You are being lied to

If that`s the case then they need to leave the tier on all sims purchased before the 15th A L O N E

No, profit is any increase in value or enjoyment you receive from your investment. Everything in life is a transaction. If I use my time to read a book for pleasure, watch a movie, or play a video game I am making a decison on what to spend my time. I am trading my time for joy. So the investment of my time leads to a profit of joy.

Profit is not taken (unless you are the government) Linden Labs has no claim upon my money or my time. If SL costs LL x to produce and they charge me x+1 they are making a profit, but it is not imposed upon me as long as I am free to buy their product or not.

I really like this concept.

So do I but... suppose you have a holdout parcel, right beside NikeTown or something like that. Nike want to expand, and need to buy your parcel. What happens? Which rate are you paid, and which rate do they pay?

Paulie, I think your "theory" is completely plausible and even probable! Why did 1 million users take precedence over the ones the already had? Why such a HUGE price change? Why reduce new member stipends (those that need it the most) to create $L's to sell at the risk of taking $$ out of the content creator's pockets? When they started selling $L's they said "we will not sell more $L's than we collect in sinks" How long did that last?

I'd be prepared for LL to be taken over because with the new island prices I think a lot of people are going to have to give up their islands, at a loss to themselves and to LL. I don't see profit in LL's future because people will be priced out of the game. I for one am not waiting to be surprised by a mainland tier change, I'm in the process of getting out now.

I'll keep my premium membership as long as I keep my stipend but after that I'll be going basic.

Paulie I hope someone from LL can prove you wrong. I think we'd all feel more comfortable knowing that LL is safe from takeover. However I have a sinking feeling that SL is headed the way of so many other games...

Coco - I love your 3 tierd island pricing and I hope LL listens to it. Makes sense, and though now I am refusing to visit any corporate island's I did visit the Nissan one and got my free car and guess what....It doesn't make me at all want to go out and buy a Nissan, I'll still only buy Chrysler. I wonder how many people have bought Nissan's because they drove a SL version? I guess I just don't see how it will be profitable for them.

LL has yet to show us any increase in services or features to justify this price increase. Ford cars go up in price because they get new features such as better engines, better radio's, sattelite radio, direct plug in for mp3 players (something I saw in the 2007 chrysler's), more safety features, and better warranties/customer service!!

Nobody would pay x amount more for the same car they could have had last year for less.

Membership in the S.O.S. group has really grown. I'm trying to determine the most effective use of our collective bargaining power.

Suggestions?

One suggestion I have is that EVERYONE in the group file a complaint with the BBB (Better Business Bureau.) Linden Lab is not a member of the BBB. Maybe we can encourage them to join. The BBB maintains records of complaints for non-member companies. According to the BBB page on Linden Lab, only 5 complaints have been filed in the last 36 months.

Let's give em a few hundred complaints in one day.

Here's their report on LL:
http://www.goldengatebbb.org/commonreport.html?bid=57373

Here's where complaints can be filed:
https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx




Here's what I filed with the BBB, under the category of "contract dispute / unauthorized changes to contracts:"

--- snip ---

Linden Labs offers "virtual real estate" (data storage space on their servers.) Linden Lab charges a setup fee and a monthly fee for maintaining this storage.

Linden Lab makes conflicting and confusing claims about ownership of this storage. Linden Lab claims, simultaneously , that buyers "own" this storage and that buyers have NO claim to ownership of the storage.

Despite Linden Lab's claims of buyers owning the storage, and buyer's payment of a large upfront fee equal to the hardware cost of purchasing the storage outright, Linden Lab charges a perpetual "tax" (monthly fee) on the storage.

Linden Lab raises this "tax" at will, with little or no notification, and is planning to raise it again in February, on all new storage purchases.

Despite Linden Lab's claims of buyers owning the storage, Linden Lab charges a "transfer fee" to original owners if storage is transferred from one owner to another.

Linden Lab has made conflicting and confusing claims that tax for existing storage will either a)stay the same or b)be raised at their whim.

Linden Lab is engaging in deceptive and unfair practices by encouraging buyers to purchase new storage at the current rate before the coming tax increase. Linden Lab has hinted to "insiders" that the price of ALL storage will be increased in February, after encouraging buyers to purchase storage at the lower rate.

--- snip ---





In the "remedy desired" section, I put:

--- snip ---

Linden Lab needs to increase their transparency and accountability to storage customers.

Customers need:

Clear, contractual, enforceable, terms of ownership, including possibility of remedy for Linden Lab's failure to provide service as originally contracted.

A schedule of planned price increases.

Bargaining power to attempt to hold down future, unfair, price increases.

For Linden Lab to follow existing property, real estate and contract laws, instead of attempting to remove user's rights in their Terms Of Service.

--- snip ---


Feel free to copy or change it for your own complaint.

My suggestion is to push for the three-tier rate.

Rates are going to go up, on all land, everywhere. But nowhere should we be charged the same as Nissan or Nike.

By the way, you will never see what Nissan gets out of SL, because that is measured only by such things as favorable press releases, and stats on readership or eyeballs, which are weighed when the company considers whether or not to continue with a particular advertising space.

coco

Nike would make you an offer you can't refuse! Just kidding - but they would make you an offer that is worth your while.

But you do bring up an important angle to this: Say Nike did buy the lot next to mine in Rosieri for some reason, and wanted mine. Should they purchase mine, they should also pay a higher montly tier to LL on the land.

The three-tier pricing should therefore not only apply to the outright purchase of private islands and the ensuing montly tier paid on them, but should also apply to the monthly tier paid on any mainland inhabited by real-world companies promoting a real-world product or service.

Thanks for bringing that up.

coco

the truth is that Linden Lab operates in an open market economy. they can price their services to whatever rate they want. without any viable competitors, LL controls the market. their only concern is that they do not increase it to the point of demand destruction.

raising prices raises the attractiveness of less polished but much cheaper alternatives. so i doubt LL will price themselves to the point of being unattractive.

"omg! LL is trying to make money!"

Sorry, you pay x amount more every year, it is called inflation.

A Look At The Situation

1. They cause a panic saying that they will raise prices but they have only 150 island servers left at the old price of $1250 and $195 a month on Nov 1st.

2. Posted a detailed FAQ, not just an announcement detailing about the price increase including they have no plans to increase the fees of the old price.

3. Announced after the land store opened and after many islands were bought that everything is ok, that LL will honor the old price until November 15.

4. Two days later they announce that the old price is good only until the February 1st and they should get islands out by December 15th. They also said they won't make any announcement of the changes until February 1st.


I understand they can make plans but it says there are none at the time. It does say there will be a announcement change by February 1st. To me it says there are some sort of a plan. They are just thinking of the best way to handle them.

This is after a bunch of people bought these islands, including myself going off of the information provided by the FAQ. I'm not even close to being a land baron, this will be the most I ever paid for tier ever. It is just nice that LL is looking out for their customers.

Sometimes you pay more for the car than you would have last week. Incentives change all the time.. But sometimes you need a new car today, and you didn't last week.



If LL goes out of business because they can't make ends met, then no one wins, least of all landowners. Prices subject to change. Don't panic because prices are changing, but be aware that something will need to change, Second Life cannot keep burning money at the current rate.

Easy simple solution to it all is stop playing SL. Go elsewhere there are a number of games much less expensive and much better graphics as well as virtually free from lag.
The easy way to let them know what is right for the players is to simply boycott them
Hit'em where it hurts the most.

Very well said Paulie. I totally agree and just really really hope everyone can see what LL is doing and going to do to them.LL never did and never will care about players they only care about the almighty dollar. I for one have nothing against a company making money but for as lousy a format like SL is and they are charging more for it >...... come on more money should equate to better (game play) at the very least .... but for a good solid year now it has steadily gotten worse and worse.LL you have a lousy game lousy programming and a lousy attitude towards your customers. I for one saw this a long time ago and hoped that the LL would show they really cared for the players but here it is the truth of it all. Pay more for nothing better than an avie with missing image written all over it

You left out "making shit up is bad."

yes but each year a new model is released that has some kind of change made to it, usually a different interior.

If LL raised their prices along with the rate of US inflation then I'm sure nobody would complain a bit...I know I wouldn't.

I'm starting to have the opinion that many of you are suckers.
LL has countless countless examples of bait and switch tactics. And many of you fall for it again and again. Some of you buy LLs services based on ideals and not based on their terms of service. Quit throwing your money away.

The trouble with this argument is that everyone knows the biggest cost in most businesses, especially businesses like SL is the staff. LL's staff has ballooned rather dramatically over the last 6 months.

However if they hadn't increased the membership tenfold over the same period and allowed in all the griefers, and if they hadn't been "optimising" the network stream so aggressively, then they would most certainly not have needed to hire so many people. In other words the costs would not have gone up without the ill-advised changes they themselves made.

There was never any reason to "go big" and thus no reason to hire all that staff and accept that money. There was never any reason that was based in the community of Second Life itself for any of the changes that have been made over the last year or so. If they really cared about community they would have stayed small until they got the community right, instead of stress testing it before it was even stable.

I think Paulie's thesis is very plausible.

LL got a huge capital investment and then immediately embarked on a program of expansion coupled with a streamlining of the product either as a prelude to sale or as proof of "scaleability" (for sale). It seems totally believeable to me that the "strings" on the money investment were exactly that. Something along the lines of "prove to us (the VC's), that this product is stable, scaleable, and can make money." Why would anyone invest that much money without such promises? If you were some fat cat VC investing in the company wouldn't that be exactly what you would ask for?

The fact that this expansion and streamlining program has reduced the quality of the world itself, destroyed any "community" that once existed, increased the price and decreased the enjoyability of the game for the average player is something that won't come up in the boardroom and is most likely not on the radar at all anymore.

There are enough people at Linden Lab that still believe in Philips dream that they will continue to promote it without even noticing that it's already dead. The people leading LL to the next level of "saleable product" are doing it on the backs of, and with the unwitting help of, the poor saps that still believe in this dream.

Okay.. so what's the plan then?

Some of you sound like you want SL become a government regulated utility with strictly metered service with no one behind the wheel but the bean counters squeezing any forward progress out of SL completely.

That idea gets a great big "NO, thank you!" from me.

PERHAPS prices are increasing in order to slow down how many new sims are going online each month?

Perhaps they've got enough corporate interest in SecondLife now with companies willing to pay significantly more than 'normal residents' for sims, that they feel they can raise the bar for the rest of us.

You say a lot of "becauses" followed by nothing - meaning you believe your argument to be self supporting. It isn't.
Lying is okay if you think that the people listening just can't cope with or understand the truth (that's why politicians lie, not just to get away with stuff - we simply don't understand the dirty work necessary to run a country).

It's true what has been said, that without financial incentive, there is no drive to innovate. Your statement that most SL builders do not make a profit is accurate but misses the point. They may not make a profit but they build because they HOPE THEY WILL. That's a fact - potential proft is the motivator, even if it never materialises. Linden Labs provide the raw materials for us to create - what if they chose to remove the build function all-together?

Do you know how big the warehouse just outside San Francisco that houses the SlLservers is? There are roughly 30,000 servers in it, with 20-30 new ones added each month. The land that warehouse is no is not free, nor is the RL equipment, nor is the electricity required to keep the air conditionning working in a building the size of an aircraft hangar (necessary to keep the servers at an optimal operating temperature for best performance). You think that LL is just a few guys with PCs sat in a porta-cabin. They aren't. They have RL costs that are huge. The fact is RL rent goes up, the salaries LL have to pay go up with inflation, everything in RL goes up so SL prices have to as well. Deal with it.

No it's not ok...ever! Sure people may overreact to the truth but it's still better than lying! Isn't that the chief reason politicians DON'T get elected?? or rather re- elected? Doesn't it usually come down to who has lied the least?

It is never ok to lie period.

It does no such thing. What it does is shift that burden from the creators to the people who maintain the infrastructure. Without servers, programmers, and a billion miles of cable SL wouldn't exist, and none of those things are free.

Economics 101: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone, somewhere is paying for it.

I don't have any specific opinions about Linden Labs, mind you. They may very well be acting dishonorably. But to use a computer to access the Internet and then complain about the very conditions that made them possible is beyond ironic.