New continent 20 sims sale

Sorry but I have to go on because this one really pissed me off... I risk alot of money, I do ALOT of customer realations between qoutes and dealing with my renters and customers. I go from one business im to anouther all day long. I paid 1675 dollors for the abilty to pull a small monthly profit off my estates. An investment that will take me 10 months to get back because I don't want to have a job that makes me bitter like you. I'm building on something better. I worked very hard and very long to build my reputaion and holdings. The only difference between my "real job" on sl and any other desk job, is the that fact that I work for my owm self doing something I love and worked hard to get. The people who acually make money on sl worked hard and long for that priveledge. It's not like one day we said hey I don't wanna work and sl money started falling in our laps. So while your in sl looking for forced sex as your profile says, I'm WORKING. So please save your forumn posts until you acually have a valid point instead of just posting random bs to belittle others when you cleary have no insight on the subject.

That post of Brazils should be required reading (including all the posts it points to) before people are allowed to comment on the land market.

It's here for anybody that missed it.

I put 40-50 hours into a real life job so assume all YOU like, my 30-40 hours here are play, you going to tell me the 40-50 of the 60 hours spent by land resellers is even 90% dedicated to "working"? Ultimately the Lindens people like me spend using our credit cards daily are what pay for the people taking money out of SL. Maybe you are one of the better ones.

But then again, perhaps a friendly STFU and GGF to you too seeing that's the level you best converse on.

I rarley have pure social time on here. I try to make my clubs naked hour at 8pm, but I'm lucky if I get to make it to 3 a week. I have several business projects and just plain projects that eat most of my time. Although I value special time with my friends, anyone close to me in sl is close via im because yes, as hard as it is to believe, I am working most of the time.

And the stfu was just speaking your language because the only thing you have added to this thread is insults. Just giving back what it appeared you were looking for. So when you come in here and making generalized staments and insults like you did, you were insulting me and what I WORKED for. Worked hard and long for. Sorry if I didnt take it kindly.

I hear you couldn't make it past the starting area there

Well I started getting riled up when the guy at the begining started boasting "withdrawing several thousand $US"
And after hearing similar boasting inworld in open chat from land resellers on the new continent when it seems there are more land plots for sale than there are people inworld.
I went there considering moving to the new continent, but after seeing the prices, and so much empty land and the attitude, I'll wait till later or stay mainland.

This thread has made me sad. I've been following it because I find the whole SL economy and land market to be interesting, but it seems that the 'debates' have been slowly degenerating. One group sounding bitter and jealous, the other sounding beleagured and tired of the constant attacks.

Want land prices to drop? Here's an idea: Petition the Lindens to end the auction process, assign a fixed-value to mainland sims (US$1000? US$2000?) and sell them first-come, first-serve. Suddenly, no more $3500 or 4000 sims. The same applies to partial sim 'auctions' and L$ 'auctions'. No more auctions, just a fixed value sale.

From what I've read this should make everyone happy. The land traders will be happy as they can afford more sims, sell more land at a more reasonable rate. And the buyers should be happy, with land prices going down.

Mind you, I doubt the Lindens would go for this idea, after all it would cut a revenue stream in a sudden and drastic way. If you think that's a good idea and LL should go for it, perhaps test it first - go to your boss and demand your salary be cut 50%. Whatever it is you do or help produce, someone somewhere thinks it's overpriced.

Here's another idea. Someone famous once said, you have to be the change you want to see. Think the so-called 'land barons' are overcharging? Then go buy land direct from LL, buy sims at auction, partition them up and sell those parcels at prices you consider to be fair and reasonable. If you do this often enough everyone else will have to bring their prices down, or they won't be able to compete with you. This in turn will bring the price of auctions down, as they will no longer be able to afford $3500 - $4000 per sim. This is how you can make the price of land come down, much more effectively than whining, complaining, or attacking.

-Atashi

Land bots would always win a first-come first-serve setup.

Why would LL want to cut their profits? What incentive would they have?



Umm, because the prices they are successfully auctioning for are dictated by the predicted "market value" that they can be re-sold for? So, you wouldn't be able to buy the Sim at auction, and then sell it at the "fair and reasonable" price, without losing money?

Here's the problem with your idea. The land dealers are already colluding with each other to set land prices the way that they are now.
Getting rid of the auctions will drop prices on sims but the land dealers will talk amongst themselves and set prices to what they see fit.
...and then what are you going to do about it?

Even sitting back and not buying land may not help. Sure, the unsold land is going to burn the pockets of the land barons, but there's a new land baron waiting right around the corner to take his place with visions of grandeur in their eyes.

Oh yeah? How do you explain the 10% drop in prices overnight? Maybe that's all part of our cunning plan too. Or maybe the land market, with over 3000 people selling 11 million meters of land is just too massive and competitive to be controlled by a small group of players.

That is precisly the problem with no regulation in place. Anyone who thinks these people will allow their income to shrink so all players have a fair opportunity at owning affordable land is just plain fooling themselves. In fairness, not one single baron can be blamed. When a market becomes hot you suddenly have wannabes coming out of the woodwork trying to grab a share. The good thing is there does come a point where there are so many fighting for the same thing the whole thing eventually collapses and the process starts all over again with new players.

These arguments will not mean much once the powers that be decide to finally adjust mainland tier to better match the private island maintenence fee. It is only a matter of time before that happens I think and then moving to a private estate won't seem so bad.

I guess you're talking about me... Not really sure why what I make would bother you. I'm always happy to hear someone made a profit ESPECIALLY if it's more than I make.

I make a RL job between playing MMO's and investing in domain names. Is there something wrong with that? Head over to dnjournal.com and take a look at what some people have sold their names for lately. And, yes these names cost between 10-70usd to register initially depending on when and with whom they were registered. Is there something wrong with charging 10k usd for something that cost you 10usd? Of course not and nobody would be foolish enough to refuse a large profit. However, SL is not domain names and as Sarah said, you really do work for your money here if you're successful.

What wasn't said in my thread was that this is my first withdrawal since I came to SL. Now, if you take roughly 5 hours a day over 2 entire months, that's nearly 300 hours of work. Taking out 10k meant I was only making roughly $30 an hour, nothing big by real life standards. And every single day I had my profits in SL meant I was risking losing them if LL went bankrupt, someone hacked the asset servers, etc. Don't you think I should be compensated for my time and risk?

I think alot of regular players out there think all of us "land barons" are making money hand over fist... The reality is very few of us are even making more than 5k usd profit a month. And those who are making very large profits generally invested alot of their own money into SL. That's the way life works... While everyone (including myself) were panicking after 9/11, some people had the balls and smarts to invest in stocks which were seriously underpriced P/E wise because of it. Back when we had the dotcom bubble, I passed up on a 2 letter dotcom which I had been offered for 600usd. Now, that same name is worth about 100,000usd.

Moral of the story: Don't hate the baron, don't hate the game. Hate yourself for not having the guts to take the risks some brave people in SL have taken. And there is no free lunch.

We make a higher profit in terms of percentage when prices are lower than we do when they're higher.

That's the funny part -- everyone is cheering for lower prices so that land barons quit. But in reality, most of us are smart enough not to have every single linden we have in SL invested at unpredictable times such as now. And if prices go lower, of course we'll make larger profits

Just think of RL... You pay $5 for a sandwich at Subway that certainly doesn't cost more than $1 to make. Now, would you pay $10000 for a computer? As prices get higher, people expect smaller markups. Likewise, as prices fall, we can be more 'generous to ourselves'

Well fair enough then, I apologise, perhaps you should have stated that as well.

Yeah, the only time we get hurt is if we have land at the time prices drop. But as a general principle though, I would be perfectly happy to see land around 8L/sqm again.

Now that would be nice.

Same here. I remember my first week in SL back in December -- made a 100% profit on my holdings I just wish that happened every week...

This is precisely my point. Sorry if it went over anyone's head. If you're not willing to pay the price to finance the dream of bringing down the price of land, why do you expect someone else to do it?

To be clear, when I say 'you' I am not referring to you Ged. I am speaking to everyone who complains that land is "too expensive" and "not fair". Be it the 'land barons' or Linden Labs... you want someone else to pay the price, suffer the loss, take the hit, so that you can get something which you can't currently afford.

The bottom line, as so many people have been saying over, and over, and over, is that land is not overpriced. It's not unfair. Whatever it is selling for, is the fair market price. Somebody bought it, so that's what its worth. Would we like land to be less expensive? Absolutely - SL and RL, thank you very much. What can we do about it? Don't buy land when you can't afford it. That's how you avoid paying 'too much'. But don't complain if someone else can and does buy that which is 'too expensive' for you.

Ultimately the control is in LL's hands. They could choose to relase 100 sims a week, they could choose to price them at US$1000 per sim. When 'land' is nothing more than space on a server, and more can be added at any time, prices will only remain as high as those in control of the supply want them to be.

-Atashi

I'm in complete agreement with you.

All this is as a market driven capitalistic system ought to be.

Prices are not "too high" -- they are exactly as high as people are willing to pay for it; land that is actually priced "too high" simply won't sell. And if it sells, it wasn't too high for that individual, which is all that matters.

"Land Barons" are not evil -- they are the ones willing to understand the market, put down their own money at risk in order to make the best profit they can, the same as I would do if I had higher risk tolerance.

Linden Labs, for whatever their faults, need to maximize their profits. In the end, the source of all land is LL. Likely, they are balancing rate of Sim release with maintaining grid capacity and stability, as well as maintaining auction prices to have a comfortable mark-up for the cost of the server itself. I wonder what would be more profitable for LL? Keeping the low land availability, driving up auction prices for Sims, but likely decreasing Premium membership? Or, dramatically increasing sim-releases, driving down land prices and their profits from Sim auctions, but probably increasing "accessibility" of land ownership and bringing in more Premium members?

It'd be fun to be a fly on the wall at LL's strategy meetings.

Yes, you're absolutely right about the trade off LL have to make - higher land prices = higher initial return on the cost of the hardware and it's installation, but a lower take up of land in general, bringing in fewer premiums and less tier.

They also have to weigh up their current ability to host the hardware and manage the network to said hardware, which is obviously a problem with the new colo in Texas, however these parameters can and will change over time.

Um, judging from their decision making, I'll bet those meetings are pretty short.

Three weeks ago:

LL STRATEGIST 1: Should we fix performance issues?

LL STRATEGIST 2: Nah, let's do away with Linden Answers.

LL STRATEGIST 1: Great idea!

Last week:

LL STRATEGIST 1: Should we fix performance issues?

LL STRATEGIST 2: Nah, let's do away with First Land.

LL STRATEGIST 1: Great idea!

This week:

LL STRATEGIST 1: Should we fix performance issues?

LL STRATEGIST 2: Nah, let's dump sims on the auction page until the market crashes.

LL STRATEGIST 1: Great idea!

BTW, where were you guys yesterday when I needed you? Ah, enjoying RL. That's how I should have spent my Sunday too.

Fixed it for you.

Either you're putting on a facade...or you didn't get the memo.