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Land Price Reductions, New Premium Perks, and Pricing Changes

***This blog has been updated as of 9:00 am PT on 06/11/2019 to reflect that Quarterly premium payment options will continue to be available to new signups until we are ready to unveil the new additional Premium plan. *** ***This blog post has been updated as of 2:40 pm PT on 06/03/2019 to reflec...

community.secondlife.com

 

[shy poster]

They could fucking PAY ME to rent land in sl again and not going backwards again

 

[Noodles]

That new Premium pricing....

I may drop all my alts...

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I'm stuck with just finally giving up and finding somewhere else, or getting premium on my business alts, just so I can get my offline ims and bein the groups I need to be in.

I'm more mad at the reducing what basic gives, than I am at the prices going up, though a 10$ increase, on top of my land fees....

 

[Khamon]

Thank You for posting this Mechanical Blog Bot

 

[EmpressOfCommunism]

I think they are slowly trying to move away from super expensive tier as the main business model.

 

[Natsuki Morigi]

The increase in premium annual fee is not trivial. OK, they significantly kept it just below the $100.
If LL were to increase the L$300/week stipend to compensate I would be a lot happier.
The decrease in groups and offline IMs for basic is going to hurt too. Would it cause people to stop rather than incentivize them to upgrade to Premium?

 

[Noodles]

I realize that it's not exactly a good business model for LL, but previously I had 4 accounts at an annual premium of $72. This was essentially covered by the stipend, so it cost me nothing. At $99/year, It would mean some out of pocket. I'm kind of mixed on how I really feel about that honesty, especially given how little I even log in these days.

 

[Plurabelle Laszlo]

They force me to go premium or to quit/lose money. I am always maxing out my group limit with my business groups on one account and with my roleplay/admin groups on my second main. This is a shitty and stupid move. I -was- considering to go premium, but so far there was no real benefit for me - being European I would have to pay VAT, which doesn't make those perks attractive enough to me. With a few more benefits they might have gotten me. But being forced is a different story.

If I don't go premium i will simply not be able to join the event groups I need - so I probably will do it for Plurabelle. Additionally my transaction fees will double. I rent a homestead, and don't own an entire sim, and still won't be able to afford one. So - no benefit there. I definitely WON'T pay for two premium accounts. And that means my second account gets less attractive because I can't do all the things I enjoy doing with it.

This is not making premium more attractive through incentives; it's punishing your already shrinking user base.

 

[NeoBokrug Elytis]

I am just going to call this here and now.
We're probably going to have serious group chat issues in a couple months.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

They could fucking PAY ME to rent land in sl again and not going backwards again

Part of the problem is that essentially they DO pay people to have 1024 tier/Linden Home. Oldbie premium accounts cost them more in L$ than they charge in fee! Not even taking into account the 1024 and other benefits. As I've said many times, if I didn't buy L$ for my fashion addiction, LL would essentially be paying ME to use SL.

I think they are slowly trying to move away from super expensive tier as the main business model.

Obviously, though the premium increase of 30% in one shot makes me go "ouch", though I personally agree that they should increase it they should have done it slower over time over the past few years rather than keeping the $72 a year for over a decade.

The increase in premium annual fee is not trivial. OK, they significantly kept it just below the $100.
If LL were to increase the L$300/week stipend to compensate I would be a lot happier.

They can't! As it is oldbie premium accounts 500L$ stipend costs them money, and will STILL cost them money even with the higher rate.

The decrease in groups and offline IMs for basic is going to hurt too. Would it cause people to stop rather than incentivize them to upgrade to Premium?

Now that is the big question. They've hinted at putting stricter limits on Free accounts for YEARS but haven't done so...until now.

I realize that it's not exactly a good business model for LL, but previously I had 4 accounts at an annual premium of $72. This was essentially covered by the stipend, so it cost me nothing. At $99/year, It would mean some out of pocket. I'm kind of mixed on how I really feel about that honesty, especially given how little I even log in these days.

Yeah under the old model, we were costing more in benefits than they were making on us. As I mentioned on VVO in April,I took my alt to premium because it saved me money to get an additional 1024 of land, $72 for the premium instead of $84 for the tier upgrade...not even taking into account the L$ the alt gets..which is sadly at the 300L$ a week level.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Oldbie premium accounts

Myself lacking any stats, we are a tiny, tiny minority.

 

[Chav Paderborn]

Myself lacking any stats, we are a tiny, tiny minority.

Yeah, I was gonna ask does anyone know what %/number of premiums are that old. I joined in 06 and I'm on 300L a week.

 

[Chav Paderborn]

I might drop premium with the new costs, it's a big increase. I use the premium sandboxes sometimes but I could find a public one with good moderation, and while I want one of the new Linden Homes I don't know if I'll actually get much use out of it when I'm usually in The Wastelands anyway.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

15 offlines for basic? Ouch.

 

[Ashiri]

It may be better value for me to drop premium and buy lindens as I need them

 

[Sid]

So basically they let all those thousands of small potato premium members (like me) pay for the discounts the sim owners get. "Nice."
Nice example of today's capitalism. Rob the poor to please the wealthy.

 

[Marjolaine Seymour]

Sid has a point... while the basic/free account-holders might be unhappy, few, if any, will drop out; the risk LL runs is that increase in paid membership will backfire, and premium holders downgrade as a result.
Also note for us in Europe, that VAT will now be added to all levels, except yearly, adding another 15-25% depending on location.

 

[Sid]

The older a game gets, the cheaper it tends to become. And that is logical. Developing is much more expensive then maintaining.
Development is still there at SL, but at a very small back burner. Hardware, webhosting and storage became only cheaper over the last decade.
So where on earth does the Lab got the idea, that they could start charging way more for their premium plans without justifying those extra expenses with real improvements?
I mean more offline IM's are just changing about 3 lines of code and a few cents a year of extra storage costs for each premium menber.
It is still a partly incapable clueless bunch over there in Lindenstreet.

 

[Eunoli]

So basically they let all those thousands of small potato premium members (like me) pay for the discounts the sim owners get. "Nice."
Nice example of today's capitalism. Rob the poor to please the wealthy.

The tier is still way the hell too high and probably a good portion of the reason they are hurting. I assume they are still bleeding private sims. I doubt this is about paying for the tier decrease and suspect (without any data whatsoever) that this is about Sansar being a very slow and unprofitable business so far.