Land buying Bots are effecting EVERYONE

Little bit of projection from you two here I think. YOU might like to break the back of the land flipper. All I think you can say about LL is that they'd like to lower the price of land. Of course. I believe that land flippers have no affect on the price of land where you (correct me if I'm wrong) think we are artificially propping up prices.

I don't think most land flippers care where land prices settle although a controlled move would be preferable to a sharp jolt. Either way the smart ones are ready for it.

Dropping a ton of sims wouldn't fix the problem, it would just stall it a bit.

The real issue, IMO, is that land has become sortofa giant pyramid scheme with the end users - the people who actually want to use the land - at the bottom. The trick LL needs to be clever about is how to make it so that it's not profitable and/or easy to be in one of the middle tiers of the pyramid.


/me thinks so, too.

I personally like Cocoanut's proposal. If I decided to actually sell some of my land [doubtful right now] I would first contact friends and let them know and list to sell ONLY to that person, if he or she were interested. Next I would contact an ethical land dealer, such as Sarah or Raymond. Finally I would use cocoanut's proposal. Will that change anything if just a few of us start operating that way? nooooooo not at all. What it will do is protect both the seller and the buyer from the landbot plague. Thats probably all we can do.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will NEVER just list land on the open market.

My data on the web is kind of hard to follow because it is so full of so many $1 transactions from my money tree. I do access it on occasion, but in a different way from the way I use the inworld transaction history.

Rather than plowing through that before I log on (an extra step), I simply log on and look at who has bought what. All those $1 money tree bills are not listed individually. I don't want to have to go look up the website and plow through it each time before I log on.

Also, frequently I will want to refer to the inworld list of sales while I am inworld, for various reasons, such as looking up the names of purchasers and seeing who bought what, to determine that they did just buy something, or to analyze purchasers for demographic reasons, etc. I don't want to have to get off SL, go to the website, and then get back on SL.

Having the inworld data was wonderful, and I've used it every day (several times a day!) for the past two years. Removing it removes a feature that is important to me. I'm not sure that the "load" reduction in removing it is in fact significant enough to offset the inconvenience factor for residents.

It's like - shave off whatever possible, for whatever incremental load improvement. You do that enough, and the quality of life suffers too much. (Think of it in terms of your own budget - if you shaved off every penny possible, you'd be living a miserably austure life.)

For example, whatever happened to being able to TP people? That is a loss that has affected me hugely, and I don't even run a venue.

Even if none of my arguments were true, and my concerns are all silly, it would remain that I am very unhappy about the loss of the inworld transaction history, and likely not the only one. It would still remain that something we had is being taken away.

I'm sure I will adjust to the added hassle. But I can't cheer it, any more than I can cheer the loss of being able to teleport someone.

And it makes me wonder - what's next? I thought we were supposed to get more IN world as time went on, not less.

I'm, not looking forward to this. It's been a long time since they did something that I actually was happy about, that actually helps me, rather than hinders me. P2P telepointing, for instance.

coco

I believe that market forces have more of an effect than the land flippers do as of right now. There is still not enough land for all the new (and old) people that want to own this land. That is why prices are as high as they are. I think the biggest thing that land flippers do is prevent the normal person for getting "that really good deal." I just think that LL doesn't like the land flipper and will do more to drive prices down. There is demand that is created by people trying to flip land for a profit.

Oh, that argument is just totally irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. In real life, most people don't use knives and cars to kill each other, and when someone does, there are laws to punish it.

People use libSL primarily and routinely for selfish reasons that hurt the rest of us. And there are no laws to punish it.

coco

Don't you think that might be a problem with the users, not the code?

The problem is you only hear about the times that libSL is used for evil. Do you know how many bug fixes came out of that and the open source so far? Do you realize how much better things work because of the people that did this? Most likely not, the only time they get mentioned is when something like copybot or landbot come up.

There is actually way more than enough land for all end users who would want it right now. It's just priced too highfor most of them. And most plots are surrounded by other unsold cookie cutter plots. I wouldn't want to buy a plot in an undeveloped area. Too many possibilities for eyesores, spam farms or laggy casinos to come in.

Getting back to this, since I noticed no one else has pointed it out - I don't see how you can say you have never put money into SL, and then turn around and say you have next month's tier saved.

The way I have always done business accounting (and the way the IRS like it) is you have profit and you have necessary expenditures that offset that profit.

If you spend $9.95 for a premium account, you have put money into LL. If you pay tier to LL, that is more money you have put into LL.

You can brag about making a profit, but I don't believe anyone who has a premium account and/or pays tier can brag about having never put money into SL.


Well, I think one difference is in people's ideas of what is "fun." To me, it is fun to provide a service to others, both irl and in SL. In SL, it's a great deal of fun for me to provide homes to others at reasonable prices. In rl, when I turn in a piece, the magazine gets MORE than its money's worth. In SL, the same - I want the buyer to always get his money's worth and then some. That philosophy, I've found, leads to greater success in anything.

But - your idea of fun seems to be something that benefits you and only you. It lacks that service component. Now, I'm not saying that is always necessarily unethical, I'm just pointing out the difference. It's not as simple as explaining that people just do things "for fun," and thus all endeavors are ethically equal. In fact, some people do things just for fun that deliberately hurt others for their own entertainment or financial gain, and I would put some land bot runners in that category.

It would be good if coders put more thought into projects that actually help others, rather than just helping themselves get an advantage others don't have. (Or the pleasure of dropping some bomb and enjoying watching the ants scurry.) I know that lots of us thought that at least open sourcing SL might mean some things would finally improve SL for us, but I haven't noticed anything yet along those lines. (If I've missed them, please do list them.)

coco

No. Those are always mentioned, but we never actually see them. How do I know they have done such? Or the extent to which they have? No one ever points to any specific bug that those using libSL solved, or if they have, I've missed it. (If you have examples, I'm all ears.)

And in any case, it wouldn't get around the fact that libSL is also used for selfish reasons that benefit no one else, and in fact, hurt others. From what we can see, it is primarily used that way.

And like I said, there is no law at the other end to prevent that. And when there is, it is very late coming and very weak.

coco

You're definitely not the only one, Coco. I'm very disappointed to see it being removed for all the reasons you listed.

Thanks for putting me in the camp of ethical brokers. There are a lot of them out there like Rockwell and Mister Arrow. I always talk up Sarah Nerd because I know from experience she will always be fair. Plus she works around the clock and does not just rely on land trading to survive. She builds, manages Islands and does her own savvy marketing. She also gives back with her club and her freebies store, neither of which are a profit center for her.

Personally, I'm out of the biz right now. Just watching from the sidelines, not because of bots or high prices, but because I don't see any proof that LL knows what the heck they are doing on ANY front. Don't want to invest in a company that has done nothing to earn my trust, or my cash.

Wow, Cocoa, I am so glad I am reading this thread! I need a new house for some land I just bought and I am going to check your place first!! Anyone as thoughtful and intelligent as you should get first shot at my business, for what its worth!

You don'thear about thebugs that are fixed, because the most significant ones are intentionally kept quiet to stop them being exploited before fixes are produced.

I know for a fact though that one bug that was fixed due to the libsl guys would have enabled people to create money out of thin air, and would not have been difficult to expolit at all. Detailed discussion of exploits is expressly forbidden on these forums however, so don't expect me to go into more details.

However, I hope this is an indication of the sorts of bugs that are fixed due to the wrk of the libsl and open source sl people.

The phrase 'break the back' was the expression used by someone in a position to do something at the Company, with regard to land barons (when the term only applied to land flipping, not all that long ago).

I'm not going to quote a private conversation of a couple weeks ago, but let's just say that I have *zero* doubt that nothing has changed. Your opinion of my opinion may vary.


Actually I see bot use as an incredible 'smoothing' mechanism with regard to overall land price.

Downside: someone can make a mistake and lose their shirt, foolishly assuming you aren't out there.

Upside: if anyone wants to sell their land almost instantly, they can, and soon competing bot use will make the 'price spread' such that you can instantly sell land to the highest bidding bot.


That upside for the consumer may eventually kill bot use. Since the bots can't see the neighbourhood, it will be possible for humans to use the bots against you: sell you land in terrible areas, then re-buy for themselves in nice ones.

Making bot users the owners of casino-lagged, camping-chaired sims everywhere.



Land flippers *have* destroyed the critical first time land-buy opportunity by gaming the system. Perhaps not by your bot use (your bot can't), but others have done this. The First Land option is now gone, devaluing new premium accounts substantially.

So there's your proof. Land flipping *has* raised prices for the premium new player segment of the market. We can argue 'artificially' or not all day long, but there's no 512m for $L 512; that's for sure.

Thanks for the kind words, Raymond. I too am sitting on the sidelines this month, I tiered down for the same reasons you did and cashed out instead of reinvesting; focusing on my estate and on getting to know the SL community a bit better. LL does not appear to care much about its customers (or they don't have the resources to care, or both), profit margins are down because of all the new speculators, and risk appears to be at an all-time high (coming from a guy who got into the game in Q3 2006). We all know the server open sourcing is coming, and this does not bode well for mainland dealers, either. But when?

I like the fact that even though you have stepped away from the mainland, you have turned your attention to your Kush estates and are offering residents a nice living option. All I'm doing while hanging on the sidelines is rezzing too many flexi plants on my retreat in Carlisle (open to all residents to come enjoy) and surfing and posting to the forums.

Oh, I'm also parlaying my mainland money into a Starax collection. If anyone has any Starax art, please contact me!!!

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-235

*moves*

I just look for pices and land because I have prim addiction though I have currently exceded the limit I personally want to pay for and I was fortunate to get at least 6 lots before the bots got in raised price. All were between 4890 to 5100 but I was extremely lucky
The only alternative is don't sell for everyone if you want to sell for cheaper or don't want a bot to buy and flip prices.
Eventually there will no more buyers at current prices.
I must confess I use forums to make sure who I don't want buy from. I don't want to give my Lindens to just anyone unless it serves a purpose.
P.S. I think using land bots is exploit and should be banned. In fact using any type of bot to maniplate or gain additional funds be it campbots or anything similar should be banned but I seriously doubt it will be enforced unless it effects Lindens bottom line.

looks like a good solution to the people losing money from the actual transaction flaws

THERE IS ALREADY ENOUGH WARNING. If people don't pay attention to the dozen warnings they get now, then its THEIR OWN FAULT.

The only thing needing changing is put one of those graphic text up, the random code, for buying.

If you're right, the SL "land market" has gone the way of the betamax. I guess it's time for a new land sale system, then, one that lists parcels outside SL and uses a bot to set the land for sale to the buyer only after the whole process has been completed.

It is very funny how history repeats itself, even in SL.
Same arguments, new faces. I love it.