Land Reservation is a Deception Transaction

Will somebody please correct me but
From my reading of the land store notes that you can RESERVE squares on the grid for 30 dollars us. My understanding of the concept reservation is that it is supposed to allow you not allow anyone else to buy the land that you have reserved and you have 90 days to purchase? But in reality it automatically puts your reservation up for AUCTION !!!!

So that any planning that you may have had is gone down the pipe as the CHUNG's and anyone else with loads of cash will automatically outbit you for your own reservation. If your paying real cash for a reservation, it should be reserved for to you for 90 days ........Then it can go to AUCTION
AFTER That.

The crap regarding reservations as a way of stopping people getting the same block on the grid is eroneous, if you reserve and pay for a grid the system should work so it goes to you and not to one other person at the same time so there shouldnt need to be a fight about it. Its structured now to only suit the continuing greedy and not designed justly for everyone in SL. But please correct me if i am wrong.

And why is one grid plot allowd to be reserved for one year and another for 3 months, it should all be the same!!.. One could say it was in indrect tax or quick way of squeezing money out of people that didnt really secure anything.

Demonizer Extraordinaire.

An auction allows greater revenue for LL in the event of a contested void space (CONTESTED VOID SPACE?? that's so odd to say LOL ). When you think about it, it's even worse for big grid operators than it is for private estates. Imagine trying to build a continent and having some bitter, petty person bid all the spots around you. Then you have to abandon continent number one and begin continent number two.

Essentially, in its current form, it's very similar to a protection racket. We must all pay Don Philip for protection... essentially protection from himself. Now, with all of this said, I do think options are a great idea and a natural evolution for the land market as a whole. The more ways there are to invest in land, the better. The implamentation is pretty flawed, though.

An option is a wonderful thing. I think it would be better suited for the mainland than the private islands, though. I would love to both be able to sell options to buy mainland lots, and option other residents' lots. I think it would be great to be able to lock a plot up for purchase without actually having to PURCHASE it, and then sell the option to someone who'd like to purchase in my place. This could work wonders for land prices and also open up whole new sectors of the land business.

The powers at Linden Lab are great believers in "free markets". For some people the idea of a free market more or less translates into "you can find the best price for anything with an auction". I consider this a very limited view but it is not unpopular in certain circles of economists.

Linden Lab is interested in monetizing everything that is possible with SL. That is simply because it is their only revenue stream and they want to make a profit sometime in the not to distant future. Such a reservation carries a value for those planning ahead. So it seems perfectly logical for Linden Lab to put a price on it. And an auction certainly is a way to maximise this price.

I am very sceptical with auctioning off void space, too and had some fears about griefing, blackmailing and cornering schemes. Gladly this has not happened so far. There have been only a very few auctions. Most reservations are simply sold at the minimum price of 30$.