Alphabetizing the Product

I don't know what it is with these new alphabet Lindens, M and T. They deliberately slap people in the face as they move in by giving themselves one-letter names that bounce in the Linden-made inworld search. At least add a few letters, if you're going to be an alphabet Linden, like Zee.

What we can see now from the alphabet marking is that these Lindens represent a new breed of commercial masters who see their job as flogging the platform to produce income for the company and to "grow it" "going forward" "in this space" -- and add 10 other buzz words of this type of industry to help yourself play Buzz-Word Bingo.

I find them patronizing and superficial by contrast to Philip and Corey, who were at least the real deal, even if a real deal that I ultimately felt no affinity for. At least Philip had real, home-made, non-store-bought hair (and still does!), and you could disagree with him and have a debate that acknowledged the conflict. With the new alphabet Lindens, the surface area of teflon is so large and shiny that you simply never get a purchase on it. There's no there there.

Reading T's maiden missive, I feel patronized and talked down to. It's like somebody putting on a frog puppet and waggling at it to entertain me when I'm already too old for puppets.  I can also see one thing the Lindens have accomplished with their Alphabet People these days: they have completely conditioned residents to view SL as a "product" that as "features" rather than a "world" that has "elements". Of course, calling SL "a world" irritates not only Lindens, but some residents who pride themselves on aggressively telling you that SL "is not a world" (just like they tell it is "not a game") because then, its mysteries and potentials are dumbed down for them into mediocre bite sizes.

T is asking about premium account ideas, but we can rapidly assess that this is just another one of those lame Linden exercises where they pretend to get our feedback and then do what they want; Carl Metropolitan summed it up best saying "They'll dump premiums, give us vanity email with myname@secondlife.com, and call shit chocolate".

They may have A and B teams arguing within their own ranks, and then they politically play the resident card on each other by pointing to the forums (read by perhaps 10 percent of the users, posted on by perhaps 2 percent of those readers, and from which some vocal users such as myself are banned). Some Lindens, probably Z and M, would like to get rid of premiums. They are a money suck -- at least some cost to the Lindens, because the stipends printed and issued, while "sinks," mean they can sell that much less  money, and then only collect a fee on its sale from one resident to another. There are only 86,000 of the premiums at this point, a number rapidly dwindling from its height over 100,000, and it proves as an embarassment. Of those 86,000, the overwhelming majority are not even using the 512 as land-owners, and if they do have ti applied to tier, probably don't log on or have set their land to sale. A large but still minority core of these premium users -- I have no idea how many but I'll take a wild-assed guess at, say, 4,000 -- are land barons in rentals or active end-users who have either sole proprietorships, homes, or communities, including RP and educational communities.

I grabbed the figure of 4,000 not completely out of the air, but looked at the number of mainland sims there are: approximately 5,000. At least 1,000 of these, by my rough estimate, are Linden land. The old core continent has lots of Linden land interspersed, in the form of actual Linden-used land like the Linden Village, the roads, parks, builds like dams and palaces and such -- and now the newer builds like Nautilus -- and abandoned land not put on the auction. Maybe this is less, but I can't tell because the Maintenance and other Linden land groups aren't open to view their total meters in land ownership (but that's how the Lindens themselves could figure it out if they don't have another way). So that at least 4,000 sims, on which, again by my unscientific guesstimate, have at least one person per sim who is actively involved in the land they are holding on that sim. While people like me own more than one parcel in more than one sim, I'm thinking overall, the estimate balances out with the hundreds of sims owned by individuals with only one parcel on one sim.

You can see why the Lindens objectively don't -- and can't -- care about premiums. Why should they care about 4,000 people out of a falling figure of 86,000? The overwhelming majority of the people bought the premium to get the stipends. Some of them are grandfathered with $2000 a month (US $7.30)-- but there can't be very many of them given the huge rush of membership in 2006-2007 when it was reduced to $1200 a month ($4.38). That means the L$2000 account about breaks even on the 90 day subscription ($21.95 or $7.32 a month) or even makes a little for the resident if annualized (US $72 or $6 a month) but is simply a bad buy for residents when the equivalent money in the account -- $4.75 -- could be bought directly on the Lindex, instead of for $9.95/mo, with a 512 m2 tier thrown in that is not understood, or not needed, by most of its buyers.

The Lindens could start selling $9.95 a month accounts with 680 Lindens per month -- even with a $1000 bonus to start, as they used to. But I don't think their goal is to keep adding sinks and freebie Lindens into the economy. Still, they should simply sell packets of money, starting at $1000 for $3.65 and on up, that are immediately purchasable by a credit card. They Lindens are in the ridiculously stupid position of even getting some initial $72 annualized account buyers, who are then immediately punished with a notice that they can't buy currency as they are under 30 days or have used up a minimum that can be purchased before 30 days. This is patently retarded and the Lindens have to fix this immediately, it's a revenue leak. I have had customers in the position of having no Lindens to rent with after making a huge outlay for a subscription and they hate that.  Not all of them are willing to go risk a third-party site, even though there are reliable ones like Xstreet. A $3.65 charge on a credit card is acceptable to most people, I think -- less than a latte -- but still not a solution. The Lindens could try giving $1000 packets to people who merely provided credit-card information as a one-time newbie deal, but it would likely be terribly gamed -- some people can simply sit in their households and find 25 credit cards to use from all their family members.

Of all the ideas being earnestly generated by people in the forums thread where they've been driven like cattle off the main blog page, more groups beyond the 25, or more special inventory handling bells or whistles, or special web pages, are not going to happen. They all involve programming or use of scarce data base and bandwidth resources, and that's not what the Lindens want to do with the failing product called "the premium account". You don't take a losing product and spend more money to make a better one -- you remove it, or replace it with a revenue generator.

Nor will they add 1024 m2 to the account instead of 512 -- that would mean a loss of at least US $7500 a month, as at a minimum, those 4,000 people I mentioned would now have to pay 512 x 4,000 x US 0.002960 less tier per meter. I just don't think the Lindens are willing to pay US $90,000 a year -- Desmond's tier level -- in order to boost premiums, or to give people among those 4,000 like me, at the US $26,000 a year tier level, a break on our tier bills. Not going to happen.

So what are they going to do?

What would fit with their existing goals of increasing revenue, and eliminating opportunities for arbitrage that put money in rental barons pockets, but not theirs?

Answer: make the tier steps less steep, or even move to a flat tier system -- Philip's dream. That means a flat charge per 512 m2, or a step up that doesn't involve going from $25 to $40 to $75, but in less steep increments, so that someone with a 4096 or an 8192 can add a little bit of primland, without having to go up to a significantly higher bill per month.

So that's what they'll do, and probably very soon, just as soon as their billing system can be adjusted, say, by January 1.

That will lead some people to feel that the Lindens have done them a huge favour, as they buy a little bit more land on their sim, and get rid of some of the yellow all over the mainland. Land prices will come down further, as people will have more tier they are willing to use to make purchases. I can't help wondering if Governor Linden will even borrow a page from the ACS playbook and consolidate sims, and offer $0 purchases to those willing to tier up to another level -- lol.

What will this do to mainland rentals? Well, there's nobody objectively to care, since mainland rental barons are a further smaller fraction of that number 4,000 I gave you. Let me think. Perhaps 2,000 people? Of which a few, like me or Ciaran, are vocal. There are A LOT more rentals agents than either Lindens or residents are prepared to admit. Fly around the world, and you will see a boatload of rentals available, because many people offset costs for their properties by offering a rental or two, and some people just enjoy making whole sims or even 6 sim villages with low-cost or break-even rentals as a form of socializing and interaction. Still, by contrast to the mammoth number of island rentals on the 28,000 private islands, it's a blip, as Jack would say. Most of the hobbyists or break-even barons will be happy to get flat tier.

I suppose I get some marginal value by being able to offer people a 3072 instead of a 2048 or a 5120 instead of a 4096. It isn't significant enough of a value to make or break my business, I suppose, although it's just yet another whack by the Lindens at this sector. Island rentals often advertise themselvse as being competitive as an alternative to mainland end-use purchase by offering the increments in softer step-ups, but the island business probably doesn't make significant business from this -- it tends to offer the same 4096 or 8192 or 16384 that Linden offers. With the glut of the 13,000 openspace sims, even trimmed by the 1000 or so that might be dumped completely lately, there is a significant challenge anyway to the 8192 or 16384 parcel anywhere, private or mainland, so it's not the make-or-break for business.

So, there being no significant  or meaningful howling from the rentals business, the Lindens will make the tier hikes less steep, or offer more levels, i.e. for the 3072, 5120, etc. It's a shifting around of the product, not a loss of money for them, that will lead to some more purchases of land and taking the existing 82,000 and flogging it to pay out more revenue. (Their original reason for steep tier hikes was to lock people into more land than they wanted and to force month-long pay-ups for even temporarily-used extra land, in order to develop the world. They no longer have that rationalization.)

It's still not a solution to boost premium membership, however. There's some other tweaking the Lindens might try, like taking either willing freebie givers or $10/hour content slave workers, and popping in some more Library content, but under the "one for all and all for one" concept of the w'uarl'd and grid, it's hard to imagine how the Lindens can parse a data base to deliver some paid content to some, and nothing to others. Sounds like something that will lag, mess-up, or not happen.

They could be like every other game and have downloads you buy on the site, or offer for free, like the Spore creatures or Sims. I'm betting that people will not pay for downloads, when every other game offers them free.

Will the Lindens just dump premiums, then? Well, the premium subscription fee revenue stream alone (minus tier) is less than $855700, a year because 86,000 x $9.95 isn't the figure, when many are annualized and there are even probably about 1,000 or so "charter member 4096 m2 free for life" customers. Still, it would be a huge risk to drop even $800,000 and hope it will enable the *equivalent* in more tier will then be picked up by a few thousand more people on those scarce 4,000 sims deciding to buy a little more primland -- even putting out more full sims on the auction, I think the Lindens would simply not be able to replace that figure within any reasonable time.

So if you were sitting on a dwindling $800,000 revenue stream that made no sense (remember, it costs to manage all the individual billing on this stream) but that you couldn't kill immediately, what would you do?

1. Promise that $195 tier per sim will remain for at least one year. That alone will woo some private island owners, some burned mainland buyers, some newbies who thought maybe a $125 openspace sim deal looked good, into buying mainland. You aren't going to get 13,000 customers, but you might get 2000 new ones, and 2000 old ones buying more. And at $2500 a pop for the mainland sim, it's some significant revenue to postpone "doing something" about the premiums. It would be hard to justify increasing the mainland sim tier to $295 when mainland owners don't get anything but the risk of blight and more lag and less control for their product by contrast to island owners. So it's a cost-free good-will gesture that will probably generate revenue, if nothing else, from annualized accounts. Annualized accounts are good for immediately generating revenue although of course they mean less of it in the long term, but let's face it, the figure of total premiums is decreasing each month anyway. For extra credit, the Lindens could announce that they will promise $295 tier on islands, too, for one year, to stop agitating and undermining consumer confidence.

2. Promise that the group-land tier bonus will remain for at least a year. Again, a cost free promise that most people won't get any advantage of, but which will coax burned mainland holdouts into buying more land and tiering up for another year, perhaps annualizing their accounts. And it might encourage more group projects -- it is never advertised.

3. Limit avatars per parcel. If the Lindens can limit avatars per openspace sim, can they limit them per parcel? The bane of clubs sucking up the 40 avatar spaces from their tiny parcels, relative to the entire sim, continues unabated. I have this problem in a few sims, and the Lindens refuse to deal with it. That means people who buy mainland can't be sure they can access their product. The Lindens could offer free moves of clubs to class 6 sims for equivalent tier and put the avatar limit up, and place several clubs on one sim, but that's not something they are likely to do. Too much administration and kvetching. But if they can hit a lever and make it possible for anyone to put 40 avatars on sim unless they own the entire sim, that would solve the club problem. However, the Lindens get more tier from clubs doing this, than they get from unfortunates unwilling to sell to move away from the problem, so they are unlikely to care. Describing a previous unlimited product -- the parcel -- as now having a limitation -- only so many avatars -- means that existing product may start selling worse for psychological reasons.

4. 30 or 60 day trial free land periods. Perhaps offering free accounts that still have land in them -- and Lindens -- might work to hook more people. But people agitating on the forums for this aren't thinking of the consequences of the socialism they think benefits them, and is never exploited by capitalists. Of course, land barons will pick up a lot of these free-1024 accounts to flip more land for free until the tier kicks in after 30 days, whereupon they will cancel the account and start a new one.

The Lindens could solve the exploitation problem by setting aside newbie sims with trial land that can't be cut, sold, or transferred. This proposal has surfaced again and again. Of course, it also deals a blow to inworld rental services who rely on making attractive offers to newbies to introduce them to renting with them for the duration of their Second Lives, but again, the Lindens are not here to help your rental business or mine, but to significantly discourage it in order to capture the revenue stream themselves. Content creators could only be overjoyed at the boon they would get from free-land accounts motivated to buy lots of content to put out on that at least temporarily free land.

Land barons will be told they will then get content-rich fattened 60-day residents eager for land if they will just be patient. As I think of it, this is probably the single easiest, cost-free, and revenue-generating measure the Lindens could do. They encourage more currency sales for themselves, and content sales which seem also to be their goal, especially to stimulate their FIC class revenue which helps with advertising indirectly. They remove the fear newbies experience of being sacked with a recurring bill, or a bill for too much land they don't want, or being preyed upon by evil land barons trying to flip their free land for them. They mollify land barons by telling them that newbies will be prepped and given to them in 60 days when they understand how land works better.

Of course, the aesthetic prospect is daunting -- remember those newbie sims or the postage stamp sheets of 512s plunked down randomly on the grid in the old days, filled with blight and stupidity, with at least one dork putting up a giant ugly tower with flashing textures, and another one putting up a giant dick, and three others putting up pink monstrosities or spinning crap? And 40 other little newbie cottages cowering under the handiwork of their, um, creative new neighbors. But that's ok -- it's a powerful incentive to give people free land, free imagination, and then watch them flee the imagination of their neighbors to other bigger, more expensive, and long-term tiered land -- the LL recipe from time immemorial for selling their land. Win/win for the Lindens, content creators, and private island owners, who can only beam in happiness at Linden-maintained mainland newbie slums that will provide a powerful incentive for the newbies to level up to island privacy and freedom from blight, leaving behind the grief kiddies who aren't going to pay anybody anything anyway.

So, look for a rearrangement of the product that generates new revenue, not some new product that costs the Lindens time or money.

Here's the transcript of the Sutherland Dam meeting on the subject:

18:33]  Tara Yeats: Hiya Prok, Club, Fret
[18:33]  Fret Magic: Hello Tara.
[18:33]  Second Life: You have left the group 'Mainlanders'.
[18:33]  Clubside Granville: Howdy
[18:34]  Crap Mariner: yo capn
[18:34]  Prokofy Neva: Hi Crap, Clubside, Dusan
[18:34]  Tara Yeats: Howdy Crap, Dusan
[18:34]  Prokofy Neva: hi Fret
[18:34]  Crap Mariner: hi
[18:34]  Dusan Writer: Hey all
[18:35]  Clubside Granville: Dusan, having any jet lag?
[18:35]  Dusan Writer: Airport lag more than jet lag
[18:35]  Dusan Writer: Too much time in O'Hare
[18:35]  Fret Magic: Hi Prokofy. Is this meeting for any group member? Im ok here?
[18:36]  Prokofy Neva: yes it's a public meeting
[18:36]  Crap Mariner: If they let me in, they will let anyone in. ;)
[18:36]  Clubside Granville: But from your tweets I take it your presentation went well?
[18:36]  Fret Magic: LOL, ok thanks :)
[18:36]  Dusan Writer: Yes very much so thanks Clubside
[18:36]  Dusan Writer: 5 year contract secured :)
[18:36]  Crap Mariner: reading your post, dusan
[18:36]  Prokofy Neva: Dusan, did you have to go through that PR firm to get the interview with M?
[18:36]  Dusan Writer: No
[18:36]  Clubside Granville: *cough* blowjob *cough*
[18:37]  SteamPunk Gears: lol
[18:37]  Dusan Writer: Whatever it takes to bring news to the community
[18:37]  Crap Mariner: *sigh* I told you AFTER THE MEETING, Clubside. Sheesh.
[18:37]  Prokofy Neva: hehe
[18:37]  Clubside Granville: Anything to whore out my updated site http://slmainland.com
[18:37]  Crap Mariner: I'd whore my iTunes project, but I'm not a whore. Yay me.
[18:37]  Prokofy Neva: Dusan, it's touching reading about little newbie villages and communities and marriages
[18:38]  Prokofy Neva: that's not in the Lindens' experience really
[18:38]  Prokofy Neva: oops you just did!
[18:38]  Prokofy Neva: they now have everybody trained calling SL "a product" have you noticed?
[18:38]  Tara Yeats: LOL
[18:38]  Prokofy Neva: GInsu must be laughing gleefully
[18:38]  Prokofy Neva: now everybody takes it for granted that they must call it "a product
[18:39]  Earthie Fimicoloud: hello
[18:39]  Dusan Writer: at least he doesnt call it server space
[18:39]  Clubside Granville: Is it a product? Or a platform? What will it be called next week?
[18:39]  Tara Yeats: and at least they're not calling it a "game"
[18:39]  Crap Mariner: "We will never rent server space."
[18:39]  Crap Mariner: Hrm.
[18:40]  Prokofy Neva: well they have everybody trained, indeed, they now all talk indignantly about the price hikes on the "product" and the performance of "the product" etc
[18:40]  Clubside Granville: And how does this new premium initiative work with M's past "we don't need no stinkin' premiums" proclamation?
[18:40]  Crap Mariner: It's a floor wax
[18:41]  Prokofy Neva: Dusan, I just don't buy it when M says that gosh, golly, gee, they got all this cheerful input from all these nice business people who wrote them behind the scenes instead of protesting and then they used their idea for their "amendment". It's bogus. What amendment? The prices is still going up lol.
[18:41]  Dusan Writer: haha yeah
[18:41]  Crap Mariner: The only thing that changed with the protests was hitting the snooze bar once.
[18:41]  Clubside Granville: You mean the redaction... lol
[18:41]  Jacee Aderdeen accepted your inventory offer.
[18:41]  Dusan Writer: i'm not sure what the empathy part means.
[18:42]  Dusan Writer: the Lab was losing money on openspaces, now the residents are, he already had empathy?
[18:42]  Prokofy Neva: I found that interview with T very smarmy
[18:42]  Clubside Granville: Linden Lab featuring the new narcissism
[18:43]  Prokofy Neva: I feel I'm being patronized when some goof tells me about their frog avatar
[18:43]  Malburns Writer: Hi Dusan, Prok, all
[18:43]  Prokofy Neva: don't talk anybody I haev to switch computers
[18:43]  Dusan Writer: hey malburns
[18:43]  Investor Snoodle: Why is everyone railing against the price increase?
[18:43]  Crap Mariner: wait... he refers to chris collins in the interview... certainly not the same chris as fleep, correct?
[18:43]  Malburns Writer: lol Prok
[18:43]  Dusan Writer: i dunno but i hope chris knows how much email there will be on monday
[18:43]  Tara Yeats: no probably the UK Chris Collins who's a linden
[18:44]  Crap Mariner: ah ok. i must not be drunk enough to think straight.
[18:44]  Malburns Writer: There's a Linden Chris Collins - based in Australia
[18:44]  Prokofy Neva: um, alt much, Snoodle?
[18:45]  Clubside Granville: While I'm happy to talk Premiums, something I've been since day one, it'd be more fun to group laugh over the death of Lively... lol
[18:45]  Investor Snoodle: Not much.
[18:45]  Crap Mariner: "One of the first things I did after I joined was visit Global Kids in NYC." oh just hand Rik the 10K L$ and end the hype on this grant. sheesh.
[18:45]  Chamois Chama: Rawr
[18:46]  Amethyst Gears: ao off
[18:46]  Crap Mariner: I wonder how he'd react to Eric Reuters' slap today
[18:46]  Prokofy Neva: oh was there a slap?
[18:46]  Clubside Granville: In the forum post of Premium suggestions everyone keeps talking more groups... with group chat lag as it is, don't people realize the IM code is so backward they couldn't raise groups if they wanted to until the rewrite they promised in 2006
[18:46]  Tara Yeats: missed taht one, Crap

[18:51]  Crap Mariner: mainland, stipend, and access to slightly enhanced support
[18:51]  Dusan Writer: k
[18:51]  Prokofy Neva: can you post that Reuters link and Dusan's link agagin?
[18:51]  Crap Mariner: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/why-reuters-left-second-life-and-how-linden-lab-can-fix-it
[18:51]  Prokofy Neva: thanks
[18:52]  Clubside Granville: It says premium help on the homepage as a feature, but is that as in ticket submission or live help? Since I'm already a subscrtiber I don't know what non-subscribers see when they click the support link
[18:52]  Dusan Writer: http://tinyurl.com/5wjrtb
[18:52]  Crap Mariner: http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/11/21/interview-mark-kingdon-second-life-linden-lab/
[18:52]  Prokofy Neva: non subscribers get nothing, they can't access tickets
[18:52]  Carl Metropolitan: It is ticket submission and web-based live help with clueless people, who will tell you to file a ticket.
[18:52]  Dusan Writer: well i know when i started the stipend was good, but it was so minimal
[18:53]  Cindi Blackburn: folks, I arrived after the discussion, which I thought was to be about Premium Accounts. started and I'm totally lost - perhaps because I'm a blond
[18:53]  Clubside Granville: But what does "extended support" mean, Prok? Do you need to own 1/2 a region to get live help and tickets, or can any premium?
[18:53]  Dusan Writer: i remember renting land because it also included a stipend
[18:53]  Fret Magic: I must say that as a non-subscriber I had a ticked resolves within 24 hours the other day.
[18:53]  Carl Metropolitan: Any premium member can submit tickets.
[18:53]  Cindi Blackburn: what are we discussing?
[18:53]  Clubside Granville: Cindi, these things are always free-form and easily sidetracked, so if you have something to say about Premiums just dive in!
[18:53]  Crap Mariner: livechat has been good for letting me know a rough ETA on things
[18:53]  Malburns Writer: also today - http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/11/20/interview-linden-labs-ginsu-yoon - nine pages of it
[18:54]  Cindi Blackburn: what's the complaint about premium accounts?
[18:54]  Crap Mariner: or if there's something going on that hasn't gotten into the wild through twitter or the blog.
[18:54]  Dusan Writer: Lab is on an interview blitz this week seems like
[18:54]  Clubside Granville: It's not a complaint, it's a new discussion about enhancing them
[18:54]  Carl Metropolitan: There is no complaint--LL asked people in the forums what they would like to see added to them.
[18:54]  Dusan Writer: oh i know, premium accounts can include that awesome SLim thing for um free!
[18:54]  Cindi Blackburn: KK - what's wrong with that
[18:54]  Dusan Writer: :P
[18:55]  Clubside Granville: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=293887
[18:55]  Carl Metropolitan: Now, I suspect they are goign to add some meaningless and mostly useless feature and "compensate" by eliminating stipends.
[18:55]  Crap Mariner: fleep had a good forum post in there
[18:55]  Prokofy Neva: I think you have to drop the idea of more groups, or special inventory features, they won't add strain to the dbase
[18:55]  Fret Magic: Are prices for importing media (images&sounds) the same for subscribers and non. Seems subscribers should get a discount.
[18:55]  Cindi Blackburn: are they eliminating stipends?
[18:55]  Prokofy Neva: what might make sense is to ask for a $680 stipend that would actually be worth the $9.95
[18:55]  Carl Metropolitan: No. This is my speculation based on LL's recent behavior.
[18:55]  Prokofy Neva: no they reduced them but the ymay just eliminate premium accounts, they don't really see a reason to keep them
[18:56]  Clubside Granville: No mention of removing features, they are asking for suggestions on making the subscription more attractive as the numbers continue to fall
[18:56]  Prokofy Neva: they exist only to calibrate land on 4,000 sims
[18:56]  Dusan Writer: I like that level up idea someone in the forum has - premium account plus length of time in SL gives you more
[18:56]  Carl Metropolitan: T Linden posted: "In one sense, the stipends are a bit like Premium Account Residents paying us dollars to get linden dollars. The lindex and third party exchanges are pretty good for this, me thinks, but I'd be interested to know if you look at stipends in subs as "just a low effort way to get lindens" - because there is value in not having to actively go get lindens. "
[18:56]  Prokofy Neva: that's sort of game-like but it's attractive
[18:56]  Carl Metropolitan: That told me he didn't really understand it.
[18:56]  Cindi Blackburn: sl membership is where it has grown today as a result of free accounts
[18:56]  Prokofy Neva: I wonder how flattening tier steps will affect the rentals market, but I suppose they couldn't whack it any more than they have with openspaces, and when they sell those direct, that will kill off the major land barons completely
[18:57]  Crap Mariner: agreed on treating it like unlock/level up
[18:57]  Cindi Blackburn: I have a free account and so do most of my friends
[18:57]  Prokofy Neva: well but those free accounts have payment info on file and they get private island land or rentals
[18:57]  Clubside Granville: Most of the recommendations are for upping limits that if they could they would do for everyone
[18:57]  Prokofy Neva: I'd love to have an SL skills lock like we had in the sims
[18:57]  Cindi Blackburn: we lose very little except the ability to buy land
[18:57]  Crap Mariner: if i were intlibber, i'd shout that i'm subsidizing you ;)
[18:57]  Clubside Granville: Already multiple people saying Premiums should be able to buy Homesteads without owning islands
[18:58]  Prokofy Neva: hahaha what a freak, did you see my blog on his latest antics?!
[18:58]  Carl Metropolitan: If I were intilibber, I'd slit my wrists
[18:58]  Dusan Writer: i really hate to use the word "use case" but should premium accounts be one size fits all?
[18:58]  Prokofy Neva: well Carl you may be right, it may all be conceptual art
[18:58]  Prokofy Neva: I've always thought they should just sell the packet of money
[18:59]  Malburns Writer: premium accounts should get free "god" powers maybe?
[18:59]  Prokofy Neva: currently they have a really huge obstacle, a newbie can come in, plunk down $72 on their credit card for a year-long subscription, and then not be eligible for 30 days to buy Lindens on the exchange because of their limits
[18:59]  Prokofy Neva: that's just absurd, so they need to make sure the premium account contains $2000 or more in it to start
[18:59]  Dusan Writer nods
[18:59]  Dusan Writer: that was the most frustrating thing at the beginning
[18:59]  Prokofy Neva: it used to drop down $1000 right away, then I think $500 after that then $500 a week
[18:59]  Tara Yeats: I haven't read the forums on this yet, but has anyone suggested incrasing how much mainland you can own w/premium for the same tier amt?
[18:59]  Dusan Writer: why you had to wait to buy lindens
[18:59]  Crap Mariner: tara yes
[18:59]  Prokofy Neva: yes they have said on the thread to have 1024
[18:59]  Clubside Granville: Yeah, there are always posts about that on Resident Answers... and there's no good answer... sell me the goddam L$ already
[19:00]  Prokofy Neva: yes if your credit card is good to buy the sub, it has to be good to buy the Lindens, they have to sell newbie packets right off
[19:00]  Dusan Writer nods
[19:00]  Prokofy Neva: just sell them, in increments, like game cards, $3.65 gets you $1000, etc
[19:00]  Prokofy Neva: they have a stable controlled currency exchange, it's crazy not to sell premiums as packets of money
[19:00]  Dusan Writer: what about some real stuff, like all those handy awesome guides to Second Life
[19:01]  Prokofy Neva: Eric Reuters is saying they should have content created by the $10/hour gang, but they could also just rotate people's content submitted
[19:01]  Crap Mariner: in PDF form or book form?
[19:01]  Dusan Writer: Premium account gets you a whack of Lindens and a book with Aimee on the cover on how to be an entrepreneur
[19:01]  Cindi Blackburn: a friend buys his premium account annually at $72 - with a L$300 a week stipend, he pays approximately $1.00 a month for his premium account - seems pretty reasonable to me
[19:01]  Prokofy Neva: of course then it gets to be like There.com with clearances and FIC but they already have FIC
[19:01]  Crap Mariner: cindi - that's the logic i use
[19:01]  Clubside Granville: Yeah, but they don't even send copies to people who appeared in them Dusan... I had to tell Keystone Bouchard he was in it, he didn't know... lol
[19:01]  Crap Mariner: i can't remember if i donate my 512 to a group
[19:02]  Dusan Writer: lol
[19:02]  Tara Yeats: Cindi - and those of us who jumped in before they dropped the weekly stipend end up in the black that way
[19:02]  Prokofy Neva: well if you have 512 you don't have in use, you can donate to our SL Public Land Preserve
[19:02]  Carl Metropolitan: If you don't, donate it to NCI.
[19:02]  Clubside Granville: lol
[19:02]  Dusan Writer: do it like Clinton used to do for donors - premium membership gets a tour of LindenLand, super extra premium gets a night in Philip's bedroom
[19:02]  Carl Metropolitan: Ah--tooslow
[19:02]  Prokofy Neva: I still have accounts that get the $500, but that doesn't even cover the payment of the 3 month subscription\
[19:02]  Carl Metropolitan: Prokofy beat me
[19:02]  Tara Yeats: lol Dusan
[19:03]  Prokofy Neva: of course, the idea that a sub has to pay for itself is peculiarly an SL invention
[19:03]  Clubside Granville: It pays if you buy the year version Prok, supposedly
[19:03]  Prokofy Neva: World of Warcraft costs $15/ full stop. Yo u don't get a special steed or hat or groups or anything, just the game, that's it
[19:03]  Cindi Blackburn: have they dropped the weekly stipend?
[19:03]  Prokofy Neva: people are demanding and entitlement happy in Sl
[19:03]  Dusan Writer: whats the overall advantage to premiums again?
[19:03]  Tara Yeats: nope, Cindi they haven't
[19:03]  Prokofy Neva: no Cindi not at all
[19:03]  Chamois Chama: lol
[19:03]  Fret Magic: But nothing else in WoW cost RL $.
[19:03]  Tara Yeats: Dusan: mainland ownership
[19:04]  Carl Metropolitan: Premium residents are "entitlement happy" because most people don't pay shit for SL
[19:04]  Dusan Writer: i mean, if anyone could buy lindens and land would that be such a bad thing?
[19:04]  Dusan Writer: scrap premiums altogether
[19:04]  Carl Metropolitan: The paying customers see that.
[19:04]  Prokofy Neva: yes Fret that's a good point, but then, in WoW you are flying around consuming content. Here, it's the same thing essentially, you are consuming everybody else's builds and stuff
[19:05]  Clubside Granville: The feature they should add is above a premium is the word "PREMIUM" in a huge rainbow shifting font with big arrows pointing at you and automatic applause after every line of chat
[19:05]  Prokofy Neva: I just don't get the feeling that the Lindens themselves care about premium, and if they can flatten tier or provide newbie land that doesn't sell or transfer and otherwise compete with inworld business, they will
[19:05]  Fret Magic: If all consumables were free. I woul dbe more inclined to subscribe. however that takes away a large aspect of SL, entrprising.
[19:05]  Tara Yeats: groan, Club@!
[19:05]  Chamois Chama: yes @ fret
[19:06]  Prokofy Neva: I thought it was interesting that ciaran pointed out in his blog that in the PC world, the PC manufacturer doesn't sell direct but lets their retailers sell the machine, if they competed with their own retailers, they'd lose them
[19:06]  Cindi Blackburn: premium account holders who buy smart, pay $1.00 a month - the rest of us are free - they pay that dollar for the ability to buy land and the rest of us domn't have that ability
[19:06]  Prokofy Neva: why doesn't that simple principle apply here?
[19:06]  Dusan Writer: hmmm
[19:06]  Clubside Granville: I just can't really think of anything since to me being "Premium" is a vote of support, in addition to the land ownership dealie...
[19:06]  Prokofy Neva: why can't M and T and Z and all these other alphabetical Lindens make an unequivocal statement: we love the rentals business, we're sorry, and we're here to help.
[19:06]  Prokofy Neva: well Clubside what if you got a car, clothes, etc
[19:06]  Cindi Blackburn: however, I spend well over that in other items each month as do a host of "freeloaders"
[19:07]  Cindi Blackburn: without us, much of the sl economy would collapse
[19:07]  Prokofy Neva: yes the idea that free accounts don't buy Lindens is erroneous, of course they do, what do they do when they log on? the ybuy stuff
[19:07]  Clubside Granville: I already buy all that as a horrible money-burning-a-hole-in-my-pocket shopaholic
[19:07]  Chamois Chama: lol
[19:07]  Clubside Granville: But from a new resident perspective an enhanced Library seems like a no-brainer
[19:07]  Carl Metropolitan: Increasing the value of a Premium account does not mean (or should not mean) decreasing the benefits of a Basic account
[19:07]  Crap Mariner: what it they go through sl exchange or onrez with paypal?
[19:08]  Cindi Blackburn: I don't spend the extra dollar, cause I don't have a compulsion to own land
[19:08]  Clubside Granville: Give premiums some new Linden trees that don't suck
[19:08]  Dusan Writer: ohhh premium accounts can include free admission to rezzable! thats it!
[19:08]  Tara Yeats: hey, there ya go, Dusan!
[19:08]  Clubside Granville: Until it closes... lol
[19:08]  Prokofy Neva: I'll bet you spend time on other people's land, though Cindi, and it's a good thing for you they have that compulsion
[19:08]  Cindi Blackburn: but... I wouldn't have joined sl in the first lace if it hadn't been free
[19:08]  Crap Mariner: access to special linden library content was one of fleeps suggestions yes
[19:08]  Prokofy Neva: lol Dusan, what a prize!
[19:08]  Cindi Blackburn: *place
[19:09]  Carl Metropolitan: One of the best suggestions I saw was letting premium accounts rez mega and micro prims.
[19:09]  Prokofy Neva: but they already can everywhere
[19:09]  Clubside Granville: There should be a Premium group nagfest like Concierge
[19:09]  Prokofy Neva: how will you undo that?
[19:09]  Carl Metropolitan: But a lot of premiums don't build
[19:09]  Dusan Writer: so why not a menu of things, depending if you like to shop, build, whatever
[19:09]  Carl Metropolitan: So it would not be universally useful
[19:09]  Crap Mariner: extra groups, extra picks, extra characters in profiles
[19:09]  Fret Magic: I am in sl due to the college I work for. We want as many people to visit our land as possible. I would hate to see free accounts go away.
[19:09]  Dusan Writer: if you like to shop, it's all lindens, if you want land, you get tier, if you socialize a different group thing
[19:10]  Cindi Blackburn: what's wrong with the way it is??
[19:10]  Prokofy Neva: it would be hard for them to put back i nthe free or cheap first land, that ended up being exploited like all such socialist programs, people made 100 alts and flipped it
[19:10]  Tara Yeats: I can't imagine free accts going away, Fret
[19:10]  Prokofy Neva: of course, they could make a newbie ghetto of 128 512s on a sim that can't be sold or transferred, but people will go crazy in it
[19:10]  Dusan Writer: the issue is people pay for premium and dont feel they get much for it, so premiums are dropping
[19:10]  Prokofy Neva: we used to see those in the old day with these newbie postage stamp sheets blighting entire sims
[19:10]  Prokofy Neva: they were like Mexico City or something
[19:10]  Tara Yeats: Cindy, in the Linden blog, T Linden asked the question about what would make premium membership more attractive & asked for ideas
[19:11]  Crap Mariner: A name change after 2 or 3 years would be an interesting feature.
[19:11]  SteamPunk Gears: :P~
[19:11]  SteamPunk Gears: enhanced themed profiles for premium accounts
[19:11]  Prokofy Neva: I wonder if that soliciting of ideas then means they won't kill it
[19:11]  Chamois Chama: I would like to know the percentage of businesses with premiums
[19:11]  Crap Mariner: Or access to a middle name. Or longer tag.
[19:11]  Prokofy Neva: what would it cost them to enable people on premiums to get their own name for free or a name change
[19:11]  Dusan Writer: ohhh thats a good idea
[19:12]  Prokofy Neva: Chamois, I'll be it's tiny, the businesses let the "solutions providers" buy up sims for them
[19:12]  Chamois Chama: I like the name idea
[19:12]  Tara Yeats: how about access to a custom name?
[19:12]  Crap Mariner: *coughs* heh... um... good idea
[19:12]  Fret Magic: I think the best incentive is more stipend. I mean Labs doest pay for thier servers and employees with l$. So what is to them them to give more. But these stipend L$ are non-transferable and non tradable on th eexchange.
[19:12]  Clubside Granville: Switching from calling it a "platform" to a "product" actually points to the reason for Premiums to continue... lol
[19:12]  Prokofy Neva: is that some kind of dbase nightmare though that they'd fuss about? renaming all your inventory objects etc etc
[19:12]  Chamois Chama: They have that available for those who subscrib as outside corperations
[19:12]  Prokofy Neva: or wuold they just start up the new additional account under your special custom request
[19:12]  Clubside Granville: Some people mentioned a discount on classifieds... I wonder how that would work
[19:12]  Crap Mariner: SQL update command. poof. done.
[19:12]  Prokofy Neva: see that's how they could do it, you sign on, pay the $9.95, and get to pick your name, like the sims
[19:12]  Tara Yeats: right, Chamoi - extend it to premium acct holders
[19:12]  Dusan Writer: true clubside .... premiums could be vertical specific, the "Educator Premium Pack with Free Pointer Stick" and the "Enterprise Use Premium Pack with Firewall Included"
[19:13]  Crap Mariner: if it ain't that simple, why not?
[19:13]  Malburns Writer: premium should definitely e "ad free" lol
[19:13]  Prokofy Neva: I think they had way too complex suggestions on that thread, Clubside, too much administration and maintenance
[19:13]  Prokofy Neva: they need some simple thing they can add cost free with a mouse click
[19:13]  Chamois Chama: if it's add free more business may not go under
[19:13]  Cindi Blackburn: the worry is the loss of revenue to LL??
[19:13]  Clubside Granville: I agree Prok, many of the suggestions are for feature upgrades that if they could implement they'd give to everyone
[19:14]  Chamois Chama: in rl there are free magazines people can advertize in-they pay a very small amount to maintain the magazine
[19:14]  Carl Metropolitan: My suggestions for cheap stuff:
[19:14]  Carl Metropolitan: Offer a secondlife.name@secondlife.com free email address.
[19:14]  Dusan Writer: where else do you see premium membership
[19:14]  Carl Metropolitan: Premium-only office hours (at hours when most of your US customers are NOT at work),
[19:14]  Chamois Chama: lol-right
[19:14]  Dusan Writer: i mean places like Flickr in a way right? pay to allow more photos to upload, whatever
[19:14]  Clubside Granville: Remember when LL used to have an email magazine... even crappy There and kaneva still offer that...
[19:14]  Carl Metropolitan: Make Premium account holders count for more when calculating traffic. This will increase the prestige of the Premium product, while at the same time discouraging camping and camping bots.
[19:14]  Fret Magic: Email address and custom name are both real nice ideas!
[19:14]  Fret Magic: And easy
[19:14]  Prokofy Neva: yes well every time someone has the bright idea to add more groups, they say oh we can't do that unless we do it for eveyrone
[19:14]  Chamois Chama: Lindon should make a profit
[19:14]  Carl Metropolitan: But--intangible benefits while reducing tangible benefits (such as the stipend and free tier) will be seen as insulting.
[19:14]  Crap Mariner: airline frequent flier programmes... anything at SL model that for premium possibilities?
[19:14]  Tara Yeats: I like that one, Carl - access to premium-only linden office hours
[19:14]  Dusan Writer: the Lab has been talking about allowing name changes for a fee
[19:15]  Prokofy Neva: of course, they are able to add firewalls for IBM and make a separate grid for RRR, etc. -- but they are paying more than $9.95
[19:15]  Prokofy Neva: right now the name costs $150
[19:15]  Prokofy Neva: now why does it cost so much?
[19:15]  Fret Magic: I have to leave early. Take care everyone.
[19:15]  Prokofy Neva: I don't get it, the just add a name, they used to have 100 a week
[19:15]  Chamois Chama: I would like to know how much work is involved
[19:15]  Clubside Granville: To discourage it
[19:15]  Prokofy Neva: thanks for coming Fret
[19:15]  Prokofy Neva: yes Chamois me too
[19:15]  Chamois Chama: they should obviously make a profit
[19:16]  Chamois Chama: they are a business
[19:16]  Clubside Granville: It's funny that the original idea of the common last names was to encourage social networking... that really worked out
[19:16]  Prokofy Neva: well when you pay for premiums on other services, what do you get?
[19:16]  Prokofy Neva: on tripod or a blog or something you get more storage space and more bandwidth, but here, they don't ration that, even though they should
[19:16]  Clubside Granville: Now they make new names and the idiots pour out of the woodwork to create "cleverly" named alts
[19:16]  Carl Metropolitan: Its kind of a cool perk if you are an older resident with an uncommon last name now.
[19:16]  SteamPunk Gears: IMVU will sell you anything
[19:16]  Prokofy Neva: I was lucky I picked up my RL name for free when it just rolled in with the regular names
[19:17]  Carl Metropolitan: I got lucky, too
[19:17]  Carl Metropolitan: I have Carl Henderson now
[19:17]  Cindi Blackburn: LL is entitled to a reasonable profit - why not a small share of all items bought and sold - something less than 1%, ubut on all transactions
[19:17]  Chamois Chama: I had that also-3 years ago
[19:17]  Chamois Chama: hasnt been like that since
[19:17]  Dusan Writer: how about a certain number of free texture uploads or photos
[19:17]  Chamois Chama: yes
[19:17]  Tara Yeats: Cindi - that would cause wholesale inssurection by anyone who creates
[19:17]  Chamois Chama: true
[19:17]  Tara Yeats: if it was direct
[19:17]  Prokofy Neva: Dusan, how can they do that for some and not all? they have an automatic sink of $10
[19:18]  Crap Mariner: people are willing to spend 2 to 3 bucks for bottled water. LL needs to find that same cause to purchase, place it within premium
[19:18]  Tara Yeats: i.e., other than however LL takes a cut when you buy $L
[19:18]  Cindi Blackburn: not if the share is essentially invisible
[19:18]  Prokofy Neva: I think that what it has to be is extra stuff, more library stuff
[19:18]  Dusan Writer: hmm true
[19:18]  Malburns Writer: form inworld "democratic" government and only premiums allowed to stand for office?
[19:18]  Chamois Chama: *stabs self in eye with pen*
[19:18]  Crap Mariner: agreed. items, specials. unlocks. level ups.
[19:18]  Clubside Granville: Allow premiums to fly to any height without the need for a flight-aid
[19:18]  Prokofy Neva: yes I don't get that about the water, I find that astounding, I never buy water
[19:18]  Prokofy Neva: water is in the tap, this is civilization, we have tap water
[19:18]  Dusan Writer: how about you get shares options in linden lab
[19:18]  SteamPunk Gears: would cause to much drama
[19:19]  SteamPunk Gears: power hungry people
[19:19]  Tara Yeats: IPO rights?
[19:19]  Prokofy Neva: plus seltzer is $2.00/3, why spend $1.89 on a bottle half the size of selzter?
[19:19]  Tara Yeats: status, Prok, status ;-)
[19:19]  Prokofy Neva: What if they charged more to get in the Linden office hours?
[19:19]  Prokofy Neva: that would fly against their socialist nature too tho
[19:19]  Prokofy Neva: we have to think of something that is extra, but still socialist
[19:19]  Dusan Writer: LOL
[19:19]  Crap Mariner: for every dollar you spend, you get your name printed on a jellybean that is put in a LL candy dish...
[19:19]  Prokofy Neva: yes...
[19:19]  Chamois Chama: lol
[19:19]  Prokofy Neva: and once a year...
[19:20]  Cindi Blackburn: hehehe - I can already fly to any height with my free flight feather - what value there?
[19:20]  Carl Metropolitan: I don't really know why we are talking about this. We all know they are going to kill stipends and "compensate" by adding a vanity @secondlife.com, and tell us that shit is chocolate.
[19:20]  Prokofy Neva: ghahahah Carl
[19:20]  Prokofy Neva: you are so right
[19:20]  Clubside Granville: Sorry Cindi, like I said earlier... I got nuthin'...
[19:20]  Chamois Chama: mmm chocolate
[19:20]  Crap Mariner: @secondlife.com is the bottled water. yes.
[19:20]  Prokofy Neva: Carl Henderson as ever was!
[19:20]  Malburns Writer: premiums will have direct access to any linden 24/7
[19:20]  Prokofy Neva: look at that little fellow
[19:20]  Tara Yeats: oooh, scarey thought, mal! lol
[19:20]  Prokofy Neva: see I could do that now, I have 2 computers, I could log on my alts
[19:20]  Carl Henderson: Get off me!
[19:20]  Malburns Writer: very socialist that
[19:20]  Clubside Granville: And a spanking poseball, Mal?
[19:21]  Carl Metropolitan: Uppity alts.
[19:21]  SteamPunk Gears: premium accounts get there avatar photo laminated on the linden office wall of supporters
[19:21]  Prokofy Neva: heheheh
[19:21]  Cindi Blackburn: if they kill stipends, they'll further erode the value of a premium account
[19:21]  Carl Henderson: I am cute!!! Love me!!!
[19:21]  Cindi Blackburn: they'll be defeating themselves
[19:21]  Carl Metropolitan: I have told them that in the Forums
[19:21]  Tara Yeats: kill stipends and premium accts would totally tank
[19:21]  Clubside Granville: Carl you whore!
[19:21]  Prokofy Neva: I haven't been able to get the value out of my alt because I hate having to spend money on dressing it
[19:21]  Malburns Writer: more serious - premiums get unlimited groups, extra tools even
[19:21]  Dusan Writer: but if they allow you to buy lindens in the first 30 days imagine all the money from people who come and leave after the first week but buy a bunch of stuff
[19:21]  Carl Metropolitan: I don't expect to be listend to.
[19:21]  Chamois Chama: The stipend is basically giving us our membership money back
[19:22]  Carl Henderson: This is a free avatar from Caledon Oxbridge!
[19:22]  Chamois Chama: by giving us the stipend we are more opt to spend
[19:22]  Prokofy Neva: wow, does Desmond have alts he gives away on his newbie thing?
[19:22]  Prokofy Neva: er avatars I mean
[19:22]  Cindi Blackburn: a decision to kill stipends would rival the decisions of the US auto makers
[19:22]  Dusan Writer: you see it in games all the time, players who come, buy a bunch of game gold with paypal and then quit
[19:22]  Chamois Chama: spending helps the economy
[19:22]  Tara Yeats: Hey SecondLie!
[19:22]  Cindi Blackburn: fast way to destroy an industry
[19:22]  Carl Metropolitan: Not alts, but there are free Avatars.
[19:23]  Dusan Writer: but here, they dont even let you get your hands on any lindens in the first 30 days it's frustrating
[19:23]  Chamois Chama: well they need to make sure they will get paid first
[19:23]  Prokofy Neva: yes Dusan that is eminently fixable
[19:24]  Carl Metropolitan: There are about ten steampunk/victorian AVs to pick from. Created by the Caledon and friends of.
[19:24]  Clubside Granville: Maybe let Premiums rez items on Linden land... nice to be able to launch a boat without finding some other dude's land near the water with build rights
[19:24]  Carl Henderson: I'm an evil lag causing bunny. Have to go!
[19:24]  Dusan Writer: i dont get it. a 30 day security clearance? i mean, dont credit card companies mitigate against fraud somehow, or PayPal?
[19:24]  Crap Mariner: John - Land Of Lincoln
[19:24]  Cindi Blackburn: tax transactions - and make it insignificant - then everybody in sl is supporting the system
[19:25]  Prokofy Neva: Now there's an interesting idea
[19:25]  Cindi Blackburn: those that don't want to pay can live on the available freebies
[19:25]  Prokofy Neva: being able to join a master Linden Land group that lets you rez on their land
[19:25]  Chamois Chama: welll...this is just a virtual world guys-it's not like we will die without money
[19:25]  Prokofy Neva: of course that will lead to vast amounts of junk
[19:25]  Clubside Granville: They have auto-return! lol
[19:25]  Carl Metropolitan: Tax transactions? Oh--that will not end well.
[19:25]  Dusan Writer: it's other people's money we want Chamois
[19:25]  Prokofy Neva: well but see you could rez on their land in their group
[19:25]  Dusan Writer: keep the content economy moving
[19:25]  Cindi Blackburn: like there isn't a vast amount f junk already
[19:25]  Prokofy Neva: they could just make parks where pepole could do that
[19:25]  Prokofy Neva: again, it's all competing with resident projects that do that
[19:26]  Carl Metropolitan: I remember when LL created the Lindex, people thought they would never use it to print and sell L$. Now it is one of their significant revenue streams.
[19:26]  Prokofy Neva: do they understand the concept of "free markets"? I guess not
[19:26]  Chamois Chama: I buy and sell all the time
[19:26]  Cindi Blackburn: I lived on that junk for a long time - and some of it is quite good
[19:26]  Chamois Chama: *looks over shoulder for the US Gov*
[19:26]  Prokofy Neva: Carl, it wasn't that "people thought," it's that their inventor, hand on heart, sat here in this room, and said they'd never do that, and Philip said they'd never do that
[19:26]  Prokofy Neva: but like Yeltsin, they did
[19:26]  Carl Metropolitan: LL prefers "state capitalism" Free markets are scary.
[19:27]  Clubside Granville: The junk is boundless... I've been surveying Infohubs and man oh man, the junk is tap-dancing for the newbies
[19:27]  Prokofy Neva: well yes there is no shortag eof newbie junk
[19:27]  Prokofy Neva: that's why what the Lindens put in their library has to be stellar
[19:27]  Prokofy Neva: but anything would be better than that dead parrot
[19:27]  Carl Metropolitan: NCI has an InfoNode near or adjacent to nearly all InfoHubs with lots of free stuff.
[19:27]  Chamois Chama: lol
[19:27]  Tara Yeats: I daresay all of us have an abundanvce of those freebies cluttering up our inventories
[19:27]  Prokofy Neva: Hi Jane
[19:27]  Prokofy Neva: I can't let them go
[19:28]  Chamois Chama: I cleaned out 3,000 of them
[19:28]  JaneD DeCuir: Hi Pro
[19:28]  Carl Metropolitan: I have an excuse. I keep them as a backup for NCI
[19:28]  Dusan Writer: i'd pay triple my premium for someone to organize my inventory
[19:28]  Tara Yeats: LOL
[19:28]  Carl Metropolitan: Though I should dump most of them on one of the NCI Alts.
[19:28]  Prokofy Neva: hahaha Dusan that's a splendid idea
[19:28]  Dusan Writer: in fact i'd give someone a sim, my first born, anything they want
[19:28]  Chamois Chama: I'll do it
[19:28]  Clubside Granville: Go check out Hyles, Carl... http://slmainland.com/2008/11/21/infohub-at-hyles/
[19:28]  Prokofy Neva: I would pay them $49.95 as a one-time inventory organization fee
[19:28]  Chamois Chama: born organizer here
[19:28]  Prokofy Neva: like having a cleaning lady
[19:28]  Carl Metropolitan: We have a lighthouse just across the water from Hyles
[19:28]  Prokofy Neva: but Hyles is NCi's hub too
[19:28]  Dusan Writer: hmmm would have to be highly confidential the service however.
[19:29]  Cindi Blackburn: everybody sitting here could exist on freebies, but I'd bet everybody here has some bought items
[19:29]  Prokofy Neva: hahahah Dusan
[19:29]  Dusan Writer: not that my inventory contains anything untoward
[19:29]  Crap Mariner: You need a windup key.
[19:29]  Tara Yeats: yea, if there's one elephant in the viewer closet it's the f*cking inventory setup
[19:29]  Chamois Chama: dont worry I wont tell anyone about your ball gag :)
[19:29]  SecondLie Scribe: You need therapy.
[19:29]  Cindi Blackburn laughing
[19:29]  Clubside Granville: I hope not Prok, it's a mess!
[19:29]  Prokofy Neva: SecondLie looks like something out of a Magritte painting
[19:29]  Prokofy Neva: it's his 110th birthday
[19:29]  Cindi Blackburn: ring gags are far better - lol
[19:30]  SecondLie Scribe is allergic to apples
[19:30]  Tara Yeats: SecondLie should have Philip Linden hair
[19:30]  Dusan Writer: god forbid the Lindens ever disallow things called 'object' then i'm really sunk
[19:30]  Tara Yeats: ROFL Dusan!!
[19:30]  Prokofy Neva: I routinely just delete all those things, how important can they be if I didn't name them?
[19:30]  Dusan Writer: HAHAHA good point
[19:30]  Chamois Chama: exactly
[19:30]  Carl Metropolitan: If you think Hyles is bad now--when we first got the property next to it in Bailaya, someone had a wall of flexi penises facing the InfoHub
[19:31]  Carl Metropolitan: Hi Linda
[19:31]  Chamois Chama: I did howevere save the toys
[19:31]  Chamois Chama: along with MY ball gag :)
[19:31]  Prokofy Neva: see the Lindens, being socialists, didn't value their thing, and then it's hard to make it suddenly be valuable, they give away accounts, they let freebies proliferate, they give away free endless inventory for life, they give away the entire store
[19:31]  Tara Yeats: it's a good thing the inventory system doesn't just auto attach a number to "object" like MS word does to new docs...
[19:31]  Prokofy Neva: then they get cranky and say OS sims have to cost a bundle
[19:31]  Prokofy Neva: this is why socialism doesn't work
[19:31]  Dusan Writer: i sort of liked hamlet's idea of a date on items
[19:31]  Dusan Writer: but what i'd really like is for content creators to be able to put an expiration on content
[19:31]  Prokofy Neva: we could make the items atrophy like in The Sims
[19:31]  Linda Coffee: hello
[19:31]  Prokofy Neva: so like it would start to have wear on it
[19:31]  Prokofy Neva: it would say 75 percent wear
[19:31]  Clubside Granville: lol... okay Carl, I know some of these are works in progress... but Hyles looks like what Prok used to describe the Telehubs... with the added bonus of a ban-line parcel adjacent to the rez spot
[19:32]  Dusan Writer: yeah exactly prok
[19:32]  Prokofy Neva: and someone would have to come and repair it with special skills
[19:32]  Dusan Writer: LOL
[19:32]  Malburns Writer: Hi Linda
[19:32]  Prokofy Neva: they should put more game stuff in here, it will pay off
[19:32]  Prokofy Neva: we will suck it up like
[19:32]  Prokofy Neva: like
[19:32]  Dusan Writer: anda replacement for camping
[19:32]  Prokofy Neva: vacuum cleaners
[19:32]  Dusan Writer: become a shoe repair person
[19:32]  Carl Metropolitan: BRB
[19:32]  Chamois Chama: lol
[19:32]  JaneD DeCuir: shoe polishing prokofy
[19:32]  Tara Yeats: new prims for old...
[19:32]  Amethyst Gears: you can do it with a script, as I've seen demos that only last a certain amount of time, or certain amount of wears
[19:32]  JaneD DeCuir giggles
[19:32]  Chamois Chama: can you take the script sound out of these boots please?
[19:33]  Prokofy Neva: they should stop saying it's not-a-game and say, look, here's what Strategic SL costs: $9.95 a month, with the steed, the 3 Linden cards and access to office hour land for 30 days, the car, etc
[19:33]  Dusan Writer: truly amethyst?
[19:33]  Amethyst Gears: yes
[19:33]  Cindi Blackburn: Prokofy, freebies are the hook, the lost leader, they get newbies in the door
[19:33]  Prokofy Neva: then have like $39.95 has the magic crystals, the direct line to the G team, etc
[19:33]  Clubside Granville: yesm there's a whole new class of camp devices... watch my avatar pick endless apples for L$1/hour
[19:33]  Prokofy Neva: no they aren't a hook, they're a menace
[19:33]  Prokofy Neva: too many of them and it's all about vanity
[19:33]  Amethyst Gears: lets see, one i can think of is the hoof it demos, the newer sculpty ones
[19:33]  Tara Yeats: shoe updating service - replace the cylinders with sculpies for $L50/pair
[19:33]  Cindi Blackburn: once in, they begin to buy, or they leave
[19:33]  Dusan Writer: freebies are ok IF they degrade
[19:33]  Amethyst Gears: its been awhile
[19:34]  Dusan Writer: that way the content creators cant just spit out free stuff and wash out the market
[19:34]  Prokofy Neva: Dusan so you're saying that everything in your inventory evaporates unless you buy the premium?
[19:34]  Cindi Blackburn: nonsense - leave the freebies as they are
[19:34]  Chamois Chama: I hate that camping crap
[19:34]  Prokofy Neva: no, Cindi, there are too many, and they harm the economy terribly, they are a vanity project, not about helping newbies
[19:34]  Chamois Chama: thats worse than rl begging
[19:34]  Chamois Chama: get a job
[19:34]  Clubside Granville: Spend a USD
[19:34]  Chamois Chama: or a membership
[19:34]  Tara Yeats: how aboutbeing able to limit the # of copies of a given freebie?
[19:34]  Prokofy Neva: what would it cost them to have 1024 instead of 512?
[19:34]  Chamois Chama: right
[19:35]  Prokofy Neva: and would anyone really care?
[19:35]  Chamois Chama: limit the inventory
[19:35]  Prokofy Neva: how could they do that technically Tara?
[19:35]  Clubside Granville: At the moment Prok it would help cut down the yellow! lol
[19:35]  Prokofy Neva: all this one for all and all for one stuff of SL prevents them
[19:35]  Prokofy Neva: that's true Clubside
[19:35]  Tara Yeats: dunno Prok - just another over-the-edge idea
[19:35]  Chamois Chama: it wouldnt cut down bots
[19:35]  Prokofy Neva: but then the Lindens are not interested in giving away server space
[19:35]  Crap Mariner: damn those bots. giving robots a bad name.
[19:35]  Prokofy Neva: they are interested in charging more for ti
[19:35]  JaneD DeCuir: lol
[19:36]  Prokofy Neva: I think what they want is to take stipends out, you can interpret what they said as meaning that, they want money to be merely money on the exchange, and the premium to have content
[19:36]  Prokofy Neva: content for them is free
[19:36]  Clubside Granville: Maybe if they promoted the group features more the prospect of donating tier from a Premium to a group would seem like a feature
[19:36]  Chamois Chama: I say.....
[19:36]  Prokofy Neva: they grab it off the FIC, put it in the Library, costs nothing
[19:36]  Cindi Blackburn: sl is a place to meet people and have fun - if one is here to make a full-time living, there are far better alternatives
[19:36]  Prokofy Neva: Clubside they'd have to really fix up groups a bunch
[19:36]  Cindi Blackburn: like rl
[19:36]  Tara Yeats: Prok - probably some real limits on how much they can effectively do that, since hardware costs continue to drop relative to space & speed
[19:36]  Prokofy Neva: right now you can't chat in them without errors
[19:36]  Chamois Chama: keep free accounts but give them a pre set inventory or clothing shoes and toys
[19:36]  Chamois Chama: you cant have anything unless you pay for it
[19:37]  Carl Metropolitan: Crap
[19:37]  Chamois Chama: want to upgrade? there ya go
[19:37]  Carl Metropolitan: SOmething is broken on my client
[19:37]  Prokofy Neva: they could make a club and have it banned except to premiums
[19:37]  Crap Mariner: They're going to be averse to adding features or discounts if possible. If you believe when they said that the results of OpenSpace changes could not be predicted, then they are going to be averse to any other changes that add value to the point it can be gamed.
[19:38]  Prokofy Neva: yes Crap, that's the point, that's why this caper will be whatever costs them least
[19:38]  Cindi Blackburn: if Everything is pay as you go - watch the population of sl disappear in a heartbeat
[19:38]  Chamois Chama: if people are dropping premiums-then lower the noobie status
[19:38]  Chamois Chama: maybe it's the noobs who actually have to much
[19:38]  Clubside Granville: I can see it now... poor free accounts and dudes owning 200 islands with their faces pressed up against the ban lines
[19:38]  Chamois Chama: lol
[19:38]  Chamois Chama: I hate ban lines
[19:38]  JaneD DeCuir: im too
[19:38]  Dusan Writer: LOL
[19:38]  Crap Mariner: The lesson I learned from playing Gaunlet so many years ago is that you can leave out Food to add life, sure, but always get them plugging in quarters to keep the game going.
[19:38]  Chamois Chama: well ya want in...then PAY
[19:39]  Chamois Chama: LL has to make money-it's business
[19:39]  JaneD DeCuir: a good working landprotector is more useful then this banlines
[19:39]  Tara Yeats: Cindi - I agree - cutting freebies and what free accounts can have/do would just cut population
[19:39]  Amethyst Gears: I don't think i would ever stayed long enough to get a pid account if not for freebies, it got me throungh my first months and actually allowed me to win in contests and actually buy my own things. It also drove me to look at things and figure out how to make my own.
[19:39]  Chamois Chama: we cant lose sight of that
[19:39]  Chamois Chama: they need to operate
[19:39]  Prokofy Neva: wow, Ginsu says education and enterprise *together* are 20 pecent
[19:39]  Chamois Chama: Do you know how much it costs to maintain a Call Center?
[19:39]  Prokofy Neva: so that means enterprise dropped, because before Glenn said 15 percent
[19:39]  Dusan Writer: M implies the same
[19:39]  Crap Mariner: I paid for my first suit honestly... giving up camping and winning a few rounds of poker.
[19:39]  Clubside Granville: I still hope to get LL to go for a new kind of "zoned" continent (without a theme like Nautilus) where ban lines aren't allowed, the minimum parcel size is 8K and people actually work together toi maintain roads and rails
[19:40]  Cindi Blackburn: the fastest way to destroy sl is to become greedy
[19:40]  Carl Metropolitan: Is the SL Mainland blog maintained by someone here
[19:40]  Dusan Writer: anyways i have to run all, need to go cancel my premium since i now realize um i dont know why i have it
[19:40]  Carl Metropolitan: ?
[19:40]  Crap Mariner: It's expensive to maintain a call center. Even if it's distributed across the country through a virtual phone switch.
[19:40]  Prokofy Neva: There isn't any realistic way to cut freebies, that's not the objective, it's rather about getting creators to stop selling themselves so short and treat themselves better, rather than imagining they are helping mankind
[19:40]  Clubside Granville: Great seeing ya in-world Dusan!
[19:40]  Prokofy Neva: Dusan laff riot
[19:40]  Cindi Blackburn: operating costs HAVE to be covered and a reasonable profit is fine
[19:40]  Tara Yeats: Carl - that's Clubside's site
[19:40]  Dusan Writer: take care everyone. cya Clubside and thanks for hosting Prok
[19:40]  Carl Metropolitan: CoolThanks
[19:40]  Tara Yeats: Cya Dusan :-)
[19:41]  Cindi Blackburn: greed - sl dies
[19:41]  Crap Mariner: Stats to keep. Managers to "motivate." Keep em trained, keep em cooperating but also competing.
[19:41]  Clubside Granville: Yes, I'm whoring it again: http://slmainland.com
[19:42]  Chamois Chama: Can I have the link to the blog this all goes in please?
[19:42]  Chamois Chama: *stabs self in other eye with pen*
[19:42]  Tara Yeats: that would be Prok's blog, Chamois
[19:43]  Chamois Chama: yeah do you have the link?
[19:43]  Prokofy Neva: Ginsu is so annoying
[19:43]  Carl Metropolitan: secondthoughts.typepad.com
[19:43]  SteamPunk Gears: if you want stats put them on land barrons rateing system so we all can avoide the bad ones :3
[19:43]  Cindi Blackburn: think long term sl has a huge population and it's growing every day - ask why - because it's entry free and one can survive without additional costs
[19:43]  Prokofy Neva: he thinks the critique of big business is about being in a little closeknit early adopters' community that 'can't let go"
[19:43]  Tara Yeats: Also in prok's profile, Cham
[19:43]  Prokofy Neva: but I for one wasn't in any such beta test early adopter's community, I wanted the world to get big and more urban and less provincial
[19:43]  Cindi Blackburn: but, anybody who's here for a while, starts buying
[19:43]  Chamois Chama: I dont see it
[19:44]  Prokofy Neva: but big business meant the Lindens began to turn their feature set to play to certain clients, and shafted the other customers
[19:44]  Cindi Blackburn: a shape, a skin, a special walk
[19:44]  Prokofy Neva: it mean sucking the best content creators into RL businesses that didn't even appreciate what they got, and it meant gutting the world
[19:44]  Cindi Blackburn: but all of us buy
[19:44]  Chamois Chama: yeah I dont see it
[19:44]  Chamois Chama: maybe i should stop stabing my eyes out
[19:45]  Chamois Chama: ooh here it is DURRRRRR
[19:45]  Cindi Blackburn: some small fraction of those transactions could support the operating costs and the growth
[19:45]  Tara Yeats: Chaois - Web tab in the profile ;-)
Prokofy Neva: wow they have a new thing on here in the chat on the menu, "play typing animation" as something you can very easily check on or off
Clubside Granville: Okay, I think what we've seen here and on the forum is that Premiums will continue in some form and hopefully we'll get some cool bonuses... for now though, I've got some Left 4 Dead on the Xbox to play! G'nigh!
Prokofy Neva: hahahaha Left 4 Dead
Tara Yeats: nite Club
Prokofy Neva: is that what SL is called now?
SteamPunk Gears: lol
Crap Mariner: The person who got me into SL in the first place is now trying to get me into Left 4 Dead.
Cindi Blackburn: night Clubside
Tara Yeats: no, that's what Lively's called now, Prok! hehe
Malburns Writer: nite Clubside
Crap Mariner salutes
Prokofy Neva: yeah I forgot to go to Lively for ages
Prokofy Neva: and now it's Deadly
Prokofy Neva: oh well
Prokofy Neva: my land got griefed there
Prokofy Neva: Did anyone here go to Legend City yet?
SteamPunk Gears: premium accounts get one time allowed transfer of non trans items to a premum confermed alt?
Tara Yeats: Haha, Prok - I just noticed your Koolaid pitcher!
Prokofy Neva: thats sounds like a recipe for theft exploits SteamPunk
Prokofy Neva: yes
Prokofy Neva: drink up!
SteamPunk Gears: maybe...
Prokofy Neva: Legend City was a lot more put together than OpenLife
Prokofy Neva: when you join, you are given an avatar with an outfit, and you land and it has Simone's outfits to chose from
Prokofy Neva: there is more thought put into the newbie experience
Prokofy Neva: it doesn't have that hacker script kiddie goony feeling at all, it is more polished
Malburns Writer: agreed prok
Amethyst Gears: well, they've had time to learn from LL
Tara Yeats: I think there are some folks with some marketing sense involved w/Legend City
Prokofy Neva: however, it's still a small pioneer world where you are supposed to be loyal to the founder, never criticize them, gush praise to the early adapters, be grateful, etc. etc.
Malburns Writer: but nothing much there yet
Prokofy Neva: I hate that
Prokofy Neva: "“Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men"
Prokofy Neva: what I hate about these early adapter things is how tribal it is
Prokofy Neva: btw, don't spend $20 buying that idiot book Tribes
Prokofy Neva: what a rip-off
Tara Yeats: Hard for it not to be, since how do you build a larger community without a smaller one at some point?
Chamois Chama: bye everyone :)
Prokofy Neva: I can't believe I spent $20 on Chairman Godin's Little White Book
Carl Metropolitan: Tribes?
Malburns Writer: Bye Chamois
Cindi Blackburn: bye Chamois
Prokofy Neva: well tara, I'm happy if other pepole have their little hothouse flower community I will come along later then
Prokofy Neva: bye Chamois
Tara Yeats: I've seen a couple of mentions of the book, Prok -s o it's a :"duh" huh?
Prokofy Neva: well ti's like all those supermarket books about how to get rich with all those aphorism
Prokofy Neva: and it has bad ideology in it, in my view, of that tribal type, like "let's all make tribal interest groups and ovethrow representive democracy and if those other people don't like it they can leave so there"
Prokofy Neva: Tribes need leaders
Prokofy Neva: so that sets up everybody to be a followers except for the people in Seth's friendship cards
Prokofy Neva: but then halfway through the book he shills, but you, too can be a Tribal Leader
Carl Metropolitan: The amazon review starts "Short on pages but long on repetition..."
Tara Yeats: LOL Carl - that takes some doing
Prokofy Neva: oh well I'm glad somebody is trashing it because on Twitter they are all grovelling and saying it's amazing, blah blah blah
Prokofy Neva: honestly, the balls, charging $20 for what should be a $7.95 paperback, as if it is Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Carl Metropolitan: I think I need to run guys.
Sutherland Dam Tip Jar: Received donation of L$100 from Carl Metropolitan.
Carl Metropolitan: Bye
Tara Yeats: Cya Carl - I do hope you're wrong about them duming stipends on preimum accts
Cindi Blackburn: bye Carl
Malburns Writer: bye Carl
Carl Metropolitan: I hpe I am too
Tara Yeats: dumping rather
Linda Coffee: bye everyone
Cindi Blackburn: bye Linda
Malburns Writer: bye Linda
Ravenglass Rentals in Sutherland $350: Store rented for 7 days...
Tara Yeats: Cya Lionda
Cindi Blackburn: I enjoy sl and I suspect all of you do to or you wouldn't be here
Cindi Blackburn: clearly LL neeeds a revenue stream to keep sl running
Tara Yeats: pretty safe assumption Cindi
SteamPunk Gears: no I just have no real life giggle
Amethyst Gears: :P
Prokofy Neva: Tara, I think they are preparing public opinion as always
Prokofy Neva: they always pull this stunt, where they pretend to get the Peopel's Feedback
Cindi Blackburn: but the solution has to be something that maintains the attractiveness of sl, or, to state the obvious, it will not be a solution
Tara Yeats: well, that measure sure didn't apply to the recent void sim changes, Cindi...
Tara Yeats: I just maintain some bit of hope that M Linden has more sense about this stuff...
Cindi Blackburn: I was very saddened by what they did to the open-space sims because there were so many I enjoyed
Investor Snoodle: If you enjoy them, why not help pay for them?
Cindi Blackburn: conversely, I'm not at all unhappy to see the ad farms disappear
Tara Yeats: yes, the adfarm change is very welcome!
Cindi Blackburn: I did - with contributions at the ones I visited
SteamPunk Gears: rome built the coliseum why not have an area lindens can throw greafers together and we call can watch them fight?
Investor Snoodle: Oh, why are they closing then? It is very sad that more don't contribute.
Tara Yeats: um, they do, SteamPunk - they're called "Welcome Centers"
SteamPunk Gears: heh
Amethyst Gears: lol
Investor Snoodle: There is such an area SteamPunk but the Lindens don't keep up with it. Its called a corn field.
SteamPunk Gears: lol
SteamPunk Gears: Linden community service jails?
Prokofy Neva: You would think from all the howling about openspaces costs that people didn't have creative sims 6 months ago, and yet they did, and they had it in fact on cheaper land
Amethyst Gears: I've heard that term before
Cindi Blackburn: did the open space areas get direct financial support from premium accounts?
Ozzy Broome accepted your inventory offer.
Tara Yeats: unconnected, Cindi
Prokofy Neva: oh that's this fiction Intlibber is spreading
Investor Snoodle: The premium accounts subsidize everything Cindi
Cindi Blackburn: or did they place a strain on the servers?
Prokofy Neva: how on earth do the handful of premium accounts for mainland sims subsidize the *13,000 openspace sims*???
Prokofy Neva: there are 4,000 mainland sims, and 28,000 islands
Cindi Blackburn: so my direct contributions did far more than if I'd been a premium account holder
Prokofy Neva: how is it that 4,000 of something can be seen to be subsidizing 28,000 of something that has higher tier?
Investor Snoodle: I was wondering if IntLib might come up. I found your recent post both provocative and informing.
Prokofy Neva: Cindi, that isn't logical, tier is tier, islands pay more tier than mainland because they ahve more features
Prokofy Neva: premium is only for mainalnd
Investor Snoodle: Well 13,000 openspace sims, divided by 4
Investor Snoodle: = 3,250 full sim resources
Tara Yeats: in a backhanded way, premium accts supported void sims by giving folks something to react against
Prokofy Neva: but those 3250 sim resources were over used
Prokofy Neva: that's the problem
Investor Snoodle: Yes
Prokofy Neva: they put scripts and avatars on them as if they were 13,000 full prim sims, and here we are all now with higher prices
Tara Yeats: i.e., why deal with mainland ad farms/lag/ban lines when you can hae a void sim
Amethyst Gears: With Daz Island, the main is a full Island sim and then there are 4 open sims, only one has much on it, the rest are for small entertainments or to host program tutorials
Prokofy Neva: so this fiction of saying somehow the mainland, which is a tiny fraction of usage, is being "subsidized" is retarded
Prokofy Neva: all people pay for their product, and its freatures
Investor Snoodle: So how big of a contributor to the OpenSpace problem would you say IntLib is?
Prokofy Neva: mainland has some features; islands have more
Investor Snoodle: Would it be fair to blame him for a large part of this debackle?
Prokofy Neva: hence they cost more
Cindi Blackburn: Prokofy - I'm not sure I follow your logic trail - I was simply statingh that a direct contribution to any sim is worth more to them than an individual permium account
Prokofy Neva: Id' say you are probably Intlibber's alt
Cindi Blackburn: *stating
Investor Snoodle: I am not IntLibber's alt, although it would make an interesting spin to the story.
Prokofy Neva: anyone who bought OS sims, and there are bunches of land barons who did to make a quick buck, overused them, the Lindens labelled them properly, people exploited them as a get-rich-quick scheme, it's over now, like events grants, like cheap newbie first land, like many other exploitable things in SL
Investor Snoodle: Well.
Investor Snoodle: I don't see it quite that way. Close, but not quite.
Investor Snoodle: I think if the resource drain was a problem they'd have plugged them immediately after they were exploited in this way.
Investor Snoodle: I agree, that they WERE exploited in this way, but I don't think the problem was that severe.
Prokofy Neva: for the Lindens, it is plugged immediately
Cindi Blackburn: but some open space sims werent used for exploitation - usch as the Dune sims
Investor Snoodle: I think Linden is repricing a hot product.
Prokofy Neva: and I hate conversatoins with obvious alts
Investor Snoodle: I just want to contribute to a constructive dialog this evening.
Investor Snoodle: Let's pretend for a moment that it isn't so obvious.
Prokofy Neva: it's not a constructive dialogue to be abusive of other people's trust when you are an obvious alt
Prokofy Neva: I'm done with the conversation
Prokofy Neva: stand by your words and don't be an asshole
Investor Snoodle: I do.
Prokofy Neva: no you don't, you're an alt, trying to get pepole to say things, trying to collect their responses, and shielding yourself, that's irresponsible in a meeting like this
Investor Snoodle: I will post on my main later. I just wish to participate.
Prokofy Neva: alts are a staple of SL, that's not the issue, but to use them to come in and politically manipulate a conversation is underhanded
Investor Snoodle: Well I am sure you would agree that it is what I must do if I wish to participate here and have a voice.
Investor Snoodle: I do not wish to manipulate, only contribute.
SteamPunk Gears: What happend to your main? did someone rip you off?
Investor Snoodle: No.
SteamPunk Gears: your not the only one hated you know lol
SteamPunk Gears: by groups "cough"
Avatar ejected.
Prokofy Neva: hey, I'm done with assholes for the evening
SteamPunk Gears: :3
SteamPunk Gears: I be nice
Tara Yeats: think the conversation has sorta run out of steam anyway
Amethyst Gears: :P
Tara Yeats: pun not intended! lol
SteamPunk Gears: hehe
Prokofy Neva: yeah I just hate it when people come to incite, provoke, set up conversations about Intlibber, etc. etc. all from under cover of an alt
Prokofy Neva: Steam better say something!
Amethyst Gears: lol, is fine, we use it to often ourselves

Comments

[Prokofy Neva]

So to add to the math here to make the distinction about the 1024 freebie concept:

1. If you add 512 to the existing 86,000 accounts, you lose $130,344 in tier per month. If there are only 82,000 accounts, it's $750,000 in tier (they've dropped further, and some are annualized or with 4096 free for life). Therefore, it doesn't make sense to give 86,000 paying customers a gift that costs you $750,000-$130,000 US per year.

2. If you enable free accounts to go on land of 512 or 1024 size, you only lose some servers, and create a setting where, within 90 days, you will have lots of new real tier payers. They aren't likely to get more than a few thousand people doing this, so they only need about 20 servers to be offered for free. That's revenue they might make $3900 a month on if it were offered for tier, plus the purchase price, but in the current situation, they can't put those 20 mainland servers out and sell them without a) glutting the over-saturated land market further or b) seeing them not even get any bids. 20 servers put to use giving newbies free land that they can't hustle and flip as they used to isn't a loss, because they already have thousands of newbies flying around using resources anyway.

[Ann Otoole]

I think we will see the very popular idea to allow premiums to buy at least one Homestead region without owning a normal region come to pass pretty soon. Otherwise I doubt they would have named it "Homestead".

If they "flatten tier" it will be from the bottom up meaning an overall price increase. You wanted it you got it. 200 a month turns into 300 a month right there.

People should be careful about what they wish for.

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, I saw that. They may very well do that, except...it's a way of forcing people to add $9.95 to an already more expensive product of $195.

Oh, sure, it will flatten from the bottom up, too, I should have mentioned that. They will say it's only fair that land barons, far from getting a bulk discount, pay a little more because they earn money from SL, and they will incite the forums to demand that.

It's been said by Ciaran and others that as soon as the Lindens let people direct-buy opensims without already owning an island, they will kill island rentals. Perhaps. They are already only half filled anyway.

[Prokofy Neva]

*product of $125

[OpenWhat]

I think there is no real reason to have a premium account at the moment what so ever except if you want to buy mainland. The stipend is silly because you can buy linden anyway from LL and even choose your exchange rate. So what you add to a premium account are features which have a value to the user( features or status ) which don't you cost anything or very little but add enough value to make is desirable. A view thinks which come to mind are having a higher group limit , enable or disable group messages temporarily ( like you disable your ring on your cellphone ), choose a custom last name, access to certain areas. Those I think are very easy to implement. Make is mandatory to use voice. Have more attach points on your avatar or allow to attach multiple items at the same spot ( These are sure not easy to do but would add quite a value I think ;) ) Well the point is add features to the premium account that can't be bought otherwise and scratch the stipend all together.
As many have noticed the ability not be able to buy enough L$ in the first 30 days is ridiculous. During this time you need the most to buy/rent land and outfit your avatar and you run around across all SL to shop.
I agree with Anne , next year in July you will see that the (overpriced) Homestead is going to be sold to individuals without the need of having a fullsim as a requirement. Excuse might be to make it available to boost LL sales because of the RL economy downturn.

[Ciaran Laval]

Yeah let premiums buy homesteads but let them pay tier at USD$125 and let estate owners get them for tier of USD$95 and you have a situation that isn't so traumatic and actually respects inworld business. I'm not convinced that the Lindens have the creativity or desire to think of inworld business though.

The name thing is interesting, I'm not sure why it's so expensive. The important thing about your avatar isn't the name, it's the avatar key. I'm not sure exactly how it works but I know that in Active Directory the account has a security identifier, I can change the name of an account to anything, I change names when ladies get married and I don't have to do a shed load of extra work changing everything because the name isn't important, the security identifier is, the security identitfer is very similar to the avatar key in theory.

People could have the option of forsaking the stipend or forsaking the free tier in exchange for having their own name. I don't see why it should cost USD$50 a year for a custom name but there you go.

I agree that ideas such as extra free tier, more groups or increased stipend are non starters, that's a cost issue for Linden Lab. I guess they could offer a higher priced premium membership that offers extra stipend and tier but the books would have to balance so you'd be as well just buying those features as and when you need them.

[Ciaran Laval]

You're right Prok, Island rentals aren't what they once were but there are still plenty of people out there who want to rent estate.

Some brave moves may have to be taken by estate owners, some mergers may be required. This world however doesn't lend itself to being able to merge with another landlord easily, which is a great shame but the whole way we have to trust each other really doesn't lend itself to being able to have a true partnership with another owner.

[Prokofy Neva]

OpenWhat, stop posting anonymous posts here or you will be banned. The rules here are that you must provide a recognizable first and last SL, RL or bloggers' name. You get one warning, and then you are banned and unpublished after that.

[Prokofy Neva]

The idea that "you don't need a premium because you can buy on the LindEx" is true, but geeky and literalist and costing the Lindens and inworld businesses customers, for clinging to it so fiercely. Logic doesn't explain everything.

For first-time users, the LindEx is unfriendly. When I go to a foreign country, I give my passport and a $20 US bill at the airport to a kiosk window, and I get back $20 worth of the local currency. I don't have to study currency markets and exchanges, operate strange levers, try to discern value and whether I should make something called a "market buy" etc etc. I just buy the currency. Later, if I get into it, I might spend a lot of time buying at this or that exchange, etc. etc. but not as a first-time arrival, and as a tourist. It's stupid to expect people to be different in a virtual world.

So the buy-in has to be simple, and come in a packet. It has to be worth what you pay, so less than $9.95, or give 680 Lindens for that $9.95, which is what they are actually worth.

The constant crabbing that people should go on the LindEx may make the crabbers feel morally superior and very geekily smug and in the now, but it doesn't sell accounts. People, intelligent college-educated, even other geeks like yourself, will not entrust their credit cards to something so perplexing and strange as a "currency exchange". Other games and worlds just have packets.

It's especially regarded to take $72 US on a credit card, then not let the person buy currency on the theory that they are a fraud risk. Their $72 went through and was accepted, and now they can't spend $3.65 to buy 1000 Lindens, they are too much of a risk. Please.

Buying currency has to be something that you click and get instantly without having to study or understand anything.

[Ric Mollor]

----Quoting Prokofy-------
Buying currency has to be something that you click and get instantly without having to study or understand anything.
--------------------------

Occasionally I examine the prepaid gaming cards available at mass market US retailers to see who's selling what and how it is being marketed.

In the past week saw Target's selection. At least 30 different cards with many of them 'multi cards' that provide currency/points in a spectrum of games.

No sign of anything with a SL logo on it and certainly no Second Life specific card. There *may* have been a card redeemable for Lindens but if so that information was buried in the fine print of the reverse side.

Card family with the best product placement? (eye level, middle of rack)

IMVU

Card with the most image variations?

WoW

Why has LL missed the boat so hugely on this? There are even IMVU and Nexon cards in every 7-11 that I've checked.

[melponeme_k]

I didn't see this entry when I commented on the next one.

SL completely slipped by not making fees a requirement from the get go. Anything they do now is sure to cause an explosion.

Premiums should be an asset for them, they are a business after all is said and done. They should be a sure and steady cash flow with benefits. I don't see how they can do that now at this late date after the cow has left the barn. Unless no new account can be free, and all prior free accounts are grandfathered with all their existing privileges. I don't know, I don't see that happening. Premiums will probably be dropped or completely destroyed in some way.

I looked into Entropia, and it is free as well. But they seem to add in perks if a user buys a large amount of their currency. I don't have a PC so I haven't joined there.