ONCE AGAIN I PREACH, STOP LOOKING AT DWELL LIKE THE MONEY HAS TO COME FROM THIN AIR TO PAY IT. DWELL NEEDS TO COME FROM A POOLED COLLECTION AT LINDEN LABS.

I feel the same way.

Hm. I do feel that LL should provide benefits to the customers that benefit them. (And by benefit I mean drawing in new paying customers or generating new sources of revenue.)

Interesting builds and quality creative content are nice, and certainly enrich the world over all... but I think that for that content to be rewarded with compensation there should be a measurable amount of benefit to Linden Labs. Without some fair and rational measure, any method they come up with is doomed to be arbitrary, and either insensetive or unfair.

I don't really see how LL benefits (other than being able to boast population growth numbers) when people use their reward compensation to bribe non-paying customers to artifically raise their traffic rating.

On an individual by individual level, if LL wants to reward someone for outstanding contributions or actions that have directly benefited them... what better and more direct way to do that than to grant the recipient discounted membership and/or land use fees.

Maybe they do this already in some cases. Who knows.

Ultimately though, if they're serious about trying to fix the economy (which recent newsletter editorial 'The Evolution of a Self-Sustaing Economy' seem to indicate a growing interest in) they should find ways to provide incentives that aren't based L$'s or easily misused to create "reward feedback cycles".

Well for me removing the stipend would mean no home, no texture uploads etc etc. So therefore no point in me being in SL anymore. Although I gotta admit, this sounds like a new angle on the lets get rid of stipend to force ppl to buy L's theme.

Well, I had my land set up to offer interesting things to do for free. Wasn't out to make dwell since it never amounted to much but it was something. Now, with dwell leaving I am of the attitude, stay the hell off my land you lag inducing freeloader.

As long as I control where my portion of the pool goes. Oh wait. I already do, its called tipping.

And I will definately refuse to give you or any other whiner any..

I've been reading the several threads dealing with this topic of whether or not dwell should continue. Alternate ideas for money sinks have been suggested, some of which would shift the burden to content producers (i.e. higher charges for uploads). The responses against this have been pretty strong. My question is, what makes content producers sacrosanct while event providers and landowners continue to bear the greater burden of running the system? Whenever someone attacks the motives of people who argue to keep dwell, I have to ask, aren't these the same people who support dwell because they want more profits for content creators? And what good is all this content if there are fewer people using it for their land and events, spending less time in-world because just shopping and chatting aren't that exciting, and paying for events would (for an active user) quickly run through their weekly stipend and disallow content purchases?
The argument about donations is interesting. I must admit that on our land we've made more from donations than from dwell. But, and this is important, dwell is a more consistent source of revenue than donations, which vary wildly from day to day. And when people are asked to pay any admission fee (even L$1) I think their willingness to then donate on top of what is perceived as a purchase price for their entertainment will decrease, not to mention again that their amount of expendible cash will go down if they're constantly paying for content that is now free.
It really is a discussion that I hope is happening at Linden Lab - how do we want newbies to think of Second Life? A place where you pay for everything you take part in, or as the cutting edge of Web 2.0, with high levels of user created events and interactivity? What is LL willing to do to help support those kinds of events and interactivity?
And again, why do content creators get to pay the smallest fees and make the most profit, while landowners who host events pay the highest fees and don't even make enough to cover their costs?

Actually one point is many content creators ARE landowners and/or event hosts. These categories have a large overlap. so why should content creators (or any other single category) pay twice?

i think its easy to spout off, you shouldnt have gotten in it if you couldnt afford it..but my partner and i made what we considered sound business decisions based on what SL promised at the time we purchased our land. If your getting decent traffic, the traffic payments run around $250L a day on our land. Now while that sounds miniscule to some, it helps our bottem line imensely. Also if stippends go, which from what i am reading thats next..we stand to lose appox $3500 L a week. Providing content to attract ppl to your land was what i thought LL wanted? The masses seem to feel this is expected as well, i don't see ppl paying to do alot here, i could be wrong, but i dont see it. I think LL has let all its land owners down by false intentions...and i see alot selling land and expect the glut to soon follow. If anche bales..lol run for yer life, its OVER !!!

I wonder what the original cost to create the Universe was?

There is always a point to creating and it honestly does not matter if the creation pays for itself or not. Simply, the enjoyment one gets during the creative process.

It must be so cool having a decent salary and not caring about where to find money to eat

Amen.

I only suggested that basic account stipends would likely be on the way out - I dont think LL has said anything to this effect. It logically stands to be on the list of removal of handouts.

I assume that the $500 a week for premium accounts is fairly safe since they are paying LL 9.95 US a month.