Announcing the Second Life Land Store Boycott

Linden Lab just announced one so-called "Land Store" that in reality is not going to sell land, but just the right to protect some potential future expansion space, or to block somebody else's future expansion.

We hope this was just not thoroughly thought through and that Linden Lab, on second thought, will fundamentally change this concept or drop altogether.

We consider this concept and the way Linden Lab announce to implement it unacceptable. We already mentioned this to them when we first heared about this kinda idea some weeks ago. We don't see any new feature or functionality offered for the money and no service provided by Linden Lab that would justify 4000 US$ or more monthly fee that they would collect from us if we would try protect the Dreamland expansion area. Instead, we see ourselves plotted against griefers.

Other groups or business who try build continents on the SL world map face the same problem.

We therefore have decide to boycott this "feature". We are not going bid on any void spaces under the announced conditions, do not plan pay any money for non-existing land. If this lead to the further fragementation of the SL world map instead of the emergence of interesting and contiguous areas this will not be our responsibility.

If griefers use this system to block expansion of Dreamland continents we will simply not expand them. In this case we would turn to only put up cookie cuter single island sims.

We consider it responsibility of Linden Lab to adequately protect customers from griefing and provide expansion methods for customers' projects that also contribute to SL as whole. We already pay 1250 US$ "setup fee" for sims and 195 US$ per month "tier fee". With more than 100 private estate sims we do not receive any discount, which by itself is already quite remarkable. We can not understand why instead suddenly people who attempt larger projects should now even pay for something that should be taken for granted!

Taking advantage of the fear of being griefed in order to make people pay for empty space would not be ethical. We will not pay for void and we ask other estate owners to join us in boycott this "griefer protection tax" if it really become implemented.

Well, let us wait until all the facts are in before we start boycotting anything.

Is the minimum bid 30$ per *group* of sims or per *sim*?

If the answer is the latter, then, yes I'm afraid LL will probably find their beta rather shortlived.

However, I can't imagine they would be that foolish.

Ahhh, I see, you're worried about a bunch of individuals bidding around dreamland before you get a chance to stake your claim.

You are right, the only result would be you simply not growing dreamland.

Hmmm, so to bring this to conclusion, all this is going to do is fragment the island land to the point where nobody bothers to reserve or grow their land?

The concept of charging money for void, beyond some reasonable one time service charge for dealing with registration process, is fundamentally flawed.

Of course I can understand need to prevent people just reserve huge parts of world map and then not use it, but the solution announce by Linden Lab definitely is not fair and do not work.

Here is how IMHO it could be done:

1. Put small and large area spaces on auction. Some up to 40x40 sim large.

2. Let people bid in L$, not US$. Start each auction at 100 L$.

3. Use the L$ extracted from economy that way to stabilize the L$ currency and to fund programs like stipends and event payouts.

4. After one year either 10% of the space must be filled (in 40x40 space that means at least 160 sims) or the space go up for auction again.

Any such thing like monthly US$ payments, auctioning voids as single spaces only etc. is definitely not acceptable. That is called taxation or putting somebody into one vulnerable position and force him to buy some "insurance" from you. Any such concept would simple be wrong!

I can see Anshe's point though.

There is an element of a fee being attached to something LL sort of did before.

But I also gather LL are fairly good at changing the rules when they see a reason to and I wasn't available to attend the meetings deciding this one. *smile*

Must be a good feature then - gets my vote!

I agree with Anshe here. This is pretty much close to extortion; 'Pay us $30/region, or you might not be able to expand.'.

Running the numbers then, to 'reserve' the area we are planning to expand into (a 12x13 grid); it would cost $4,680 every three months. This is plainly unacceptable, and completely incompatible with any large long term projects.

If we can bid on larger cells as Anshe suggested; 20x20 (while we own more than X% in that 20x20 grid). then yes, I'm all for the reserving of spaces; but in it's current form, this is both ripe for abuse, and going to upset anyone with any long term continent goals.

Edit:

Another possible solution would be to give 'free reserve credits' to anyone with an estate - four credits for each estate. That should be enough to allow for expansion on big projects.

Money for Nothing, but the Chicks are Free.....

An island is an island is an island. Location on the grid for most buyers of single island estates is not material. BUT, if you are developing a private, multi-sim continent and would like to preserve a large sector of the grid for future growth and expansion of your project, your vision could be in jeopardy.

Does this mean a major developer now has to now pay LL to reserve the void in and around their development to prevent interlopers and griefers from planting themselves in the middle of a planned, multi-sim development project?

Inquiriing minds want to know.....

I think the goofier part of this whole thing is the fee attached to moving a region. I believe it costs 50$ (or was it 150?) to change the location of a single region on the grid.

Considering all the sim coordinates are stored in a database that forms the 'map' of sl... what exactly justifies paying 50 bucks for a linden to type two numbers (the coordinates)? Why isn't sim consolidation and remapping one of the services that comes when you buy a sim? The prices LL is charging for these kinds of services is just stupidifying.

Why doesn't Linden labs actually charge people for representative services, rather than virtual ones? The boston tea party and associated drama happened because Brittain just randomly taxed products without any sort of actual 'reason' behind it. The representation part of their case wasn't just that they wanted someone to speak for them, they wanted the taxes to be 'representative' of a physical product or an actual service.

So why is it that uploading an 8x8 texture and a 1024x1024 texture is the same 10L? With this kind of system, there is no reason for anyone to upload anything less than 1024 (except out of concern of their neighbors loading times, or forced market rules). Why doesn't the price reflect the service?

Why not charge member accounts based on the amount of disk space they are using? That would be an actual representative price. Randomly charging taxes or offering services which SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BE USED IN THE FIRST PLACE except that another bad policy is in effect, is not going to be the way to keep customers.

-edit: The point I was trying to make here is that there shouldn't ever be a reason to have to reserve void sims. Having LL relocate your entire continent to an area with space for expansion should be an automated process that is free and requires no LL intervention at all. This seems arbitrary, and only a reason to get money.

I think the program is fine, however, LL needs to let users superset reserved spaces that other people have reserved.

For example,

Player a reserves space a

Player b reserves space a-b-c-d

Therefore, everyone bids on a-b-c-d.

This will be bad for people who want to only bid on a small amount of space. The other alternative is for LL to discuss it with everyone and then figure out parcels for people to bid on.

As for the "taxation" issue .. I think you folks are jumping the gun. Until you actually know for sure what you're monthly bill is going to be it might not really be the issue you think it is.

10$ a month for an unlimited group of sims seems like a reasonable price.

Basically, you're all bidding on map space.

Think of it like the million dollar homepage, and LL is auctioning off that area you first see when you click the map button.

If you don't want to pay through the nose, then create a space off the map and bid on it, if someone out bids you .. fine. Just stop bidding and then bid on another big space elsewhere. Eventually people will realise they are wasting their money following you around.


However ... if you want to grow your land on the main map, you have to pay for it. It's precious and *limited* real estate.

Sometime in the far future that main map will be entirely consumed and will be the entry point for everyone .. the question is, do you want to invest and reserve it now?

The announcement states 10 US$ per void.

Beside the hilarious fees this would add up to, plus the ability for every griefer to bid this up to even higher level, the concept of charge US$ for VOID is fundamentally flawed.

We will also not order any sim movements at the rate of 150 US$ per move. Under these conditions we simply going stop to grow our continents when they hit the expansion limit and instead start new areas in different locations all over the map. It will be one mess and make SL look even more chaotic, but why should WE pay Linden Lab to make THEIR world look better?

10$ per reservation, which I think can be a group of sims.

If you are right, it's 10$ per void, then I wouldn't be too worried as that will have to get fixed soon, or LL will ruin their island business.

However, I do not see where it states that. I still think you are jumping the gun until you can confirm that this is fact.

In Robin's post it is very clear that 1 space = 1 square on map = space to place one single sim and that each such space would cost minimum of 10$ per month (or whatever some griefer bid you up to).

My favorite part is where Anshe speaks in the Imperical 'We'.

On a side note, anything that a land baron is against, I'm for!

Well, it doesn't seem clear to me at all.

However, you may have some inside info I lack, so I'll assume for a moment that you are correct about this.

My only conclusion from that assumption is that they simply have to change their strategy. It might make some sense on the main map area where demand is great, but what about off map where someone simply wants to be left in peace to grow as they see fit?

It becomes impossible, unless you are constantly bidding for space you may not never need ... or you might need. In fact, you might just stop growing simply because someone has decided to drop an island in your way, thus reducing future revenues for Linden lab.

It's not a move which is rationally self interested.

I still think the jury is out, however, but we shall very soon see.

i endorse this feature, with the developpment of the large private islands it is much needed

and well i am for everything that put extra fees on "so called business peoples" in SL ^^

Charging for such minor services prevents LL from being 'griefed' by people who change their island positions on a whim. (And moving a sim can be far more complex than just a few data entries. If you are moving next to a sim not owned by you, then permission must be obtained and verified prior to the moved.)

I think this might push people to regroup their private islands together in the future, which I consider a good initiative

So its doing to her what she did to others, only on a simwide scale..

Kharma can be a bitch - sometimes in triplicate.

They're only paying LL, not the people who reserve spots. Besides you can't reserve a spot next to someone else's sim, so that leaves a vast number of expansion spots that are "reservation-griefer"-free

This is completely ridiculous, and I'm not in land business in any way. LL is selling vaporware now? Why not charge us for the place in client download where the new renderer will be*? Or increase the tier to pay for the server memory where new havok will be* ?

*one day... maybe ...

I suppose I'm not sure how changing your island positions on a whim would be griefing. They are your islands. A single line of code could dictate how often such a transaction could take place (once every 24 hours?).

Permission would still have to be granted if you wanted to place a sim next to one not owned by you. That would change nothing. A program could EASILY check to see if any of the sims you specify are by a sim not owned by you.

Until a linden comes and specifies exactly how changing a few database entries justifies a 50$ expense, it's pretty obvious it's an arbitrary, rediculous charge. Just like the 150$ 'renaming fee' which I'm pretty positive is just a single database change.

It's infuriating just thinking about it.

So the cost of private ownership goes up again by stealth eh ? This idea is not only extortion on the part of LL it's completely open to extortion by greedy land barons too! So people can't reserve a plot immediately next to your island, fine, but can they reserve one space away and surround you ? Forcing a move if you ever want to expand yourself.

If LL take away the charge to move an island I might feel more supportive.

I can see the benefit of reserving space for a large development, it's having to pay if you get surrounded I take issue too.

No, but it sounds like you can bid to surround another island. I can imagine that happening.

LL need to drop the charge to move. If, because of this policy, someone else bids your island into non-expansion, you should not have to pay LL for the privilege to move.

Or perhaps LL should explain the reasoning behind the decision to do this and make it clear what their intention is. I'm sure they don't intend extortion!