Buyer Beware!!!!

As a resident of Dreamland (I know, I know the Evil Empire...) it's good to hear some one else say this. Thanks coco.

how is that?

that would be really witty if i had actually said anything negative about what you do.

it is not rocket science to hypothesize and observe that a business with a lower margin on the base cost can afford less services.

if you spend 5 hours a month managing every sim, the return you make would make that something in the vicinity of 20$/hr. not bad, but that's probably already well below income expectation for someone who's ready to risk 15000$ on a SL venture.

if you can give a lot of customer service on that kind of money, power to you. however observetations reveal you either don't offer themed/zoned communities or you are not very strict with your guidelines. i don't think is a bad think. as i've pointed out before, no money down land rights is a value in iteself.

Those were good links Hiro, and you get a lot of kudos for injecting citations into the discussion.

However, you have to recognize the extremely frustrating situation we are currently in that the only way to 'own' land is to purchase sub-par properties on the main grid.

You also have to recognize the risk and the pioneering that Anshe has done in terms of creating structured zones in SecondLife.

Until proper leasing fuctionality exists in SL, I believe we need to accept the status quo - that 'selling' land is excuseable but once an appropiate alternative exists you will need to migrate to that format or else.

You also have to face facts and not mislead everyone else when it comes to your business model. How much money are you exactly making? Hobby type money or pay the bills type money?

If you were making enough that you could guarantee that you'd be around in the months and years to come, then I'm all for your argument.

However, if your business is not making enough money that you can guarantee it's continuation, then renting land in "HiroLand" has a lot of risks (ones I'm obviously willing to personally make) and for other people who want the stability of an ongoing concern, paying the land ownership premium makes a lot of sense.

If we are going to go down the road of arguing which RL metaphor is most suitable, Coco (and everybody seems to want to). If we are doing that, then I have to say - although I agree with LL that what I call "leasing" is not "buying", I think the word "renting" is inadeqate on its own, and would at least need an adjective to distinguish it from pure "renting" which involves no resellable agreement. The land isn't sold, but the agreement certainly is.

So I reject "buying". But I feel "renting" is inadequate alone (it being itself ambiguous) and so prefer "leasing".

LL have not helped my case for agreed unambiguous nomenclature, have they? To use my own oft repeated argument - if things are sufficiently different in practice, they need a different name. It applies to the difference between leasing and renting just as much as to the difference between buying and leasing, which is the one I keep raving about (because I think it risks mis-selling).

It's true that what I call leasing does indeed have more in common (in practicalities) with renting than it has in common with buying. But it is significantly different from renting too, and I think each of the three should have a one-word name of its own.

These things do matter, get them wrong and you generate needless confusion which then necessitates endless notecards, websites, and forum discussions to try to patch up the skewed comprehension of each new generation.

And you generate "crusaders" like me who are irate because they think they see (or saw) the confusion having been deliberately and unnecessarily fostered to gain commercial advantage.

first of all, ellie, don't invent what i said. i did not say "half abandoned mess." perhaps you are too emotional about winning to read proporly. you even quoted it geez. post-modern island sprawl. it IS a sprawl of square islands, bringing together buildings of completely unrelated themes in. there is nothing wrong with that. the grid is like this and i have no problem with that.

you are misunderstanding me about the point on services. i'm not talking about the quality of services, for which i've never heard a complaint for anyone, but for the amount of services. players who pay more can expect more. using hiro as an example since i have several friends enjoying his service, if i say to hiro "there's a victorian house next to my castle, it's ruining my immersion" what will he do? i beleive he will do nothing based on his terms of service agreement. (correct me if i'm wrong, hiro) his guidelines don't allow him to because they are limited to land usage - ie residential vs clubs.



you are too caught up in rooting for the underdog ellie. i'm not inventing anything. my arguement is not based solely on justifying prices. there is a free market. you are sounding very much like the drama kings and queens last year who complained that land barons were causing high prices in land.

people read the terms of service of azure or dreamland and still choose it because there is a market for it. you won your last battle, which i completely supported, that there is a difference between buying on the grid and buying on islands. anshe admited this difference by changing her notecards. where is it your business to determine for people actually participating in the free market for land what is right and what is wrong?

how does anything you have to say hold any amount of social meaning if someone finds the terms of service of azure or dreamland compelling enough to enter into a similar "fantasy" of ownership as we all do with linden lab, and have faith in those businesses and their track record.

"oh no! stop the transaction! ellie objects! "buy" with a footnote isn't good enough, it must be double quoted because he feels bad that the renters can't keep up with the free market"
"OK! i will ""buy"" this land from ""you"" "
" """deal""" "

nicely expressed blaze. there just is not a lot of money in no-money-down renting unless you live in a developing nation.

Well, I'm not sure living in a developing nation would help.

People who live in developing nations can't handle risk, they don't have the resources to do so. A couple of down months would take them out of the game very quickly. No way could they afford to buy an 1250 USD island, pay 200$ USD / month to make a 5% ROI in a virtual universe that is barely proven.

This is one of the reasons we can compete very effectively with people from developed nations, because we have the resources to ride out those down months.

good point. i had only considered the ability to afford offering a variety of services for the amount of income renting generates.

Wow shame on you. And this is not a point scoring tactic, I really mean it. I too read those words writen by you Jauani, so I know Ellie is not inventing something. you've clearly edited it out or deleted the post.

You must have your head in the clouds, 5hrs a month?? I spend hours each day managing my 30 sims - they all have different levels of zoning.

What risks Blaze? I have tenants that have been with me renting in private islands from before Dreamland had a continent. If you want, just hand over some money, we will call it the purchase price, and then you will feel much better yeh?

I don't understand this. How is "paying the land ownership premium" linked to dealing with the biggest most "stable" landowner ?

Surely you can "pure rent" from Anshe too ?

Doesn't pure renting from Anshe give you your perceived "stability" with no payment of the "land ownership premium" at all ?

Why, Blaze, do you imply you must accept one to get the other ? That simply isn't true, as I just demonstrated.

5 hrs for every sim, i said.

Errrm...sorry, Hiro....I think that is my fault. I didn't put it in quotes. If I remember correctly I was hastily paraphrasing. I'm not saying J used those exact words, though those she used seemed equally insulting and quite unforgiveable nevertheless. Lashing out from a sinking raft would be about right.

What she did say about your sims was indeed, I remember, false, unjustified, and incredibly insulting. My jaw dropped.

I suppose someone should go back and check, but what the heck, let's press on while we're having fun !

The debate is the thing ! (only half serious, don't get upset, peeps)

You know it would be really funny if Anshe decided to go all rent and that put Hiro and Alliez out of business.

Be careful what you wish for!

I mean, basically, you're complaing about how your competitor is basically charging higher prices than you.

I mean, what are you doing?

Shouldn't you be cheering Anshe on?

If anything, you should be *on* her side. Sometimes, SL is completely upside down world.

I swear!

please go find the post where i say half abandoned sim. that is a blatant lie hiro. i would not write that because i don't believe it. i believe you offer one of many attractive options to players. yours just is low margin and lower scaleability. infact, breaking down your income, it would be akin to a wage income. the problem is you would wish everyone to work for a low scaleabile wage income business. that is not fair.

But you see - Blaze, it wouldn't. The effect would be in the reverse direction, even now at this late date. Think about why.

Blaze people want to believe they own. She would do less business if she was pure renting. If Alliez, I, and others were able to sell plots, well I know I would have 3 times the number of sims now, I am sure. But then I am sure you appreciate that

Well, yeah, I do appreciate that.

And I appreciate that you guys don't want to go toe to toe with LL like Anshe is doing.

But - come on. If she wins this argument, you guys win to.

I mean really, WTF are you doing here?

The reason I argue these points so strongly, because the way LL treats anshe is the way they'd treat me.

I pretty much have always wanted to do everything she's done, but haven't, because I always suspected that LL would mess around with her in the way that they do.

Really, as business people using SL, we should all be on Anshe's side.

It occurs to me now that unless you actually work for LL, what you do makes no sense.

It is not a lie Jauani, I read those words myself. I don't wish everyone to work on a particular income level, I want it to be fair for everyone. I asked if I could sell plots of private estate land and I was told no. Everyone should have the same opportunities, that's what's fair.

More people would rather not have to put money up front. If you're having a hard time convincing people of that, I think that's more your fault than it is Anshe's.

No I have had people turn away because I won't 'sell' them the land. Even when I explain that it's as permanent, you get the same features etc, they just don't get it. I've even been called a liar when I have stated it's not possible to sell my private estate plots lol. I would have many more residents if I was able to convince them they owned the land. If it doesn't seem common sense to you, you'll just have to trust my experiences.

perhaps you misinterpreted no-money-down square-island postmodern-sprawl?

your "head in the clouds comment" already suggests your misreading my posts.

Why not sell leases?

Tell people that if they want to have rights to your land, tell them you'll sell them a lease.

In fact, isn't this what we're all arguing over? The terminology?

We should ask LL to add another classifieds category called "Leases for Sale"

To be honest, I'd love to have the option to buy a lease to my property in hiro land. What if the sim I was in started to become high in demand? It would be nice to buy up the lease and then sell it to someone else who wanted it.