You are being lied to

You have been lied to. The coming price increase has NOTHING to do with “added value” or “charging closer to what islands are worth.” Linden Lab does not need the increased fees to cover “costs of development” or to remain solvent. That’s marketing HORSESHIT. They will tell you anything they please and they don’t even RESPECT you enough to tell THE SAME LIE consistently.

Here’s why the price increases are happening:

Linden Lab is in thrall to their VC (Venture Capitalists.) Linden Lab was handed $11 MILLION DOLLARS by their VC in March. Ask Linden Lab where that money went when you are told that the poor Lindens are begging for coin on the streets. That kind of money comes with *strings* attached. Linden Lab must hit certain performance benchmarks or the VC can literally take control of the company. There is a reason that VC are called VULTURE CAPITALISTS.

One of the benchmarks was to reach a million signups. Why do you think Linden Lab made entry free and removed verification, against the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that the decision was bad for the “community” they claim to love? Why was the screaming of users ignored? Simple. Linden Lab had no choice. And they lied to you about that.

Now that signups have passed 1 million, how are you rewarded? Oh yeah. By raising prices. Well, we have to do that to support those 1 million accounts, right? Sure. They’re lying to you about that.

The next benchmark is that Linden Lab must reach “profitability” by a certain date. If that benchmark is not met, the company can be taken over and sold off. Why is Linden Lab, ONCE AGAIN, ignoring the screaming of users and the overwhelming evidence that the price raise will be bad for the “community” they still claim to love?

Simple. Linden Lab has no choice. And they’re lying to you about that.

Prove me wrong, Linden Lab.

And venture capitalism is bad because? The facts that you are using a computer, have electric power, cheap food, clothes on your back and a roof over your head all point to the benefits of venture capitalism. Without profit there is no incentive to create, build or improve.

No Chris, lying is bad because. Disrespect is bad because. Usury and changing the terms of a sale after the sale are bad because. Slum Lord rent increases are bad because. Secret agreements are bad because. Pandering to special interests is bad because. Selling out the community is bad because.

Oh, and just maybe.... lack of informed self interest may be bad because.

Your argument, "Without profit there is no incentive to create, build or improve." is great one. For making my point.

That statement illuminates your fundamental failure to SEE what happens in SL. A majority of creators in SL create for the JOY of it. They're not here for profit. They're barely making it. Profit is NOT their motive. SL REMOVES the barriers to entry that you find in real world production. That's the joy of it!

Linden Lab wants to raise those barriers. THAT is counter-productive, my Capitalist comrade.

If your statement was meant to explain that the LINDENS would have no motive to create without increased profits, I submit that you are confused on who's doing the creating and who's doing the managing in SL. Take another look.

Makes sense to me, Paulie.

But you forgot to state your answer in the form of a question. Didn't you get the memo that we're playing Jeopardy here now?

coco

Care to post any hard evidence to back up your theories, or is the title of this post merely a description of its content? Until you come up with any proof, the only one we must assume to be lying is you, by presenting obvious speculation and opinion as fact.

How exactly is it that you're privy to the details of investment agreements in a private company of which you're not a board member? Oh that's right, you're not. So the liar here is...

In any case, companies raise prices all the time. It's not lying simply to announce a price increase and cite "ongoing investments" as the reason, which is what they said. The other stuff you mentioned like "added value", "solvency", etc, seems to me to have come from the usual conspiracy theorists and voices of "LL can do no right", not from LL itself.


Oh, and for the record, of course I'm not any happier about the increase than anyone else. In fact, I'm pretty angry about it. However, when you consider that LL hasn't raised any prices in 3 or 4 years, and they're continuing not to raise them for all pre-existing customers, then from that perspective, there's really not a whole lot to complain about.

I admit, my bold declarative statements were speculation. My post was definitely an appeal to emotion. I'm not privy to the dark secrets of Linden Lab's VC agreement. To make my own argument again, neither are you.

But, dammit, I can smell a lie. My ears burn when I read Linden Lab's duplicitous, inconsistent justifications. We're being treated like mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed Horse Hockey.

We can continue to be vegetables and enjoy that diet or we can make some noise. Maybe ALL I'm making is noise, and maybe I'll end up sliced and diced for my troubles, but that's where I'm standing.

There's an open group called S.O.S. (Save Our Sims) that anyone can join inworld. If you believe as I do, that these prices increases are bad for the community and that Linden Lab is not listening to us, join up.

And I'll see ya on the other side.

Well, i`ll be keeping watch on this thread.

Thanks for the admission. It's good that you can take a step back and say "I'm just being emotional here". Not everyone can do that. Too many people cling to their statements to the death.



No, I'm not. I don't think that was ever relevant though, was it?



I'm sorry you feel that way. As I said, I'm as upset about the price increase as anyone would be, but I don't assume there's anything nefarious about it. It's just a price increase. The reasons for it are really nobody's business when you think about it. Like it or not, LL has a right to charge whatever they want for their services, for whatever reason they want. If we don't like it, we don't have to do business with them.

Sure, it gets more complicated for those of us who run businesses in SL, but really it's no different than running any other type of business in which expenses increase for one reason or another. If I'm a baker, and the cost of flour goes up, I have to spend more to stay in business. That's just life. If I don't want to accept that, I'm free to leave that business and find another. It's just a question of deciding what's most worthwhile and what's feasible. That's just what you have to do when you're in business.

Considering the overhead and risk of an SL business is absurdly low to begin with, I'll repeat what I said earlier, which is when you put it all in perspective, there's not much worth complaining about.



Thanks for the info on the group.



It occurred to me while I was writing this reply that there is another way to look at the price increase. If you calculate inflation, the numbers are interesting.

LL launched private islands as an option in 2004. They started out at $1000 for a short time, but quickly increased to $1250, and stayed there. Most people who have islands paid $1250. Since tier fees haven't increased since 2003, we can assume that had private islands existed back then, they would have cost the same then as they did in 2004 as well. Well, $1250 in 2003 equals $1376 in 2006. Assuming they don't increase prices again for a similar period of time, and assuming inflation rates stay the same, $1340 today will be about $1514 in three years (if my math is right). From that perspective, that puts the price increase for buying an island at about 18% above inflation rates. That's a bit high, but not unheard of, and not unreasonable for the high tech market, which is pretty volatile.

The increase in the tier fees though from $195 to $295, that's pretty hard to swallow. That's a 50% increase, and no amount of dickering with inflation calculators can help justify it. One can only hope that the level of service offered to island owners will improve by the same amount. Otherwise, there's not much incentive to buy an island and pay those high fees. That makes the mainland far more attractive than it is now, which means mainland prices will likely skyrocket unless they add a substantial amount of mainland sims.

I suspect that that is the biggest reason for the huge tier increase, to encourage people to use the mainland more than they do now. The mainland is where the real communicability is, after all, and Philip's made no secret over the years that he's a promoter of community.

That's my theory, for whatever it's worth. Jack up the island prices, and more people will do more on the mainland.

I still wouldn't say LL's lying about anything though. That's pretty harsh. Their motivations for what they do are theirs alone. Should they choose to share them, great. If not, then it can be interesting to speculate, but we'd all do well not to assume the worst automatically. I've never met a Linden I didn't like. They are people after all, just like you and me, and most people do the things they do for what they perceive to be good reasons. Whether others understand or agree is another matter, but there's a big difference between disagreement and dishonesty.

You don't have to search too hard to find hard evidence of LL lying. It has happened over and over. Here are a few examples concerning the LindeX and Supply Linden.

Reason for cutting stipends to is to help balance the source vs sinks of the economy.
(The balance was getting closer then they invented Supply Linden).

Supply Linden will never go over the currency trader tier level and not sell more the 10k a month.
(Supply Linden went over the limit. Than they changed the trader tier levels to allow Suppy Linden to sell even more. Each month Supply Linden sales have more than doubled).

Cuts to developer incentives to help sources vs sinks of economy.
(Again, Supply Linden replenishing what was taken out and more)

We have no money to pay for upkeep of forums or more customer service personal.
(Supply Linden made over $170,000.00 this month from sales of linden produced from thin air. Lets see, how many people can they hire for forum upkeep and customer service with that).

We are not competing with content creators on the exchange.
(Who is Supply Linden)


etc..., etc...


I too feel like a mushroom.

I agree, it's true, no one knows what Linden's motives are for anything they do including price hikes. Not unless the person accusing them is actually one of them in private which is possible.

With this said, although we the players don't really know why they hiked the prices. If any of us assume the worse I think it can be justified judging by the way they handle this game.

Anything is possible.

I'm not sure if you've been following the blog, in particular Zee Linden's statements burried in the comments. (Please do read them yourself, my interpretation is just that, mine ) On the one hand current prices aren't profitable in the long run, and it's in recognitiion that private sims have tools full mainland sim owners don't get.
However Zee also hinted that mainland tier will suffer a price increase as well in the coming months with the nuance that they'll keep it affordable for personal use, which many people have taken to mean that tier will increase very little, while high tier will (comparatively) take a much bigger hit.

If the reason for price increases is to lure people away from private islands then the people leaving will already feel some resentment over having to come back to a not so attractive mainland. This group is very unlikely to take a new price increase very will and might simply decide to completely drop out.

One thing Zee mentioned that personally caught my eye was the mention that raising the tier for private islands was simply technically the easiest, which left me with the impression that the other planned increases are being held off until the necessary infrustracture to push them through has been added. I imagine grandfathering mainland tier would be far more difficult to work out, if it's possible at all.

Of course, Fritz's last blog entry nuanced all of the above stating that there might be price increases and if there will be any forthcoming, they currently have no definite plans on what they will be.

The only and best thing for any of us to do is to simply make sure that LL announces future changes well in advance and hopefully that any plans would be announced and open to resident feedback and revising .

Islands are exploding in number, the mainland isn't.

I think some degree of all the above is true, but mostly they can and need to charge more for islands. People will complain, but they will still pay.

Even though Paulie has engaged in some rampant speculation here, it seems to "fit" to me and I am with him on his conclusions for the most part. Even if the details of his post are innacurate, the header, and the central fact, (that we are being lied to) is really very clear indeed, on a whole variety of issues.

I feel that the Linden Lab of old is almost totally gone. A lot of the folks working for LL seem to still believe in "the community" but all recent events and the actions of the company itself seem to argue against that. In other words, the original dream is dead, even if a lot of the virtual players and employees are not willing to admit it or see it.



While I like the reasoned approach of the rest of your argument, I think this part is wrong for the reasons I just stated above. Philip may still talk about community, but the company itself seems no longer concerned with communtiy per se as a motivating force for their actions IMO.

I agree with his general thesis which as I see it, is the argument that the only rational motivating force for the recent actions LL has taken, are the broad motivating forces of the market and of a venture capital investment in particular.

There was no reason to virtually destroy the community by looking for that 1 millionth player otherwise. Nor is there a reason for any of the recent changes that equates to the protection and nurturing of the online community that is SL. The reason behind these recent choices is money and the market, that seems quite clear to me.

Paulie may be our resident super-socialist chicken little, but it's better than being one of the thousands of LL apologists that can't see the changes happening right before their eyes.

If it's true that Philip still believes in community, then I would venture to guess that an inspection of LL's offices would likely show him to be out of the decision loop at this point. I would bet that the "business forces" within the LL company structure are almost at the point of throwing the man out of his own company and would not be surprised to hear of him being fired, just as Steve Jobs was originally fired from Apple.

As a content creator I have one thing to say, I am tired of paying so others can play for free. Already, SL is by far the most expensive online game... thingie and it is now getting more expensive. Tiers are gonna rise for everyone folks... its gonna happen. I have always opposed the free accounts non sense and always will. Everyone who uses a road should help shoulder the cost in taxes, the moped paying a lot less than the overloaded 18 wheeler perhaps but all should pay. SL should be the same way.

On the other hand SL has been steadily improving and hasn't been raising tier in kind. When LL does decide to raise tier, I will simply reduce my land holdings to stay at the same level of pay out like just about every other landholder on SL, LL will be inundated with 16m plots being abandoned in very bad places and unsellable. I pay $25 a month, that is more than my gas bill on the worst month.

Raising private island costs are totally predictable as they require far more resouces to maintain than the mainland. The headaches created by more and more private estates eat up more LL time than just about anything else so it is no surprise to me. It is, however, utterly bad business if you want a vibrant community of estates that bring a lot more creativity than is possible on the mainland.. then again who says LL wants that?

Lie or did they just happen between then to decide to change fees on us?

PRIVATE ISLAND INCREASE FAQ



2 Days later.....


UPDATED INFORMATION ABOUT PRIVATE REGIONS

But is not Joy a form of profit? I made no comment on the lying, only your apparent attack upon venture capitalism. We are using their toys and sand box to play in, if you do not like how you are being treated...........well you are free to stop giving them your money, finding some investors and creating your own sandbox for people to play in.

No offence but this has to be the weirdest comment I have heard in a long time.

Profit is an imposed dividend gained from the transfer of goods and services. It's a tax.

Joy is just a simple emotion, experienced under a variety of conditions, most of which do not involve a transaction of any kind. Profit is something you take from someone, Joy is something you give or is given to you.

No, I don't think so.

The second statement was a reaction to some people complaining that the first was too weak - "ok, they 'have no plans to', but they could make plans any time!"

It is clear from all Mr. Z. has said that they plan to raise prices on all land, starting with the private islands.

This is why it is important to distinguish early on between real-world companies selling real-world products and services, and residents just residing, or selling only virutal products to other avatars.

There should be three land-pricing tiers:

. Corporate rates - for real-world companies here to advertise real-world products, and the companies which serve them by building their properties and publicizing them to the media.

. Resident rates - for residents living on their land, and/or residents providing virtual, non-real-world goods and services to other avatars, who operate only within the virtual world economy.

. Educational/Charitable rates - for universities, charities, and support groups. This tier already exists, and is lower than the resident rate.

As it stands, these price raises will hit outside corporations and in-world businesses equally, though the real-world companies are only here for an advertising venue for their real-world products.

And land rate increases will hit us everywhere. The private islands are only a beginning.

Anshe, by the way, would qualify for a resident rate. She and the other sim real estate people are not publicizing some real-world product, and using SL just as a nifty way to do that and get a lot of real-world buzz for it. She and the other people providing land for us to live on are providing products and services only for other avatars, and their work is completely within and limited to SL.

Unless LL makes this critical distinction, we individuals who own land - anywhere - will be forever subsidizing deep-pocketed real-world companies and their ad campaigns, just as we subsidize the free accounts.

coco

Being a free member, and still contributing to the SL world, it's hard for me to still talk bad about LL. I had a lot of negative opinions when I was paying LL.. but now that I am not, those have all evaporated. I know I would have a very strong opinion and theory about this if I still were paying LL... but I'm not. ...and that's the whole point.... If you don't want to pay the price increase, DON'T PAY IT.

The price increase motives are plain and simple.... whatever reasons LL tells you doesn't matter... The reason for the price increase is because people are willing to pay it. This "1,000,000 user" concept is floating around the 'community' so LL has no need to sell their service for under what they can get. Because users rarely completely close out their SL account when they leave(they just stop using), the registered account number keeps rising as the actual people count deminishes.
Land & Tier price increase = Less islands that cost more + less land owners + users drop out of LL altogether = Less drain on the system + more profit for LL + the appearance of the community numbers growing when in actuality it decreases.

'Second Life' publisher open to IPO or sale
November 3, 2006 3:33 PM PST
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One of the biggest questions historically revolving around the virtual world "Second Life" and its publisher, Linden Lab, has been how long the company would stay independent.

Since the company's 2003 launch, it has been privately held and backed by investors including Lotus founder Mitch Kapor, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

But as Linden Lab has grown, any number of rumors have circulated involving takeovers by companies like Google and Microsoft. All the while, Linden Lab has said it intends to stay solo. Indeed, CEO Philip Rosedale has told CNET News.com on multiple occasions that he has no intentions to sell, nor would such a move be in the company's, or its community's, best interests.

And that may well be true.

But in an article published Friday in the U.K.'s Times Online, David Fleck, Linden Lab vice president of marketing, indicated that such sentiments may not always stay true.

"We're open to an IPO or a sale, whenever that occurs," Fleck told Times Online. "But there's no rush."

Of course, this very well might have just been a throwaway line in a long interview. But it's very interesting to note that Linden Lab brass is willing to be quoted as saying such a thing.
Posted by Daniel Terdiman

http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6120349.html







Interesting

I agree that Linden Labs is trying to become profitable, I disagree that this is a bad thing or that we have been lied to about the cost of the islands going up. I do think that they are hoping to keep the cost of the mainland low to encourage growth there. You don't expect Ford to say "We are charging more for the cars this year because we need to pay off our loans." You expect them to say "We are charging more because they are worth it."

Here's one Posed in the form of a Question;

Paulie, I read your OP,
and i should believe YOu because,,,,,?

Angel.

I don't think this really means anything..... It's just saying that LL is open to the possibility. It will hear serious offers... and this can be used to gage the company's value. LL wants to present that they're entertaining offers (as opposed to standing firm that they won't ever sell). Submitting to the press that there's always an option for anything is the best way to present yourself.