SL International Business

Linden’s have a lot of power inworld, and some of them are not afraid to use them by their personal emotions and preferences, non-objectively.

There’s many stories of how people got burned by Linden’s, i have too, and i’ve blogged about it. Linden Lab, Inc. practically stole 22k L$ from me, at the sametime K.R. Engineering SLOpoly was abused to steal 114k L$ from me, SLOpoly was maliciously designed to allow that and creator refused to protect against it nor even WARN owners about it, LL blew me off after many times of complaining about that. One Linden has resolved into threatening and extortion against me, another returned my stuff without a proper reason, which i replaced and they were left there, another Linden didn’t know what an receipt is and later would have been happy to incorrectly let me get charged for 9USD due to system error and booted me off the line, while Spike Linden fixed it very fast.

I’m not the only one, IntLibber Brautigan has similar stories for example, as well as many other business owners inworld. Most of them do not talk about them publicly, on the fear of further implications.

So what is there to do if you get unjustly burned? You make a complaint, only to get a snail mail address.

Truth is, they make it so hard, that most give up the complaint process, most do not even publicly say anything, only to their friends. No one even uses publicity as their key. I, or rather, SLIB is in the fortunate position of being a prominent SL business, thus media is rather interested by our actions, so yes, i am more free to speak out loud, however most are not.

Linden Lab, Inc. does time after time show that they do not care at all about their userbase, only how they can squeeze more cash out of us, they run a very good business in that regard, that they have money printing press (land auction floods), they sell fake currency but implies it’s real while they have 100% control over it. This all happens as long as people do not challenge their decision making and ruthless control over the virtual economy. When we, the inworld business owners, get burned, they profit.

Some Lindens do use their powers as Linden’s to get their own agenda through, and for their own personal benefit, it’s this minority which gives all the Linden’s a bad image. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in, until 3rd party grids become a practical choice. At this pace however, Second Life will NEVER reach their goal of being 3D Internet, not under the reign of Linden Lab, Inc. Philip Rosedale, the founder and CEO of Linden Lab, poses as a saint, and advocate of freedom and creativity, yet allows the ruthless ass kicking of the residents. He’s stepping down, to get a CEO which can make Linden Lab profitable, aren’t they profitable already? If not, that means only one thing: They are loosing money because of the ruthless ass kicking of the residents. WE the residents and business owners are those who fill their pockets, keep ignoring us, and Linden Lab will bankrupt.

So, if you got burned by a corrupt Linden, please act upon it, make the snail mail. Do not simply ask for justice, DEMAND justice. Linden Lab created the excellent service of Second Life, don’t let them ruin it, we need to make sure justice is served, and Linden Lab gets educated for their mistakes, if it means voting with your money, DO IT!

Linden Lab announced in http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/07/quarterly-land-supply-and-island-pricing-update/ new land pricing, which is curious of nature.

Mainland sims minimum auction price is now 750USD, and new Islands are 1,000USD a piece. Mainland sims starting auction price was lowered by 500USD and Islands by 675USD. Tier rates remain the same.  New mainland sims will be rolled out in 10 a day.

Aside from personally just purchasing 4 Islands, and going roughly 3 mainland sims total higher (from 180k to a peak of 350k), i do have my personal finances at risk here too.

It remains unseen how this will affect the land business, what’s definately sure is that mainland prices are going to fall. Because of lower prices, it’s highly likely that you also need to sell for lower margins, a 2L$/sqm margin for 8L$/sqm land is 25% while for 20L$/sqm land it is 10%. People WILL care. Furthermore, i do not think volumes will greatly rise because of lower pricing, tier pricing remains still very high. It’s understandable that hardware costs, and human time costs, but not even nearly that much.

In my opinion, Linden Lab should be concentrating on cutting costs, thus cutting the recurring price instead to increase the land usage by residents. I wouldn’t mind paying triple the amount i pay now, if running costs are cut into half. That’s my personal take on the matter.

200USD is a lot of money for many, and that’s the price you pay for Mainland sim monthly, think about having actually high quality estate, 300USD a month. Yikes! Finnish minimum wage is around 1100euros after taxes, per month, or  1660USD. Apartment costs roughly 755USD a month on average, and food for the month 226USD, for average Joe’s out there. The food price is actually under-estimated. that leaves you roughly 680USD a month for everything else, work travel, clothing, electricity, netconnection etc. In the end we are talking about 300USD left for “all the fun”. Considering this is Finnish guy, he has to pay 22% VAT, means he even CAN’T afford a sim! 359.9USD a month for a sim for Finnish person. 4096sqm costs 25USD a month + 6USD for premium + VAT 22%, 37.82USD a month. That’s in affordable range, but still about 12.6% of your monthly fun budget.

Because it’s cheaper to buy now, it remains unseen how this affect. In 2 months from now a good quality 4096sqm might cost ~104USD instead of ~179USD. Is it enough lower to make this Average Joe want to shell out that money? Especially when you pay in taxes that price every 3months.

Would you buy an apartment for 30,000euros (VERY VERY VERY cheap in our area, cheapest in our area goes for 60,000euros and even that is an EXCELLENT find, normal pricing is around 100,000euros) if you have to pay 10,000euros a month in taxes for it? Didn’t think so. However, rental of that would cost around 11,500euros a month, instead of 500euros a month. That extra 1,000euros is needed in case the renter does not pay up! Now, talk about INFLATION, we all would be homeless immediately if that happened, some businesses could afford a few month’s, but in the end we would have insane inflation, all prices would instantly skyrocket, and there we go, an inflation, even at the very best scenario. Just as a comparison, here you pay tax for your property only when you sell it. Construction companies would be in curious spot, material prices & construction prices would be inexistant compared to taxes.

Of course, Second Life is not the Real World, but it’s fun to see what would happen in Real World if something similar would happen.

Oh yeah, i believe Central Grid charges 75USD monthly tier at highest.