Where is SL going?

I understand that the issue of dwell and stipends are being discussed all over the place, but none quite seems to be thinking along the right lines as I'm thinking right now, maybe there is one but if it is it's buried beneath a ton of stuff or hidden in a huge thread somewhere, and I want to post my thoughts now while they're fresh:

Where is SL going?
This is the big question I've been asking myself lately. What does LL actually want from SL? You see, I am observing things like dwell and basic stipends being slashed, and while they seem like little things to some people, or people may think negatively of them ("why should *my* L$ go to newbs or clubs?". However, I'm now beginning to fear the future, and this is not a good thing!

You see, SL is what...a virtual world? Yeah I guess, but to me, and I reckon to most people it is first and foremost a game, or perhaps a socialising/expression tool.

Okay, but the L$ is a currency that thanks to the exchange (and other exchanges) is based in real-world currency. So it needs to be kept stable? Yeah I guess. But what is this doing to the GAME?

Removal of dwell
With the removal of dwell, the cost of maintaining busy places goes up. Not a big deal for a popular store, so they have to pay that little extra since dwell no longer helps them, but they make money so they can cover it easily.
But what of fun and free places? Yeah, dwell doesn't pay for a whole sim or plot of land, at least not easily, but the important thing is that it does make a difference, those simulator or tier fees are just that bit more manageable with dwell to help.

With it gone, I'm seeing many places I loved disappearing, because it's no longer economically feasible to keep the place running! And with that free, fun places close up, leaving what? Shops, and the few extravagances people can afford to keep like homes and a few nice builds.

Sucks doesn't it, well they should have found a better way to keep themselves going eh? I don't agree, most of the appeal of the free, fun places is that they are way from the commercial nonsense that plagues real-life, the few places that I loved that are managing to stay open are full of rent spaces, mini-malls, or other horrible things that have made them horrible places to be!
And what of simulators that can no longer support themselves? That's a lot of USD for LL to lose because they removed a support system based in a virtual currency!

Basic stipends
With basic stipends being axed from all new accounts, we're talking here about making things WORSE as far as the game is concerned! Many people who frequented free places were basic accounts, so in order to keep those places free they now need to donate perhaps? How do you donate what you don't have!

Get a job eh? So in order to enjoy a free place, we have to get jobs and pay for it?
Hang on a minute...

Dwell as SL's survival as a game
Free places that I frequented and loved are all disappearing, to be replaced by malls and other paid places. In short, SL is becoming rapidly more and more like real-life, to the point that exploring is a chore with little to find anymore. Commercialisation is getting worse and worse as land is bought up because the only way to keep a fun place alive is to charge rent for vendors or similar, causing the fun place to become less fun in the process.

People complained about dwell paying for clubs out of our pockets, but the point is that these clubs were fun and popular. But SL is a world without many physical rules, and is simply not equipped for a club like that to survive, that's what dwell was for. People in SL believe anything they can walk into freely, to be free. If I can get in, I don't have to pay surely! Like them or not, clubs are places to socialise, which is the best part of this 'game', and are extremely good for the community, maybe you're not a goth, maybe you're not a furry, but that doesn't mean those places shouldn't be supported for being popular and keeping this game fun, and thus, a game.
It's just the same as RL really, you pay taxes for schools. I'm a university student, so why do I still pay for some snot-nosed kids to go to primary or secondary school when I don't like kids? Why I do my taxes pay for pensions for elderly people, I'm not old!

Like it or not, but dwell, and in a lesser sense basic stipends, are a big part of what made SL a game, by keeping fun places going, fun places that have gone under now that popularity doesn't mean diddly squat if you don't have vendors all over the place.
Charge for entry? Yeah okay, and have no-one come!

What needs to be done
Dwell needs to come back. Except for two places which I am doing everything I can to keep alive (by opening apartments and helping build a mall I might add, selling out) only a handful of places that I used to frequent are left, and those are in sorry states!

So dwell was taken because of the instability of the L$? Why doesn't LL make less stupid use of the L$ sinks? Flat-rate sinks in limited places are not fetching enough L$ back, so make them, or make more sensible ones!
You could even go so far as to add a small transaction fee to transactions. E.g - every time money is paid into an object, an object is 'bought', or land is sold, a small tax is charged, say 1% as an example, rounding down to keep from breaking L$1 vendors. That's a huge amount of money into the Linden fund, and a minor hit on businesses, most of whom would barely notice. But most importantly, it is scalable unlike the flat, one-off upload fees. The more money changing hands, the more money that comes in as tax, the more money that is paid as dwell (once stipends are deducted).

And either could stand to bring back more non-profit creativity, by giving dwell back to those that need it to run a free place for people to enjoy!
People complain that casinos and clubs are horrible places, yet if they get visitors, they clearly are enjoyed by people, people playing for fun and that's what SL needs more of, because SL is still a game, or at least, it is for the moment.

Suggestions Thread

Hmmm, my first instinct is to say the LL appear to be proceeding up that famous creek where you really don't want to loose your paddle....

However.

LL are constantly moving in a direction which involves less cost, less work on their part. Everthing is being 'rationalised' to obtain the maximum possible short term profit and the absolute minimum expenditure on LL's part.

The key phrase here is 'short term profit'.
Long term? Ah, that's where loosing the paddle comes in.

Although LL has been cutting the amount of payout in $L one can get in game (dwell has already been cut quite a bit, as have been DI, ratings-based bonuses, etc), they have also been cutting the amount of $USD one needs to pay them to play. It went from $10 to $15 a month to play, to just $10 to register and $10 to own land, to just $10 to own land. With Lindex apparently being a pretty good source of income (my estimates is about $1,500US to $1,700US a day income for LL just off the trading, I wouldn't be surprised if, as more $L giveaways are cut (dwell, reduction in stippends, etc), the $USD fees to play this game will be reduced as well. It's probably even possible for $L to completely remove all tier payments (except the initial island set-up fees that pays for the PC) right now and still be able to just barely afford to stay in business just off the fees of Lindex trades in the economy. To me it seems that LL wants to make their SL income be based more and more on the economy within SL than on monthly premiums, so, as time goes by, I think that although people who make fun free places will earn less and less, they'll be required to pay less and less as well.
I do agree that removing the $50 weekly stippend for freebies was, perhaps, a bit ill advised, since I believe in the casino style economy, where you give someone a roll of quarters just to get them started, and they end up playing through that roll and then some.

Linden Labs does not make a profit. Therefore they are not ready to give up any cash payment.

If Linden Labs wants to say in business, they are going to have to find a way to pay content creaters, the same as any other "on-line game." I'll stay because I like making things, for as long as it does not become too expensive, but I don't think too many people are willing to put in all this effort and then have to pay for it, too. When Second Life starts costing me money, over a period of three months or so, I'll either tier down or go to basic membership to cut expenses.

In short, they are going to have to reward people for creating good content in a way that offsets the expenses of the content creators. Otherwise everyone will be in retail, and the only places left will be malls and casinos.

Just take a look at the number of empty sims the next time you are on line--it is amazing how much of the world has no people in it.

I'd love to set up a meeting place for real world purposes, but right now most people just don't have the computer oomph to make that practical, not to mention the patience to put up with the learning curve and all the bugs, with new downloads everytime you turn around. As long as that is the situation, SL will be mostly a "game" or "3-D chat room."

Linden Labs really has to give up this notion of getting content for nothing, or else SL will die.

I agree with you barb. LL once said in an interview that the amount of programming the people here in SL do with scripting objects, and making SL what it is today with all the new content would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire people to program, and they are getting us to do it for free. Granted I turn around and sell my content at a price where I make US$ to compensate for my programming time, but for the quality of content I create, and the sheer number of programming hours I put into it, what I make doesn't come close to what I should be getting. I do think that content creators should get developer incentives again, but calculating it by dwell is not the way to do it. Actually, I don't really know how LL would truly calculate what a developer should get.

Well I am not a computer (script) writer but one issue to me is that everything I buy in SL can only be used within SL. Therefore (as well as paying tier) any additional purchases for SL use are going to be by their very nature of a modest cost in relation to tier.

However.....if I could buy ready made computer programes which had a real life application and were downloadable that could be a very different issue. For example I am still on Office 2000 as I do not want to give Bill Gates any more money but if I could buy a legal version of a type of Office 2006 and pay for it in Linden Dollars, or a security script to protect my machine against virus and/or other attacks that would be a very differnt issue indeed.

As I said, I am not a computer programmer but I know there are some here who are very talented in that area. In short I think a market might be viable designing things of real first life value providing you could download them onto your own machine outside the sl platform

The Linden Federal Deficit is still at all time highs. It needs to be curbed or we will all be mortgaging our future.

I think with enough time and some more additions to the LSL code as well as other coding possibilities (mono?) SL could become an actual application platform. For now the biggest most complex software we have is networked vendors that allow you to control, track, and set prices throughout the world, all with a web page interface. That's a pretty complex piece of coding already. With time I'm sure other things will be created too. (How long till the new HTTP scripting functions allow someone to create a fully working in-game browser?_

And don't forget the best money maker - The Escort business.

Only thing will be left is malls and casinos full of naked people? ZOMG the clothing/fashion creators will hurt!

"If Linden Labs wants to say in business, they are going to have to find a way to pay content creaters, the same as any other "on-line game.""

They don't need to. You the players do by buying content made by content creators.

If LindenLabs paid the content creators directly, they would still need to pass that cost on to the consumers.

Musuko.

Freebie resellers need to be curbed also....and badly.

I suggest starting with Linux, which runs all of SecondLife's sims.

I agree on the two important point you make.
1. Removing the tiny 50L a week allowance for free players will harm SL and the economy
2. Removing dwell will cause of lot of places to got out of business.

However I have come thoughts on both of those:
1. I think LL needs to go back the the paid member model. Let someone play for a month for free and give them a 50 stipend but then make them pay $5 to keep playing at that level or become a premier that can own land for $10.

2. The vast majority of dwell was going to camping chair owners. The dwell system was totally gamed from the beginning so it was a bad incentive. I bought land in a nice sim, a casino moved in with camping chairs and I couldn't even get into my sim sometimes. Did they add value to SL - NO. There needs to incentives to support great places because SL is becomming one endless mall.

The problem there is that LL doesn't view SL as a game. I might, you might, but they don't - so anything steering it away from being a game for them is a good thing.

I was here when Dwell was first tested, and then implimented - both Dwell and Developers Incentive were there to kick start things - and even LL admitted it didn't do what they wished it to. I think they are weening the world off the teat.

I wouldn't be surprised if premium stipends were the next thing targeted.

It would seem they think it's past the baby steps phase and now its time for everyone to stand on their own.

SecondLife doesn't resell Linux - it provides a service run from a linux server - much like many websites do.

So you can't deal with the free market and you need us to bail your pink heinie out of trouble, is that it?

Aren't there RL laws against profiteering?

Fines for reselling freebies are in order, 10kL$ for each offense.

I think that would be better than the cornfield.

You know, I can't help but wonder whether SL might be more successful - as in retaining signups - if they did accept the fact that most people see SL as an online game.

Certainly a variety of advertising tactics, showing all that SL has the potential to be - couldn't do any more harm than the current one track message.

Lewis

Sorry, I was reffering to all the Linux resellers that charge up to $100us for it. You mostly pay for the documentation, support, and convenience of having it delivred in a convenient package. Not sure if the freebie resellers on here do the same thing though.

I think what LL is doing by removing Developer's Incentive and Dwell is to force us to figure out how to get along without them. In other words, how do fun places in the real world survive? They don't necessarily get a "dwell" bonus... I suppose you could call a government incentive a dwell bonus, but it's not necessarily tied to how many people are visiting that place. Perhaps SL should set up a system whereby you can submit a proposal for an idea, and they review the proposal and give you a grant if they like it. That would be more like the government in RL.

And what about other fun RL places that aren't subsidized by the government? They charge admission (or, they ask for a mandatory "donation". Or, their income is generated by advertisements. There are many ways for a place to support itself, you just have to think about it for a minute. Dwell was a faulty system to begin with, as evidenced by the exploitation of the camping chairs. It was only a matter of time before it was done away with...

Bingo!

"Your World. Your Imagination."

I realize these are growing pains for many of our residents, but the sooner they accept the fact they will no longer be directly subsidized by LL with free handouts, the better off they will be.

Besides, the numbers tell the story. SL keeps growing and growing and growing.

No matter how much one whines, cries, or forecast "doom and gloom" scenarios, as long as SL continues to grow and prosper, they will continue to be empty, baseless, and unfounded "doom and gloom" scenarios.

It is comments like these from fellow new members that makes me feel good about the direction SL is going, my experience in SL has been one of learning new things everyday and although many very vocal oldtimers are outraged at this direction I see this as more resistance to change than anything else. The active player base is growing and if it evolves into something the oldtimers don't like I doubt if LL cares as long as SL continues to grow and thrive.

I hope so. LL simply cannot afford to run the deficits we're seeing. Its killing the economy.

Without Second Life, there would be no economy. Killing stipends would kill Second Life. Figure out the logical conclusion of that for yourself, Einstein.

Lewis