Really a point to have premium?

Back when I bought a year of premium SL, I was offered L$500/week as a stipend, which was fair for the $70 price tag it boasted.

Now, with the stipend at L$300/week, I'm not inclined to renew my premium account this June (aside from the aspect of owning land).

Let's break it down like this:

Premium
US$9/month = L$300/week = L$1200 a month for US$9 a month

LindeX (At current market)
US$9 = L$2322


So, uh.... yeah. My friend pointed this out to me when I told him about premium SL. He told me it made no sense for him to go premium since he can spend the same amount and get more in-game money that way, and now I'm beginning to agree!

But you get first land!... oh, wait.

Ah! When the grid is overloaded you will get preferential access... umm no, actually, ummm...

It's the only way to own land... oops that looks to be going the way of the dodo too...

It lets other people know you paid?

Well, currently this is a benefit of being a premium member.

But, of course, to rent land you don't have to be a premium member.

You also get free tier for 512m of land.

Thats got to be worth a few dollars a month.

And you can Bitch and Moan a little louder when stuff goes wrong...

Yeah, currently. But isn't there something changing about estate land that is enabling land ownership to no payment info on file peeps?

I paid up for premium not that long ago and, while I don't regret it, I am left with a feeling that it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I can't think of much myself but if upgrading even got you some "bells and whistles" as it were it might not feel like quite as much of a jip. So it goes though.

As long as you don't let your annually paid membership lapse you will continue to receive your $L500 stipend. You are "grandfathered" in at that rate as long as your maintain your premium account with no interruptions in that membership. We all know that could change at anytime but as of now it hasn't.

I'm not saying that 500 lindens a week over 300 is any great incentive to stay premium but it does get you closer to the present exchange rate of $L vs USD. Toss in the free tier for the first 512 meters of land and I think you just about break even.

I'm in at the 500 linden stipend and renew my account each quarter and as long as I do that each quarter, billing has told me I will continue with that stipend. But I talked to billing about that about 6 months ago so I don't know if changes are in the works.

*looks at account*

You're right, I'm getting L$500, I guess I won't complain ^.^;

I think that they should give you a free medal or a halo or something like that. Of course you may walk around wearing bells and whistles, but this may annoy the neighbours.

But it'll stop me sneaking up on peeps!

What you say is true, you get $L1200 a month, roughly, but you also get the 512sqm free. That works out to be about $4.50 a month in L$ plus the free tier which is $5 a month. So, you are looking at a net value of about $9.50 a month. If you don't want main land land, then you are right there is no real reason to be premium.

If all you ever want is a 512 M2 parcel on the mainland. Being Premium gets you the stipend plus free tier on that 512 (after you pay for the land), but even then only barely breaks even versus just buying L$ when you need them.

If you actually earn L$ in-world faster than you spend them, or if you want no Mainland property, there is absolutely no incentive to being Premium. It costs more and you get less than remaining Basic and buying L$ when you need them.

I don't have any hard numbers on it, but I suspect that there are not that many residents out there earning faster than they spend. After some time, doubtlessly, because you then already have what you need, but in the beginning, when you have to buy skin & hair (good ones are pretty expensive) and some nice sets of clothes, you typically haven't earned a lot.

It would be interesting to get an idea on how many people "stepped down" from premium to regular membership, because following this logic it would be the right thing to do.

First of all, you pay less for premium membership if you pay annually or quarterly rather than monthly:
-- annual rate of US$ 72 = $72 a year, $6 a month
-- quarterly rate of US$ 22.50 = $90 a year, $7.50 a month
-- monthly rate of US$ 9.95 = $119.40 a year, $9.95 a month

Depending on your circumstances, premium membership can often pay for itself, especially if you have grandfathered stipends of L$ 500 /week or L$ 400 /week.

If your stipend is L$ 300 /week (became premium November 1 2006 or later)

The non-grandfathered stipend of L$ 300 /week is worth 300 * 52 / 275 = roughly US$ 56.73 a year at current exchange rates, assuming an exchange rate of L$ 275 /US$.

The 512 sq.m. of tier-free land is worth at least (512/65536) * 195 * 12 = at least US$ 18.28 a year to you, if you own mainland.

56.73 + 18.28 = 75.01, which is more than 72.

So even with a non-grandfathered stipend of only L$ 300 /week, premium membership pays for itself if you own mainland. If you decide not to own mainland and just rent, then it doesn't pay for itself.

If your stipend is L$ 400 /week (became premium after July 21 2006, before November 1 2006)

On the other hand, if you are grandfathered at L$ 400 /week, that works out to 400 * 52 / 275 = US$ 75.64 a year at current exchange rates. It's worth keeping your premium membership, even if you don't own mainland, as long as the exchange rate stays at L$ 288 /US$ or better and you have an annual premium membership, rather than quarterly or monthly.

If your stipend is L$ 500 /week (became premium before July 21 2006)

If you are grandfathered at L$500 / week, that works out to 500 * 52 / 275 = US$ 94.55 a year at current exchange rates. It's worth keeping your premium membership, even if you don't own mainland, as long as the exchange rate stays at L$ 361 /US$ or better and you have an annual premium mbership, or as long as the exchange rate stays at L$ 288 /US$ or better and you have a quarterly premium membership, but not if you insist on having only a monthly premium membership.


In summary, if you're a premium member with grandfathered stipend, it often makes sense to renew your membership as long as 1) you're willing to pay upfront for a longer membership, especially annual and 2) you feel that the Linden dollar will not fall too much in value.

I stepped down from 1024 at Euttum (mainland) to 512 on a pi (Explorers Rangeland) and I have built that up to just over 8K, costing me around $US 16 a week, first paying for it out of my $500 stipend, and when my 12 mo premium ran out, from my sales.

So I have:
Less lag,
better control of grievers,
good landlord,
nice neighbours.

You are right. Less than 2% of all SL's active "unique" residents have a "Positive monthly L$ flow", according to LL's economic stats. Supposedly that takes verified alts into account. I work my furry tail off, and I happen to be part of that 2%, though I hardly earn enough to take out a real profit at the end of each month that would suffice to pay for taking my family out to dinner at a restaurant. But since I do break even or make a profit each week, I never need to purchase L$, except to fund a one-time large purchase, like land. An even then, I usually earn enough to pay that back quickly. So if I became Premium, what would I do with my stipend? Sell it on Lindex. At a loss, compared to what the L$ cost me in terms of my membership fees.

But even if you earn less than you spend, consider this: All that you do earn is income you don't need to pay more to buy L$ for.

If you have zero income, you can pay $72 per year to be Premium, and get L$300 a week back. A verified Basic account pays zero per year, and can buy more L$ for that $72 than the Premium account gets. The Premium account does still get an initial sign-up bonus, but that is negligible in the long run.

For simplicity's sake, let's call that a draw. Let's assume that a Premium member gets the same number of L$ in a year as the Basic member gets by spending the same amount of cash buying L$.

Now... If you earn just L$150 per week, even if you spend more than that each week, that is L$ 150 per week you don't need to buy, right?

Well, that is half of what a Premium account gets each week in stipend. So a Basic member who earns L$150 per week, regardless of what they spend, needs to spend half as much buying L$ as it takes to match what a Premium account gets for their membership. Call it $36 per year to make up the difference. So even when you don't break even, if you earn money in SL, it doesn't take much per week in terms of income to make it far cheaper to remain Basic.

Now, Premium members can earn money too, of course. But if a Premium member wants more L$ beyond their stipend, they have to buy or earn them like anyone else. So it's generally just that first L$300 per week that we need to compare on.

Bottom line, being Premium only offers one advantage. You can buy and sell mainland.

Ceera, I think you sum it all up perfectly!

And I do hope you grant your poor, oh-so-hard-worked furry tail some rest sometimes.

Well, premium isn't all that's it's cracked up to be, and LL has specifically acted to make it have less value over time (and will probably continue to do so).

But for me, I want land of my own, and I can't afford a private island. I say this even though I have enjoyed living on Azure Islands for what, going on two years now?

But I ALSO like to have my "own" land for my shop.

And I like being able to Bitch and Moan a little louder when stuff goes wrong, haha.

coco

I wouldn't even consider that an "advantage" so much as a requirement. You are required to buy Premium in order to buy land.

As requirements go, it's not so onerous because the weekly stipend significantly offsets the cost, especially if you buy quarterly or annually and even more so if you still qualify for the older, higher stipends.

The obvious conclusion we can draw from this is that Premium membership doesn't offer any advantage to LL either. If it did, they would promote this option by adding real value-added advantages to Premium membership.

So my question is what business model makes the customer membership catgories basically nothing more than a financial vetting process?

My conclusion would be that web hosting is the only meaningful source of revenue and that Premium membership is just an artifact of an earlier business model that has been essentially abandoned as not viable.

The only other question I have is why people get so indignant over this issue. If it's not worth having a Premium account, then don't. But even if you do, your out-of-pocket expense is fairly minimal and not worth a great deal of ire. Just don't renew.

I been saying this forever it seems! lol Glad to see people are catching on. SL has got to give us a reason to upgrade other then just owning land. That was fine when SL started out and was a ton of mainland but lets face it, islands are all over the place now that are private and renting. You really don't "need" to own land in this day and age of SL. So unless they start giving more L's or something I see no reason to pay them $9 a month for nothing. There needs to be a benifit and right now there really is not any.

Now maybe if I could get top of the line tech support where I can call or whatever and have a problem fixed ASAP for $9 a month, I would have no problem paying it then. At least thats a benifit.

Not bad reasoning at all. That's how you are gonna get any type of action from The Providers. With your money.

LL are selling tier and L$ rather than Premium memberships. I don't think it's necessarily a problem for them if Premium is a bad deal.

But how long will we have weekly pay?

I just did the maths...

Currently, depending on when your premium account dates back to, you are getting either 300, 400, or 500 lindens a week. That's 15.7k, 20.9k, or 26.1k pa). Assuming you've done the cost-effective thing and taken an annual subscription, you are paying out 72 usd a year.

500 L$ stipend - 362.35 L$/US$
400 L$ stipend - 289.88 L$/US$
300 L$ stipend - 217.41 L$/US$

The above exchange rate figures are the point at which you would break even on stipend income vs annual subscription fee. You want it to be at that number or lower. At the current exchange rates, it is still profitable for those on the original 500 rate to renew their subscription. It is barely profitable at the 400 mark, and premium is not worthwhile at the 300 mark (which applies to any new premium accounts at this time).

The above calculations do not take into account the 512 m or land tier that is included in a premium account.

This seems like as good a place as any to point this out:

The preferencial login for premiums was NEVER presented as a perk for being premium, but as a last resort for when things are really borked to the extent that data was at risk due to the concurrent number of logins. For those who wonder why they are not getting preferencial treatment, perhaps you should re-read that blog post.

zk