Should Linden Lab allow LandBots?

*Obscure Literary Reference*
I wonder what Karel Capek would have to say about this whole debate.

For clarification:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum's_Universal_Robots)

I should clarify that my dislike is for *land* bots in particular, not bots in general.

I've been thinking about this one for a while now. I think LL should provide an interface for registering of bots into the land system, and when a property comes up for sale it sends a message to ten or so random bots in the pool. Then anyone who spams search or abuses the new system they can ban outright (and seize their landholdings).

Not sure how this would help the average resident, unless you're suggesting everyone be supplied with landbots?

I'm in the same boat. I don't disagree with open source, nor do I object to bots in general.

Bots which create unfair market advantages in whatever field are objectionable.

I just want to point out that I'm not a landbot owner nor a landbot user. I'm an idealist enamored with the idea of an online world where real programming, real designing, and real work are rewarded. I don't want to play Sims Online. I don't want the Sims Online contingent to nerf Second Life for the rest of us. I welcome a Metaverse where hackers, designers, 3rd-world sweatshop labor, and consumers go about their business. To me that's much more exciting than selecting from a set of standard land plots, house designs, girlfriend avatars, and pretend careers.

I want the bots.



If I were a land dealer (and I'd like to be if I could work out a profitable business model like I had December-February), I'd simply then sell my land on eBay rather than in-world. Why would I sell my land at, say, a L$12/m2 cap when I could get L$15/m2 for it on eBay? Furthermore, if I could write a landbot script, I'd write another one to locate and buy all the choice parcels of land others were offering at the capped price to resell on eBay for a tidy profit.

You see, it's not land agents that control the value of the land--land value is more a factor of supply and demand. It's "the market" in capitalist jargon. Linden Labs has demonstrated its ability to increase the value of land (by reducing the rate new land is introduced) and to decrease the value of loand (by accelerating the rate new land is introduced). It has also announced its intention to make servers open-source, at which time others may (and eventually will) be able to influence the price of land by increasing the supply.



Not everyone has landbots; they are at a disadvantage when it comes to buying below-market-value land.
Not everyone has money; they are at a disadvantage when it comes to buying land at all, and the less money (or bigger the plot of land) the bigger the disadvantage.
Not everyone has Paintshop and knows what looks good on an Av; they are at a disadvantage when it comes to designing clothing or textures.
Not everyone has design sense; they are at a disadvantage when it comes to designing houses and machine guns and penises.
Not everyone can program; they are at a disadvantage against those who can write scripts.
Some people have jobs and families and real lives; they are at a disadvantage against those who can "play" Second Life all day.
Some people have poor social skills; they are at a disadvantage against those who make friends who help them out.
Not everyone has fast computers and PayPal accounts; they are at a disadvantage when it comes to playing Second Life at all.
Not everyone speaks English--a fair disadvantage when communicating within Second Life.
Some people are physically handicapped or disabled in a way that places them at a disadvantage, particularly when we realize that others can type 100wpm and are brilliant.

My point is that "being at a disadvantage" is not a great argument for anything in Second Life. Linden Labs has created an environment that is the same for everybody. Such things as fraud and theft are wrong, but beyond that how--and whether--we take advantage of that environment should be up to us.

Now, I realize, just like you do, that many other people want a kinder, gentler Second Life. Why not see that as a business opportunity? In fact, many people (with various sets of advantages including money, time, and talent) are setting up private sims where one can acquire land (for less than it costs to go premium and buy from a landbot), enjoy good customer support (faster and more effective than you're likely to get from a Linden), and have a stable view and Second Life experience (thanks to covenants). They'll do this as long as it is "worth it" for them to do it. Why not focus on these people, the ones providing a solution to the unbridled freedom of the mainland, rather than those who run landbots?

That's the open source solution to "the landbot problem," I believe: Supply everyone with landbots. All it takes is for one programmer to write a copy/mod landbot and make it freely available, or for someone to hire a programmer to do that, and nobody will enjoy the "unfair" advantage held by those currently using landbots.

In a similar way, Firefox, Google Office, linux, and their ilk have broken our dependence on such evil Overlords as Microsoft, even in such freeish-market countries as the USA where they refuse to dictate how much profit Bill Gates can rake in.

Well, except for the owner of the one fastest bot, who can theoretically run that bot 24/7 and shut out every other bot, much like LandBot Hax is doing now. You'll never get a level playing field with landbots in the picture. Sure you can argue that without landbots someone with a fast computer and a fast connection would have an unfair advantage, but unless that resident is superhuman and living in a monastic cell he/she won't be able to focus 100% attention on the screen 24/7. Everyone will get a shot at land. Landbots don't need toilet breaks, they don't get tired, they don't have to grab lunch, they don't let their minds wander ... it's just unending domination of the lower end of the land buying market.

One bot rules the roost.

There are thousands of sims and thousands of land parcels for sale, nobody will ever convince me, that allowing one person to take every low priced parcel on sale is anything other than greedy, monopolistic and anti-trust.

That is the meat and potatoes of the issue.

Is there some special reason you guys seem to think one particular person will have a faster landbot than everyone else?

That is the nature of the beast.

Bots are not identical and the bot with the best connection and most streamlined code will dominate.

One bot started on the grid and got it all, then a competitor came along, so the first bot added a couple more bots and kept the lead. Now another bot came along and is pretty much taking it all, despite the second bot (who gets very little now) and the other is now running five bots, just to get about 20% of the sales.

So yeah, one bot is getting about 80% of the sales. That in itself is disproportionate. Anyone can see, that allowing one person to take 80% of the sales in a population of five million, is not right. This bot is run by the people who reverse engineered and hacked the SL viewer before it was allowed, now they have an unfair and unsurmountable monopoly.

Before, numerous people could help make ends meet, pay tier or make minimum wages, but now, one person pulls out tens of thousands of dollars, every month.

I've been keeping track and its a disproportionately huge amount of money.

Im curious as to how you arrived at this conclusion. Have you got any figures?

marcus

Two methods.

My previous revenue multiplied by 25 (thats approx how many land barons were displaced) Some made more, some less. I was about average.

And

I've been marking plots bought and sold by the bots. Not a day goes by where < 1K USD is made by these guys.

I won't post figures, because that could be considered disclosure.

Besides that, I could get God herself to attest to it, but you'd dismiss it anyway.

I've already proven by these polls, the average user does not like bots and believe they are disproportional, so unless you can up with figures to the contrary (which you can't), you are just reflecting your own bias and opinion. Nothing more.