Landbots - What can be done?

Because they didn't listen the first time;

It amuses me that the people claiming that "bots are bad" are using statements like "they are only in it for the money" or it's just "pure greed" and act like they are the savior of the "oppressed masses" of second life.

In reality they are only using the "oppressed masses" to help bolster their own dwindling position of power. These people ARE land barons who feel threatened by land bots and have decided to use arguments (that were once used against them) against the land botters in an attempt to convince people that by taking preventative measures against bots, SL will be a better place for all.

This is pure hypocrisy since preventative measures against bots only serve one purpose, to move the position of power back to the land barons and away from the land botters.

Before the bots it was the land barons that were the "evil" ones driving up land prices and stealing land. In reality, land prices had nothing to do with the barons, and has nothing to do with bots now, since no one person has enough land to impose their will on land prices. The only one who can manipulate land prices is LL since they own the infrastructure.

The land barons will use arguments about search breaking, land prices, pure unadulterated greed, market crashes, and any excuse they think will server their purpose and bolster their position.

In reality they are only concerned with one thing, their bottom line, their money and their power.

Its ironic that they would claim "they are for the people, just look at all the good things they do for SL" while in the same breath claim that any act of philanthropy by the land botters is just a cunning trick used to make them appear less evil. This is pure unadulterated hypocrisy.

Now I know they will try and attack my character to try and convince you that my comments are not valid or some how irrelevant. Ok I'll save them the trouble. I have sold copybot, I do and will continue to use bots, and I am also involved in cutting land to sell as ad space.

They will of course ask you to dismiss my arguments as "rubbish" because I am supposedly "evil". But that would be exactly what they want, don't think just accept. I am not asking you to like me, agree with me, or even get involved in this "war". All I am asking is think about this situation and all arguments and consider how it affects you.

Because no matter how the land barons portray it, if you don't buy and sell land on mass, it doesn't affect you. The land barons would like you believe that this issue affects all of us and we need to rise up to stop this menace, but in reality there are only two sides and only they are affected. The land barons, who are fighting for, in their mind, control of the land market which they once had, and the botters who have found a more effective way to make money.

This is only about money, and who controls it. The barons might claim altruism, but it's a lie. Just look at who the loudest are in this "war", surprise, surprise it's the barons.

To the barons: this "war" is a "war of attrition". And unfortunately for you, computers (bots) don't think, they aren't sentient; they don't have morals or emotions, and will tirelessly perform their tasks until instructed otherwise. Making them the best "solders" in this "war of attrition", but then you know this already otherwise you wouldn't be complaining.

Some of you (land barons), understand that the only way to fight this "war" is by building a strong community of uninformed and blind followers to "convince" (see; bully) LL that they need to inhibit or ban bots, with the full knowledge that the only people this would serve to help is yourselves. Well good luck, because even if you manage to bolster your diminished ranks with uninformed, knee jerk reactionaries, in the end the ones left standing will be the bots, long after the rest have given up and/or gone to bed.

Oh and to the lackeys of the land barons that claim they don't sell land and have no vested interest in this "war" besides liberating SL from the big bot menace, why then are you continuing to spread the FUD that only serves to shift the balance of power back to them and in turn make them rich.

Marcus

Herzog, this is what the majority of people in SL believe not your fabricated version of the truth.

They dislike us all, you'll find no friends among the masses.

marcus

Thankfully, Coldwell Banker starts saving the oppressed masses tomorrow.

*bows head in gratitude*

No, I mean the individually literally said those exact words regarding this issue and his use of the bots.

In another post, perhaps by the same individual, the iland bot user related how a Linden was recently setting some land for sale for $512. (Why the Linden was doing that, I don't know.) But the land bots got the land as soon as it was set, needless to say, and this guy lamented that he only got one of them while other bot runner/s got the other/s.

It is simple. The bot is superhuman. It beats out not just the people who make land trading their business, but all of those who don't. Those who trade in land can't compete with the land bot (unless they get one. too), and neither can those of us who occasionally shop for land.

It is as if in all the stores across town, there were lots of sales going on. But as soon as the doors opened, the bots were in there grabbing up all the sales items. None left for us, none left for the land dealers.

The bot runners systematically get it all.

In addition, this drives up land prices in general. You can see how that works in this very thread. "Well, just don't price your lots so low," someone advised.

Indeed, many people will NOT price their lands as low as they once might have because of this (me included, and I just sold a lot). Consequently, all land prices will become higher. And yet, no matter what, the land bot runners will take the lowest for themselves, always. They always get the best land prices, because they are using machines to do what others do as mere humans.

Really, it takes no sense at all to see how this works. If I'm in the Olympics, and I'm competing against a machine, I don't stand a chance of winning.

I think the people who run bots would likely argue with a brick wall till the end of time about how they make no difference at all to anything. They obviously make plenty of difference to their own bank accounts, or they wouldn't do it.

coco

Well i don't see this as a bad thing really. But that is for another time and place.

I've come to the conclusion while in SL that anyone who claims the other people are engaging in "FUD" is a person who's busy trying to pull the wool over everyone else's eyes.

coco

Bingo!

Bots don't affect prices! The number of sims dropped to auction by Linden Lab and the slow creep upward from the dealers buying at the top of the list and relisting at L$.1 per meter higher affects prices.

Bots affect the profit of the land buyer. When the bots are running, the owners of the bots make the lion's share of the profit. When they don't, the barons who are online the most clicking the search list and have the fastest computers, fingers and connections make the lion's share. This is who the bots affect. The end user is not affected at all unless he/she ignores all warnings and sets their land meant for one person to anyone, or does not do their research and lists way below market value.

I would love to see bots go. But they aren't hurting the SL resident like the barons who slice land into little pieces and lower your property values while making the mainland uglier.

I agree that the number of sims dropped by the Lindens is the OVERWHELMING main factor in the price of land.

But if you have a few people with mechanical advantages taking up all the lower-priced land, regardless at what level that price may be, you absolutely do get overall higher land prices for everyone EXCEPT the bots, who will always get the lowest price land, regardless of where the cost level is.

As people raise their prices to avoid having their land snapped up instantly by a bot, the overall price of land climbs, and the lower price that will be snapped up by bots raises.

The bots are systematic. It is absolutely HOPELESS to try to compete against them. It was not hopeless to compete against humans clicking (which is something we now can't do very well at all, thanks to the bots - who simply multiply their number in order to do it as well as they ever did).

You will never convince me that the best of the land dealers (not to be confused with "barons," which muddies this whole conversation) could hold a faint candle to monopolizing all the low-cost land anywhere as efficiently as those with land bots do, while - to add insult to injury - scarcely lifting a finger to do it.

I have a computer and I have fingers. I stood a chance once. Now I don't.

coco

Ok my mistake, I thought you we trying to make it look like all botters have bad attitudes and foul mouths. And not just this one person that happens to run bots.



Again you are correct, but you need to clarify what your saying otherwise it's misleading. Bots buy the majority of under priced land, so the barons or "average" user have a harder time getting some. But this DOES NOT make it hard to buy land full stop. There are huge amounts of land that can be bought at market value.

This argument is about not being able to get ready access to under priced land, NOT land in general.



No, now your just mis-quoting them. They were talking about land priced low for a friend being bought by bots. NOT the price of land being put up higher to avoid bots but wanting to sell the land to anyone.



The market moves up and down based on a lot of factors, holding bots solely responsible shows a complete disregard of market forces, and is deliberately misleading and more FUD.



I agree, it hard for the barons to compete. My point is that the bot have almost no affect on the market for the "average" buyer.



Please read my post that covers the greed, FUD, and bots are evil comments. You are just regurgitating the same old lines that are deliberately misleading and/or false.

marcus

Like most of your other "conclusions" this is flawed to.

marcus

I personally don't think that the number of sims put out is necessarily the main factor. A rush in land dealers who buy up land and price it up creates an artificial demand for land that doesn't actually exist.

Even assuming that half the land currently put up for sale is land that's priced unreasonably (the L$999,999 and 16m² ad plots), there's still a full 115 sims waiting for a buyer this very second.

Agreed on that point. the whole "supply and demand" aspect of land in SL is only created between the land dealers trading land back and forth. The end user barely factors into that equation if at all.

I never said they don't have a monopoly. And yes, they make it look easy. That's part of the reason I quit. It was always hard work and terribly time-consuming trying to find those bargains to make it all worth while. Then it became impossibly hard, so I stopped.

I stood a chance once, too. Now I don't. But I blame myself. I'm not willing to invest the time into learning how to script a bot, and I would never do it because of the havoc they wreak. So I'm one of the old guard who is losing out.

But I think to panic the general public is not the way to go. Educate them yes. Lie to them, no.

Any big fluctuation in land prices has been as a direct result of the number of sims dropped to auction at once. The rush has been going on since day one. and yes, it keeps things heading upward. Notice also that the population keeps heading upward as well.

Aaarrrrggg. Can't we instead put our collective energy and passion towards pressuring LL to fix performance issues? I'm going to start doing that right now. This is officially my last post about barons/bots/Banker/Coldwell/camping/Casinos/plots cut up for advertising signs.

w00t!

My point exactly. Tell the general public your point of view, but with honesty not with FUD.

"Bots are bad because I cant compete against them and I'm not making as much money any more, but this only affects me because I'm trying to buy under priced land" is what should be said instead of the FUD.

marcus

Why would someone create a bot?

There is no reason, other than to gain an unfair advantage in the land market. PERIOD

Meanwhile, residents continue to be traumatized for making mistakes, people who worked for minimum wage are kicked to the curb by scabs who do not care if they take someone else's job away and we have smug bots saying *F--K YOU ALL* while crowing about dominating the land market.

Here we have proponents of bots chastizing land barons for what bots are doing to a far greater degree.

Hypocricy and greed, yup. That's what that is.

Don't worry, once a major company comes along and puts a bot in every sim, the current bots will be crying foul.... you just wait and see.

Wow that would be alot of bots. Every sim?

I've asked this half a dozen times by now:

You claim the number of end-user buyers (people who want land to build/live/sell on, and are going to hold on to it, rather than flip it) keeps rising and rising, and hence there is an ever increasing demand for land, demand which depending on how many sims LL releases outpaces supply. More demand than supply would mean that land marked for sale is scarce.

January 17th: land for sale 7,509,856m²
March 25th: land for sale 15,105,104m²

The amount of land for sale at this very second doubled in two months time to a full 230 sims worth, so please show me how land is scarce because I just do not see it.

Yes, every sim... no need to waste time teleporting. A bot already in the sim will beat any other bot needing to teleport and compare data every time.

It is scarce for the increased number of landflippers entering the business.

*falls over trying to calculate the bill for that venture*

Sorry you didn't stay in school long enough to multiply number of sims by 10 dollars.

Let us for argument sake say 1000 sims. Thats $10,000/month (maybe less if LL permits a flat rate on volume)

Big companies already own big server farms, so they would just update or convert their grids run an instance for each sim.

At 50-60 thousand dollars a month, they would be highly profitable and have total control of the market.

This is what bots are advocating, folks. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Now now weedy no need to be rude, I did just fine in school. There is more involved than the cost of creating the alt.

Why bother with this

- Just allow anyone with enough $$$$$ to buy into the land master class.

Anyone who wants to sell their land must sell to them. Anyone wanting to buy any land must buy from them.

Automate it all - with bots or whatever.