Reel Expression

(Protesting at Linden Offices this afternoon. Many more to follow)

I am a small business owner in SL. We have been touted in the press and investor meetings to make SL as popular as it is today. Look! People make things and sell them and you can too! But what they don’t tell you is that we bear the brunt of all the bad of SL.

If we didn’t make our widgets would the population be here? No.

Who suffers the most from griefer attacks? Small business. The grid shut downs mean some can’t feed their kids (or kitten in my case).

Who suffers the most of bugs and lag? Small business. If textures don’t load people don’t shop. Constant bugs in animation uploads means I can’t work. The inability to make clothes has been detrimental to the fashion industry. Exploits that allow users to steal our work takes the food from our table.

Who suffers the most from the find places sorted by traffic and then classifieds sorted by price? Small business. Those of us that paying 30k L$ per week to be on the first page means we can’t pay our RL rent. If higher traffic usually means more shoppers which means more profit, is it a wonder that the same people easily found in find the same as the classifieds?

Who pays for SL? Small business. The majority of landowners are small business owners. Yes we don’t hold the most amount of land per person but if we didn’t need land to sell our widgets how much land would there be? And those land barons who give no value to SL at all rip us off on prices of that land.

Who lost out when auctions for the mainland went from any size of parcel to only full sims? Small business. Now if we want to buy land we have to go to a land baron or win an auction that’s so over priced that a baron can’t make enough money.

Who lost out when the rules changed (silently) about buying land on estate sims? Small business owners. Have you seen the prices of some of these? You pay regular tier, which they make money on because of the tier break down. For instance, a land baron breaks an isle into 2048 m2 parcels. You know how many fit? 32! For the math lets say 30 and the rest as free space and roads. The tier for 2048 m2 is $15US. Times that by 30 and thats $450. Minus isle fee $195 and you get a monthly profit of $255US. That should be enough right? But no. They sell the land first. Anshe has hers at 19999 L$ per 2048m2. Times that by those 30 parcels = 599,970 L$! Devide that by todays exchange rate 270L/1USD = 2,222 US!! How does she con people into paying far more then the initial set up and over 2.3 times her tier? Lies. Catchy advertising. Remember this used to be against the rules until LL changed them to suit their favourite citizen, Anshe Chung.’

Who looses out the most from isle price changes? Small business. Anshe and her ilk have already bought how many used isles from unsuspecting owners because of insider knowledge? She upped her prices for sales and tier prior to the official statement. That means anyone renting from her estate sims, will be paying the new sim prices + AC profit whether they are on a new sim or not. She stands to make even more money ripping off residents then she did before. Will this break her? No. People will always be too preoccupied then to figure out this. Just like every other bloody corporation.

Why do we loose out? Every single content creator I know (including myself) dreams of one day owning their own sim. How many dreams along with mine have been crushed by this? We get jerked around endlessly and then we get this: “and in fact - this increase was in part a recognition that large corporations are willing to pay much more than we were charging.”- zee linden

Fuck large corporations. They are only here until the novelty wears off. But we have been here through bad update after bad update, growing their world and paychecks to be spit on like this?

• We aren’t asking to be handed isles like candy. But what is really the harm in giving a discount to small SL businesses? Where if you make between certain amounts per month in L$ you will allow a petition for lowered tier? For instance anyone able (L$ wise) to pay the $195 tier but unable to move into the first business Linedx tier with the current restrictions.
• Yes land is a privilage. So should a lot of things. What would be the harm in a free limited account for 30day then a one time fee? Then they stay limited, ie certain harmful scipting and inventory limits, until they pay a monthly fee. $10 USD per month is less then every MMO I’ve ever played. Then any land holding is on top of that.
• Bloody fix the damn program before charging us more. I’m tired of the years of promises for fixing all the issues, where we get usless new features instead.

LL should feel lucky every day that we stick around. Lucky. If they aren’t making a profit nor making real progress with the program itself, they should look at internal changes within the company. Philip has stated many times they have more programers then most other companies. Obviously they do not have the right ones. Fire off the dead weight and think about hiring some that can actually fix something without breaking something else.

I’m here in SL only until something better comes along or LL steps up to the plate and starts to give a rats ass about the backbone of their program.

Cheers.
Luth