Buyer Beware!!!!

It doesn't work like that.

You can't just click on the land and buy like you can on the mainland.

You HAVE to go through the owner, the notecards, all that.

That's how I understand it, anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong.

coco

please be more specific. i want a name and a link.

It was an email and so I have no links. If you are not able to take my word on that, maybe these will help you.

/invalid_link.html

/invalid_link.html

/invalid_link.html

/invalid_link.html

/invalid_link.html

Have a ball.

Bravo!! w00t.. I'm with Hiro and Alliez on this one..

here is what i understood from your links.

according to LL,

if LL parcels simulator land and charges people for the right to use it and then a monthly maintenance fee, it's a sale.

if a player parcels simulator land and charges people for the right to use it and then a monthly maintenance fee, it's a rental.

i realize now is that LL is completely inconsistent and confused in this regard. talk about not the right way to promote communities and zoning.

Jauani

Whatever you or anyone else want to call it, you CANNOT sell plots of land on islands. End of story, whether its inconsistent or not - that's for LL to decide.

Alexa

I agree totally and feel it is important for all of us to have the same opportunities. If they say rent, Ill rent. If they say you can sell that is my option also. Right now I am trying to do as they have said it was to be done. That is all, lets all have a fair playing field. I am willing to do it as stated but we all should have the same rules in place. Don't you think?

The rules have to be clear for all of us so there can be no misunderstanding. That is all I hope for. It is difficult when ppl come and say they want to buy and I say I cant sell and am told so and so does it.

anyone can sell the right to use a parcel of land. and that right can be resold. the grid builds this directly into the interface. island sims currently require the land manager to administer this.

under either system, the "real owner" of land, which is virtual in nature, is always linden lab, while the owner of the hardware is yet another party. the sale of the right to use a parcel of grid land is defined by the terms of service as a "sale" despite the monthly rental fee. apparently it is only LL emails and forum posts defining the sale of island land parcel rights as "rentals." while the rights to island sim land cannot be parcelled and sold like grid land, which the TOS does mention, there is nothing in the TOS preventing someone from doing so in the manner dreamland and azure are currently doing.

by calling it a rental, LL is saying what they themselves do is a rental which most already realize it is out side of our immersed nomenclature. realizing that everything related to land in SL is a rental, where is there any rules in the TOS between players and LL that is disallowing players from selling the rights to land under a tos agreement between two parties?

basically any well organized themed sim needs to be able to buy and sell these rights to offset the costs of creating a sustainable zoned community. this is necessary for a scaleable community projects to occur.

clearly giving away land rights for free does not provide a model for filling the void of a service providing persitent themed communities. my last visit to a rental sim turned up a pirate cove next to a suburban house next to a castle, each on it's own individual square island.

i'm signing of this thread because it seems my arguement isn't with the staked out land renters, but with LL itself and their bandaid terminologies.

Gee, Hiro. You collected them. There it all is, the Linden position. These are not to be called sales, but rentals. Who could possibly argue after reading these ?

But of course, they will keep arguing, won't they - it'll be hard for us not to examine the arguers looking for good old-fashioned self-interest as the explanation.

Which won't be hard to find. Who wants to pay land prices to buy a mere "lease"? Something which Hiro and others give you for free, along with all the associated benefits of zoning, griefer control etc? For no upfront charge at all.

If really fully informed, very few people would want such expensively-priced arrangements. Not when they can get an equally good one from Hiro for free. No need to make the simowner a gift of the money to buy their next sim, and their next, and their next...and so on to the stars and beyond with hardly any need for capital investment at all !

Each new sim an unwitting and unnecessary gift from the grateful tenants of the previous one.

The only rational reason for wanting to join in would be to have the opportunity of capital appreciation on reselling the lease. But according to a the biggest landlord recently, it hasn't happened yet, and 35% loss is the norm. The value of land is capped by the Linden system now, after all.

Its all emotion, conjured around the magic word "own". Which is why some will fight to the death for the right to use the word, in direct defiance of the Lindens.

I really don't know why we don't laugh them out of court, and erect warning signs for newbies on every corner. Thus:

"Don't pay land prices for a lease. Equally good ones are available free. Unless you vainly hope for capital appreciation, which simply isn't happening and isn't likely to because land prices are capped".

get real ellie.

there is more to value than land tier costs. there is the value of a structured and zoned community. that kind of management doesn't come cheap.

the organized urban infrastructure and sophisticated scripted interface for purchasing deeds and billing for residents that the azure offers does not come free.

there is the value of a staff of players to uphold zoning guidelines and resolve disputes that dreamland supports does not come free.

some people would rather spend their money on insuring a nice immersive environment than on bling and sex balls. i can understand why some people would rather stand in the way of SL becoming more diverse and interesting when they are staked as potential competitors. however i cannot understand why some players would argue against more options just to masturbate their LL defined vocabulary.

ellie, the last paragraph of your last post illustrates that you are so caught up in outsmarting a dictionary that you are missing out on "your world. your imagination."

Woot Go Anshe

Sorry, Jauani, I think it's you who is missing the point. I don't need to take all those costs into account. The two sorts of simowners both bear them, so they cancel out in any comparison of the two ways of doing it..

Because I'm not comparing the economics of the "pseudosale" with a set of accounts. I'm comparing it with other simowners who don't take that extra cash. They provide all the same services, pay all the same costs. They are the comparison and the proof.

The difference at this stage, is not necessarily visible excess profit for one rather than the other. It's invested in the next sim purchase.

One type of simowner can only expand slowly, as his wallet allows. The other, with the same costs, income, operating margin, beautifully zoned and controlled community, with wholly similar operating economics, can expand landholding as fast as each sim comes up to capacity. Explosive tenant-funded growth for one. Slow profit-funded growth for the other.

Open your eyes. Look. Truly, when comparing the two simowners, the tenants of one gift him the purchase price of his next sim. The other not.

One grows fast, one grows slow. In the end the one who defied the Lindens to abuse the language is hugely richer than the other.

Don't try to measure absolutes. Compare the two sorts of simowner. Then the absolute acounting items which they have in common are cancelled out in the comparison. It's the differences between them that are significant.

One survives without the "gifted sims". Never claims a rental is a sale. So could the other similarly survive without, but with the same restricted growth rate, if suddenly losing this huge advantage.

Observe relative growth rates. It's obvious.

holy crap, ellie! on the internet, where information is free, and players are presented with the choice of living in a no-money-down square-island free for all, and high-priced "gifting the land manager a free sim" zoned communities with building guidelines people are still choosing the later option in great enough numbers to allow expansion.

yes i understand the subtleties that anshe's model, if she puts all her money back into her project, allows for swift expansion. you are missing the point that filling up a sim itself is hours of her work and the work of her employees. managing these sims is also work.that is a cost. human man hours are worth money. to propoerly manage these sims, they need to be scaled up and the cost of that has to come from the users. if rental barons don't mind running their post modern island sprawls on a loss, that is their choice.

these groups are not players competing to win second life that i should have sympathy for. they are two groups taking a different business approach for a different client base. one group is focused on a sustainable business plan with scaleable customer service targeted at people prepared to pay for the value for themed communities while the other one is focusing on the draw of free land.

if the "rent barons" were approaching this business as anything more than moonlighting, they would diversify into the other market and compete with the established players. perhaps by undercutting the prices or something.

wow talk about a new low for jauani. i'm really disappointed with such slimeball business tactics.

Your previous argument fell to bits and now you're grasping on to any little morsel you can. It's fairly amusing.

Apparently the Lindens do need to come out with some sort of statement on this, if there are people like Alliez who apparently think it is not allowed to "sell" land on private islands.

I really, really think that if this were not allowed, it would not be doing big-time booming business all over LL. I imagine LL allows it because they sell islands this way, and because people want it. That they haven't instituted tools for it is not the same as saying it is disallowed.

-----

Y'all who are so sure buying is renting need to explain that to everybody on Azure Islands, where we have a choice between buying, renting-to-buy, and renting.

It's like I had a choice between an apple, an orange, and a banana. You are telling me that they are all the same fruit. But in my tribe, if you will, these things are different, and I'm being offered a choice. I choose the orange, and I'm going to refer to it as an orange, to distinguish in conversation between it and the apple and banana, when I engage in conversation about such matters with other members of my tribe.

Those who aren't members of this tribe, for whom the nomenclature is apparently worthless or meaningless and all these plans are actually the same thing - well, I'm just not gonna worry about that much. I know I have an orange, because I chose the orange, and I know it's not an apple or a banana.

coco

Lets all sell land, why not??? You are totally correct!!!

We are more than happy to enter a legit business of "selling" land on a private estate and providing a superior product to the SL Community. However, until LL changes the rules that have been stated in the past we will abide by the stated rules.

Granted we are operating at a disadvantage. It will take us a longer period of time to re-coop our investment but we feel we are offering a valuable service to the SL Community, by allowing our residents to have a place to call home without a large investment of money.

There are no rules against it!



coco

Coco,
Please read Hiros post with the links.

*cough* maybe you should read up at the links I provided Coco.

edit to add: and worth taking a look at Schwansons post. He nicely highlights something worth reading.

Hiro doesnt do that too ? His sims are a half abandoned mess ? Don't invent facts to support yourself, J. The better of both sorts of simowner put in the same amount of work, give equally good service in equally nice sims.

You keep inventing a difference in effort, to justify the taking of the upfront cost. This difference in effort doesn't exist. It's a fiction. Without it your argument evaporates. So you just keep on along repeating it. With what justification ? How are Hiro's sims less work ? How ?

What ? I saw no-one here say that "buying, renting-to-buy, and renting" were all the same thing. Who said it ?

I'm saying that to avoid misleading confusion with "real" Linden buying, these three things (still different) should be called
"leasing, renting-to-lease, and renting"
and that the fourth, original, Linden-approved, server-registered thing should go on being called, as it always was, "buying".

It is the people on the other side of the argument who are saying that different things should be called the same. They say that "leasing" and "buying" are the same, and should both be called "buying".

My full list, Linden thing first:
"buying, leasing, renting-to-lease, and renting"

Their full list, Linden thing first:
"buying, buying, renting-to-buy, and renting"

That list shows the ludicrous ambiguity.

Forgive me Coco, you seem to have something upside down. Maybe we don't disagree at all.

Give different things different names, yes?
Don't call different things by the same name, right ?
Thats what you're rooting for ? Me too !

Do you for some unbelievable reason feel that the announcements the Lindens make are meaningless and irrelevant in their world ?

If not you might want to read what they have actually written on the issue of the thread. You might think of it as relevant.

Luckily Schwanson and Hiro have given us the links in compact form.

Schwanson posted an excerpt from the Private Island official rules/documentation in post 74, here:
/130/d2/71747/4.html#post747235

Hiro posted 5 links to the critical Linden pronouncements in post 99, here:
/130/d2/71747/5.html#post748791

Whatever your viewpoint, I suggest these are essential reading.

If you feel they support my point of view, you have it the wrong way round. These pronouncements largely caused my point of view.

I support them, not them me.

I believe these are things LL has the right to decide. I also think their approach is the most logical, but that is secondary. If they said "call it binking" and buy a "bink", I'd adjust and do it. Not because I'm a worm, but because what matters most in such naming is no ambiguity, and no-one being misled. Some authority must make such decisions, without fear of defiance, or room for pseudo-philosophical debate on metaphor-fit.

"Bink" is not much worse than "prim".

I read a couple of them earlier; will read the rest some other time. They are saying that these are rentals. They are saying that because you can't buy them from the Lindens, and because they legally remain in the "sellers'" hands.

There is a vast difference between pronouncements like that and then concluding that it is against the rules to do what Anshe, Gigas, and others so every day. If it were against the rules for them to do so, I'm sure the Lindens would have stopped them way before they got this big and popular.

In addition, from a semantics point of view, Robin Linden can tell me that I am holding a "fruit," not an "orange," all she wants. That isn't going to convince me that she is right, and my "orange" is the same thing as a "banana." Cause I know it isn't on the levels that matter to me (since the "real" owners absconding with it isn't of the slightest concern to me).

She is correct, from the point of view of the Lindens, that it doesn't matter what the heck we do - if it says on their records that Avatar A owns the Sim, he always will.

Which we KNOW. But she's wrong to insist on calling it renting, because in the lexicon of the population, this arrangement is not defined as renting. Renting means a whole other thing altogether. Thus, it is not the same as renting, for the purposes of us as ants in the little Linden world. In our little ant lives, we've made these arrangements and we're BUYING, dammit! lol

Even if we have to do it without the proper SL tools. And - IT'S WORKING! That's cause we're just that GOOD, even without adequate tools.

So I don't care if Robin or any Linden says we're not buying. Of course we're not, from a Linden point of view - and yes, we have to trust each other to make these things work. Nonetheless, we continue to buy and sell this way. Just as if we "actually were" buying and selling. Works for me.

So in terms of resident arrangements, I own that land; I do not rent it. True, it is not the same as land I pay tier to the Lindens for. But, more importantly in the context of what I am saying in this discussion, it isn't renting as I would actually rent from another resident. If I wanted to rent - and not be able to sell my land - I would have clicked the "rent" box instead of the "buy" box.

Personally, I think this is all really a big ole tempest in a teapot, mainly to discredit Anshe, Gigas, and others who "sell" land. Mainly. Not entirely, but mainly. I don't know why people want to destroy other businesses that perform a good service; I really don't. I don't like that people are busy saying that Gigas is breaking rules, or is scamming people, or whatever - because they are not, and also because we, the residents who live there, aren't idiots and patsies.

coco