Wanted: Your Questions for the SL Economic Town Hall

In an attempt to better organize the Linden Town Hall format, we're now taking a group of questions before hand here in the forums, for those who may not be able to attend the in-world events.

Thursday, July 21 at 2 PM PST, Tbone Linden will hold a Town Hall to discuss all things relating to economics inside Second Life.

Guidelines for Posting Questions:
1. Please post only one question per Resident
2. Questions relating to the in-world economy only
3. No Tech support-type questions (ie: "My computer is broken"
4. If you're interested in asking a question that is already posted - 'second' it instead of posting it again

I'll be heavily moderating this thread, so please stay on topic and post only the economic-related questions you are interesting in knowing more about! Please note that it is not always possible for us to answer all questions during the Town Hall

Thanks!

(more info on the Town Hall here)

I might be a bit confused because in the description it said answering HTML questions but...

My question would be:

"If we are going to soon be able to display webpages on a prim, if someone had a Live Streaming Web Cam site for example, would that be able to be displayed on said prim?"

LL recently changed the auctions to the selling of whole sims with starting bids locked at $1000. In doing this, please explain, is it LL's wish that the price per M2 for the common player either rise or fall, and what is LL's preference for the price of land?

Sorry for the typo, it's an economic town hall, not html!

This question was posted to the Hotline here, and as of yet - has not been answered:
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As discussed in the thread here: /130/f7/53390/1.html (and elsewhere)

We've known for a while that 'Alt' accounts are a thorny subject when it comes to TOS enforcement - How does Linden know the difference between a genuine family member account, and an account that is an 'Alternate Account'?.

These similar issues are bleeding into First Land for new residents. My understanding is that the spirit behind first land is to give folks that are new to Second Life an opportunity to own land at a greatly reduced price, before they've had a chance to establish themselves and afford something more. (Question: Is 'making a profit' off of this subsidy to new residents truly included in that spirit?)

Unfortunately, First Land is often scarce - as it seems a combination of genuine new residents, and alt accounts - are purchacing it about as fast as it can be released.

So, onto my primary question. In the thread referenced above, we discussed the issue at hand, and possible solutions. Has Linden given any thought to making first land remain first land? i.e. - First Land is only transferrable back to the Governor/cannot be resold on the open market?

I would think this would elminate the incentive to 'game' first land, while still maintaining the spirt behind the original purpose of First Land.

I'm very interested to hear your thoughts
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For Jeska: My primary question is: Has Linden given any thought to making first land remain first land? i.e. - First Land is only transferrable back to the Governor/cannot be resold on the open market?, with the intention to eliminate 'gaming' of first land for profit.

The current traffic (dwell) system greatly benefits those who can:
a) Afford a great deal of land
Not really a huge issue and I don't honestly have any suggestive way to improve this fairly.

b) Those in mature sims
There is of course a great advantage in this one. The available content is practically unlimited in mature sims, with the restrictions on PG content, there is a congruent restriction on attracting customer flow. Currently only one PG venue is competing on the overall popular places, and the second PG venue is about 3000 pionts below the list.

The "Include places in mature region" filter may help some in getting PG places noticed within the in-world search; however, this is defeated in developer incentive competition.

So I guess the question would be: "Is there any plan/possibility of creating more incentive to build creative, attractive locations with PG content or for ppl that cant' afford 3/4 of a sim?"

Is the long term goal to place emphasis on a "closed" economy, similar to that of an MMOG, or is LL still pursuing taking their reach to a more global, standard-based perspective? And how much emphasis is being placed on these goals over other priorities?

For a more in-depth analysis, you can read my posts to this thread:
/130/d5/54376/1.html

Is land price really working as a metric to control inflation? The "GDP" (if you call it that) of SL seems to be a very slow incline up, while the L$ thrashes in value. To me it doesn't appear like it works very well as free-market "chaos" doesn't often settle a mean for value and only weights to either extreme. What's LL's current view of market control?

Many small RL businesses, especially in Healthcare, Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, Human Service, Non-Profit and Employment Recruiting require full disclosure of identity, credentials and business references. Customers/clients just won't do business without knowing who they are dealing with.

For SL to attract these vast untapped service markets, LL must create an option where real life accounts are set up enabling real life identities - business names, corporate names, DBA's, sole propty., personal names, website linkage, etc. Once that is implemented, I for one, would be able to offer some resources within SL to my clients, small seminars, consulting services, multi-media presentations, etc.

Does LL have any plans to create the option for RL accounts within Second Life?

If not, what needs to be done to convince LL that this would be an EXCELLENT business decision!



Related Threads:

Real Life SL Accounts?

Robin L - Turn Key SL Business Ops!

Robin Linden's:
Creating SL Last Names

I miss Philip Linden's quarterly reports on the SL in-world economy (the last we had was from January). I understand Philip definitely has too much to do to be able to do regular reports as formerly, but would eventually someone else at LL be able to continue that wonderful reporting job?

Thanks very much!

Thank you for submitting your questions early, see you at the Town Hall tomorrow!