Lindens vs. Land Barons

 

A forums poster named Beth MacBain put up such a treasure of a typically inane prejudice against land-barons and typically skewed Linden fan adoration, that I just have to share:

I can only speak for myself, but as an oldbie I like Bellisseria because it isn't a ghost town. After I moved in, I let my other rentals go because I enjoyed Bellisseria so much, and I still do several months later. I did rent a tiny little parcel a couple of weeks ago to put a quiet skybox in just for those times when Bellisseria is too busy for me, but I don't see myself getting another large empty plot in a vast wasteland of other large empty plots and siphon the money I pay LL through a land baron. I quite like paying it directly to the Lindens and I think they are learning some really fabulous lessons from the success of Bellisseria.

With @Ebbe Linden's dedication to diversifying revenue streams and hopefully making LL less dependent on the land barons, I'm looking forward to seeing more variety in the Linden Home environment. Larger parcels with higher Li, but with the same quality landscaping, attention to detail, and homes, and all owned directly by LL. Diverse themes to appeal to a wider variety of people and creatures. An adult continent. Two adult continents, actually. One for people who want more adult themes, but not necessarily sexual (where child avatars could still be allowed) and one for people who do want a sexually open environment (where child avatars are absolutely forbidden, please). I have a big wish list of things I'd love see see LL implement and profit off of rather than land barons who don't really do much for the greater community of SL other than buy and sell land. 

I know SL was born on the concept of user-created content, and I love the amazingly talented people who make the things I buy, but LL has some wonderfully talented employees and contractors as well and I'm pretty cool with buying directly from them when possible. It might make creators up their own games a bit, and some of them who've gotten lazy because everyone buys whatever they release need that kick in the pants. Before Bellisseria, I never once considered the thought of having more than one premium account. Now, with the trailers and upcoming new themes, I know I'll be upgrading at least one alt, and possibly more. 

It would be awesome, though, to not have to use alts. Give me a premium level that would allow me to rent multiple LHs once they're all built out and I'd be happy as a clam and utterly delighted to have my landlords be Lindens instead of someone I don't know or trust. I also think it would help with new user retention and increasing premium memberships, and I would make certain to feature them in the new user experience that we all know needs some serious work. 

I also think Bellisseria residents are also absolutely loving having more interaction with Moles and Lindens. Even though the interaction has quieted down a bit with the angst strewn upon them for not building cookie-cutter homes, they are still around and it's fabulous. Hopefully once the fussy people get homes (or get homes they're satisfied with) @Patch Linden and the gang will start coming out to play again and that sort of fun with the much loved Lindens and Moles can't be offered by anyone other than LL. 

TL:DR version - If LL starts pulling in more money from individuals, and some land barons start losing money and bail... shrugs.

 

My answer:

This is a good post to bookmark as a very good example of the wild prejudice against "land barons" in Second Life, who make it possible for Second Life to exist beyond a VC's whim. 

Since it follows my comment, it is directed at me, but I have to chuckle, as my land holdings are tiny compared to actual "land barons" and I am not a land baron, running a small Mainland rentals business and supporting the SL Public Land Preserve. 

Look at Tyche Shepherd's reports which are instructive about a lot of things. I believe there are about 25,000 islands; of these, about 5,000 are Mainland, and a good chunk of those are owned by the Lindens directly i.e. not sublet, if you will, to those "direct" owners that you glorify in your post and imagine are helping the Lindens become "weaned" from land barons. We don't know how many premium accounts there are -- at their hey-day in 2007-2008, when the Lindens still helpfully posted economic information, there were about 100,000. There might be that may or more today but given how many islands have been lost and Mainland abandoned since then, more than 10 years ago, it's just very hard to say. I would think it's likely, if not for the fact of so many alts. 

Ebbe Linden is no different than his predecessors in wanting "diversity" of revenue streams. I think it's safe to say that today, with the expenses of pets, mesh avatars, fashion, gatchas, etc. that spending on these consumer goods outpaces rent or tier for many avatars and that means likely the economy inworld for residents is no longer made up of mainland land sales and rentals as it did in the first decade of SL's life or island rentals inworld as it has in the early part of the second decade. Think about what you spend on your premium account (let's use the figure of $11.99 or about 3200 Lindens although this cost varies) or a rental (let's say a 4096, which might be $4,300 Lindens a month)  , then think of your purchases of furniture, fashion, pets and their food, vehicles, etc. and I think you'll agree that more is spent on mesh body parts, clothing and accessories, pets, etc. than housing. It's hard to tell what the average "consumer basket" is in SL because we just don't have economic figures. But going by what I see hundreds of my tenants buying (and most of their rentals are more like $150-$350 range per week), housing is not their chief SL expense.

But for the Lindens, there is no way they can "wean themselves from land barons" simply because it's the core of their revenue. So your allergy to what you imagine is the land baron "aesthetic" and your stereotype of Monoply-style moneybags characters, they are what make LL possible to exist. The Lindens can only tax a sale of currency or a purchase on the Marketplace -- they may have ambitions to tax more, but it won't reach a figure higher than the sale of even cheaper sims over the years. The premium accounts, whether 100,000 or even double that by now cannot hope to make up the core of their revenue even added to their "taxes". Sims generate from $175 for a grandfathered private island to $229 for the newer islands and $109 for the homesteads, which require island ownership.

That means even if you take just the lower figure of $175 -- which you wouldn't, because grandfathered are in a minority -- you'd see revenue of $3.5 million from tier *per month* or $42 million *per year* -- and that's what Crunchbase says their revenue is currently -- while once it was $75 million, they've been losing a million a year in the last ten years, according to NWN, who put their revenue at $50 million in 2017 (read that article, based on Tyche Shepherd's reports of declining island ownership and increased abandoned land, to see how this figure was generated -- from tier). They couldn't get much more than a million from premiums even if everyone paid the full rate of $11.99 and didn't annualize them. It's doubtful they get more than a million from Marketplace sales although this is a hugely unknown figure (I'd be interested in guesses, but going by "items last purchased" which you can see as a ticker on the MP, I'm not seeing it. Right now, for example, I see "what customers are buying" is a dress for $250, hair for $350, dance system for $765, a skin for $1299 (BTW more evidence that those customers are likely paying for skins and clothes more than rent, because they don't just make one purchase of such items per year).

So the Lindens need to re-rent servers to exist, and that's what makes up their world. Whether they get it "directly" from end-users like yourself in the Linden homes, taken as an aggregate (a smaller percentage of their income) or "directly" from "land barons" (the bulk of their income), they need this to make and maintain a virtual world. Maybe some day the costs of the Lindens' vast server farm may be shifted to consumers, but not any time soon.

Now let's think of the actual human beings behind the title of "land baron". I'm a single parent of two living in low-income housing who has worked multiple jobs at the same time my whole life to support my family. My SL business is more in the category of "hobby" than anything else.

But having gotten to know some of the "land barons" over the years, whether the Chinese immigrant Anshe Chung (who might have been declared a "millionaire" on the cover of Business Week" a decade a go but who isn't in the "Fortune 500" by any stretch) or numerous other people, mainly from the US, Europe and Asia, who don't fit your imagined stereotype whatsoever. If you lifted the lid off SL and its anonymous avatars, you'd see more retired postal clerks in Columbus, Ohio shopping at Wal-marts or even working part-time there than you would see yacht owners on the Riveria -- there aren't any of those. Anshe incorporated in China years ago and invests in multiple worlds and I don't think she has a fraction of her one-time presence in SL despite the many people whose last name is "Chung" in SL now. From what I can tell, the honor of top landowners in SL belongs to completely other people, and has for a time, including at least one who left SL to start another world.

The average land baron has more of a chance of being a single black mother in Detroit, who has to spend more than 12 hours a day online waiting on her customers in person, than a middle-aged white geek in Silicon Valley who never logs in while his minions collect rent. The small business owners of SL -- that's what they are, small business owners, whether with popular content creations or land, are moms struggling with cancer or injured war veterans trying to stay ahead of the latest twist of policy on games. They are not Mark Zuckerberg. If you are a wealthy person, you wouldn't be spending your wealth on the curious niche of SL, where land businesses are risky, with potential for huge losses, very slim margins, and enormous amounts of sweat equity. It just isn't viable. If you have money to invest in something online, you would be wiser to invest in an app or a shopping site.

As for "LL has some wonderfully talented employees and contractors as well and I'm pretty cool with buying directly from them when possible" -- unless the Lindens have some secret businesses or alts I don't know about, the ONLY content you can "directly buy" from a Linden is a Linden home, although you could indirectly say you "bought the view" if you bought land on the Mainland beautified by a Mole-created road and some scenery. There isn't any content you can "buy from Lindens" except the Linden homes. And what I see is at least some business growing up around the Linden homes with furniture that fits their styles and sizes, add-ons, and so on.

So while I realize this is reality for you -- "I don't see myself getting another large empty plot in a vast wasteland of other large empty plots and siphon the money I pay LL through a land baron. I quite like paying it directly to the Lindens and I think they are learning some really fabulous lessons from the success of Bellisseria" -- it isn't for an enormous amount of other people in SL. The fact that the Linden Homes have oldbies in it who have NOT given up their island homes is hardly the only factor that lets us know that -- we are also able to open up the map and see where the green dots are. They continue to be on private islands, which are not the "vast wasteland" that you might see on some parts of Mainland. It would be interesting to know how many direct owners there are of islands versus land barons -- given that most of the large rental agencies seem to need at least 100 islands to generate even a modest income I should think "direct owners" of islands is still a smaller category of owners. And again, think of those rental agents -- there are hordes of people, some from third-world countries, some from the third-world like environments of the United States -- serving clients for long hours and minimal pay. And a certain percentage of people making the content purchased by this nation of island renters. The content creators of SL work incredibly hard at very labor-intensive businesses with little return and increasingly high costs to be viewed at events or in classifieds and aren't on the Fortune 500 list, either.

The Lindens do not view land barons as "siphoning off" their revenue -- what they pay IS their revenue.

There's always been this peculiar factor of Linden content (land next to Linden roads and builds or water being more valuable than other land) and now the Linden Homes (at least for some small percentage of users) being a draw, and along with that, the value of the Linden presence inworld for their fan base (which ranges from coders who come to their office meetings on the server to people who like to get into snowball fights with them). Hence, this statement: "Hopefully once the fussy people get homes (or get homes they're satisfied with) @Patch Linden and the gang will start coming out to play again and that sort of fun with the much loved Lindens and Moles can't be offered by anyone other than LL."

I'm trying to think of the last time I saw a Linden inworld. Maybe six months ago when a Linden actually teleported to a sim to try to get rid of this crazy prim that wouldn't delete? And before that...a year ago? More? It might actually be that my last substantive talk with a Linden was a few years ago at a tech show in NYC when Ebbe had a meet-up with residents. Let me suggest that the Lindens couldn't justify paying for full-time, benefited adults to come inworld and play with their customers, but maybe they can get some interns to do more of this?

If the "fabulous lessons" that the Lindens have learned from Bellisseria is that to reach their core user base -- mainly middle-aged low-income employed or retired women, and to a lesser extent, semi-employed young men in their 20s who often make up their partners -- that they need to provide the kind of intensive staff time that we associate with Club Med vacation line-dancing or assisted living complexes in Florida, they know they will be out of business. No online world platform wants to become a caretaker for residents. The Lindens may have ideological aversion to land ownership (that I know is a fact for many of them) or aesthetic aversion (which you share with many of them) but they know where their meal ticket is and who saves them time, talent, and treasure -- the land barons of SL.

XXX

Some additional comments:

Did you know there is a leaderboard for "most liked comments" on the forums?! I sure didn't! I could never aspire to it : )  But apparently Beth McBain is that leader, so I figure she must spend more time on the forums than inworld!

Did you know there was an annual Mole Day Party? Or two. The second is TODAY. 

If the regulars on the forum already produced more smarm than you could handle with their fierce adulation of all things Linden, we are about to see this increase tenfold with Bellisseria -- for those lucky enough to have bother to refresh their pages a zillion times to get a home (I seemingly accidently got a houseboat on an alt a few months ago, never went there (it's crowded, there were ban lines at first although I understand they're gone) and I couldn't even give it away to tenants (you can't rent the land as no commercial activity is allowed). So I abandoned it, and I will try to get a trailer when they come out.

So, learning about Mole Day from the forums -- it's today! -- I made my way to Bellisaria Fairgrounds, but the sim was full with 60 people. I then fell into the water at Glassy Something, then cammed into to see a lot of horses, lots of Linden fanboyz and fangirlz and a few Moles.

I saw Abner Mole, who is in charge of "security," however that is construed in Mole-land as distinct from other LL security, and wished him a happy day. I asked him what Moles ate, having a vague memory of "Mole Cola", an old freebie I still have in inventory.

"Worms, of course!" he said, and I promised to leave some out near the picnic tables and scenery in Grahica, where we have some motel court cabins. I love that simple Mole build there. It isn't even the latest mesh or anything, and you can't even sit at the tables (which I suppose is a good thing, as there are never any people to clutter the view!) but it has these wildflowers that are very nice and "make the scene" for me and convinced me to buy land there, even with a neighbour who keeps a half dozen avatars in the sky playing Tiny Empires 24/7. She has of course "made the view" originally which is why I can even have seaside rentals with only a smidgeon of waterfront -- I totally appreciate good neighbours, and I have her in several sims, and she once "rented the view" from me in order to make sure none of my tenants rented land next to her pretty rentals and thus lowered her value LOL. Love!

That conversation with Abner Mole, which consisted of like two sentences, was the longest conversation I've had with a Linden in years, other than the ones that come and re-set sims. I used to be a Linden fanboy myself, of sorts, going to all their office hours where we discussed topics like island prices and griefers but also more philosophical issues like copybotting and governance which were a vital interest of mine then, and still are to some extent. I was passionate once about trying to influence the direction of SL because I thought there were vital human rights issues at stake. But at some point I realized these issues had spread to the entire Internet -- SL was only a petri dish with them in concentrated form. I want to write a book about this. But several other books I want to write are ahead of it. I did publish a critical book about Edward Snowden you can find on Amazon. So I hope I will do it some day, although I have pressing RL projects now.

I have never warmed up to Patch Linden, even after he answered me on the forums about his double ears -- human and Neko, I guess.  And that's because he has never returned a single IM about anything, even a nice comment let alone a critical concern. I guess he doesn't view me as a customer -- I have barely visited the few Linden homes I owned, I never go to their Linden events in or around them, the games portals they have leave me utterly cold -- I have gone a few times and gotten utterly frustrated or bored -- and so other than visiting a sandbox every day, I don't really have any interaction with "Linden Land" in its pure form, other than, of course, the land I rent and re-rent from them, which is tiny compared to real land barons. Patch Linden is for "community," and I'm not in the "community" by choice, and so are a lot of others, whether they realize it or not. And that's ok. SL should be big enough to go your own way.

I almost never talk to Lindens except for re-setting a sim which is all done online in the help portal. Maybe that's the best way. I've always seem my life in SL as apart from them -- dependent on them, naturally, as they are the platform providers, but dependent on them in the way you might be on aging parents once you left home -- you visit a few times a year even if you call them more often...

That's not a good analogy -- maybe "RL landlord" is a better analogy -- I say hello to the owner of our buildings perhaps two or three times a year when they have community parties or I happen to see him on the plaza.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Beth Macbain]

You are adorable, you fluffy little ragamuffin!

Don't you ever change! You are stunningly perfect just as you are, and don't let anyone ever tell you any differently!

[Frankie Antonioni]

I have seen Guy Linden a few times in SL. It was to set a land to abandoned. I talked to him a couple of times in world. I have also gone to Linden meetings, there I talked to Grumpity, and some other Lindens there. It is held the first Wednesday of each month.
I sent an email to Patch. I got a reply from Whitney Linden. Here is my email, and the reply from Whitney.
========================
Late last month, I filed a ticket. It was about having a road built in
the Shikotsu sim, and would go to the other sims. I got a reply from Guy
Linden. He said that there wasn't enough land to build a road. I sent
him a reply. I told him something needs to be done. That there is lots
of abandoned land. I told him about one idea I came up with. That is to
have Minor Premium. MP would cost about $3.00 a month, or about $22.00 a
year. With MP, you could own land, but would get no stipend. Here are
the thing you would be able to get with MP.

1. No stipend. You will get no money. Nor any signup bonus.

2. No live chat support. You will get no live chat support, and some
support tickets won't be available.

3. No buying land on auctions. You will have to buy land from other land
sellers. You can buy land from LL, if you own land in the sim, and own
less than 1024 sq. meters.

4. No cutting of land, and selling the land. If they buy a 1024 sq.
meters of land, then they will have to sell it whole. They can divide
the land for search.

5. No Linden Home. You get no Linden home. You can only buy land on the
mainland. Or an estate.

Now onto something, but about land. Land that is less than 512 sq.
meters, can no longer be sold. Except to LL. I suggest that LL buy back
all land that is less than 512 sq. meters, or do a land swap. If they
have 460 sq, meters of land, then LL will give them 512 sq. meters for
the 460, or if there is abandoned land next to it, give them 52 sq.
meters. That would then be 512 sq. meters. Need to get all the mainland
to 512 sq. meters, and above. None of this 16 sq. meters here, and 32
sq. meters there.

About my suggestion about MP. Can you have some people that handle the
business end, to look at my proposal.? Would LL make more money? Would
they make less money? Or the same amount.
------------------------------------------
Here is Whitney's reply.
==========
Hi Frankie Antonioni,

​I just wanted to reach out and let you know that we did receive your email. I am forwarding all of your suggestions along to the appropriate people. Thanks so much for taking the time to reach out and let us know about the changes you think would be beneficial. We always love to hear from our residents and how we can make their Second Life better. Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Whitney Linden
Land Product Specialist
Linden Lab
===================
Now if LL were to implement my ideas, would that make me the new FIC?

[Just another guy with a female avatar]

No, it would make you a nobody in a dying video game.

[Prokofy Neva]

I think they should have a Poor Man's Premium for sure, it's a good idea. Maybe force them to go in all those Linden Homes they built that nobody likes now and few went into in the first place! And just a 512.

BTW, I recently found out that even if you try to sell yourself less than 512 to change it from one group to another, you can't. Now how annoying is that! You have to deed it to the group. And as we all know, even if you put "owner makes contribution" it won't go in the group UNLESS you have put tier in that group to receive the actually-covered piece. So that means you have to keep your wits about you, undertier a group, put the tier in to receive that under 512 bit, and hope you aren't interrupted and nothing goes round.

[Frankie Antonioni]

I don't think MP members should be allowed to own Linden Homes. Just mainland. I do think that Full Premium members should be allowed to own a Linden Home, and mainland. That would be 1024 sq. meters of mainland, and a Linden Home. There is another feature that I think the Lindens should offer FP members. That is a website. Not an Elvis Presley fan page type of website. But a website for vendors, and ad servers. Adds would be placed in an add server, and the add server talks to the website, and the website talks to the add board.

I suggest about 5 to 10 MB of space, and about 10 GB of bandwidth a month.
If you want more, then that would cost extra.
One other thing I thought about for MP. MP can own more land, if they pay tier. So if a FP member that is paying $99.00 a year, can drop down to MP, and pay $22.00 a year. But then pay tier to own more land.
So they could end up paying $99.00, or more a year, but end up owning more land.

This would mean that land sales would go up. LL also needs to advertise, and should do more product placement. If they don't, then they could end up like Marx Toys. They went out of business back in 1978.

[Veritas - a happy left-wing enabler]

Clearly Prokofy, Land Baron of the Mainland, has succumbed to a combination of age, the isolation of living a lone, solitary life in a RL city of millions, trying to remember what version of a story she told to who and the eventual realisation the only importance she has is in her own imagination.

Prokofy think what you could have achieved if only you had used the time you have spent in SL for good rather than the evil you frequently posted on your blog.

All those years spent boasting how you were running Ravenglass Rentals not for herself but only for the benefit of others.

The years of complaining about the students of Woodbury University, who like students the world over protested against her ultra right-wing capitalist rental property which gradually you expanded in your failed effort to squeeze them out.

The way you scornfully blogged about the good people of SL who spent hours lovingly crafting a hand puppet in your image.

I could go on, and on and on and on like one of your blog posts but it will serve no point as people know you for what you are.

I have watched your gradual decline. I place the start of the journey down teh slippery slope when you could no longer bother publishing the FIC list you complied.

Do you realise that the vast majority of people currently in SL neither know or care who you are.

[Anne Prickles]

I left your land years ago due to your horrible rental practices, and when it became clear you were just out to get my hard earned Linden money, and when I saw that you attacked all your tenants on your blog over petty grievances you had and accused them of "dementia". Land barons are the worst of SL and Linden Lab really ought to get rid of them. Why should anyone be allowed to own huge swathes of land only in order to bully their "tenants"? That's a dictatorship and reminiscent of serfdom in Russia. People should only be allowed to own 1 house in SL. You don't need to own 100 houses.