Welcome Mark (M): Second Life ‘could’ be one of the most exciting challenges you ever had. I don’t have a crystal ball for a Tray of treats in flip flops taking over a Company so badly assembled it is only the strength of the product keeping the addicted on line 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for about 25 USD profit. I joined over a year ago, so I may be able to use my experience to predict the forward events. Before I do, let me offer three suggestions: 1. Stay out of SL, we don’t need you as a newb floating around making all the newb mistakes and learning all the newb experiences, you’re a CEO, people person, business professional, Intelligent, rational, articulate and educated. Use those skills, let us play while you work. 2. Set real goals for your business teams and adhere to them regardless. Make the promises and follow them up , ignore the howls of protest how we need this and need that and need the other to fix this , fix that, and fix the other. Reduce the number of needless money suckers from the business and invest in technically competent professionals. Create Goals and Stick to them, goals that will grow the business. 3. Listen to the users. You don’t have to walk amongst them, you don’t have to be feted and lauded and congratulated… You have some people that invest not just time, but a considerable sum into SL, people who had a dozen islands are struggling to stay in business these days because they have been shafted, robbed, keel hauled and bollixed up by the existing Linden structure of price hikes, self inflating currency, unbalanced rules, additional taxes, and now we have our investment cut by 40 percent and a free for all for the one thing we all need, land. If you want to see what it is really like, go home and join as a true newb with a new name and float out to the islands where some of us are dying daily because of the crud your predecessor handed out. Incognito might show you a side of SL that is anything but attractive.
Please halt the massive growth of Land. It prints money for you, destabilizes the financial structure we all have to live by and gives you a false indicator of company strength. Please stop the guys from adding more widgets, gadgets like dazzle, voice and havoc. They plain do not work as they should and the opportunity cost has been staggering. So many fixes could have been implemented, but instead, they have been promised fixes that are now lost in the volume of changes. Nothing is fixed and more and more is Broke each day. At one time, it was a hiccup crossing sim boundaries, it’s now a nightmare. When you have a dozen islands and need to be able to move around, the need to constantly log in or crash on endless teleports is simply damned annoying if nothing else. The dazzle viewer may be fine if you have a reasonable new PC, unlimited graphic ability and live close to the servers, in reality most of font and cant so we get a cruddy experience. Example, at one time I had my draw length at max all the time so that I could work with my residents, now I am forced to have it set to 96 meters or I can’t even move due to the amount of time and effort the system needs to simply draw what was done in a heartbeat at one time, now takes significantly longer.
For 18 months we have been slowly growing clusters of islands, my partner with 15, I with a dozen. Each growth supported by the income from the existing islands. It’s a lot of work for one person and we do it because we enjoy it. Many of us have been doing this, giving your customers the experience that keeps them current and spending their money here. We may have been earning, say a couple hundred bucks a month, but through our efforts we have been supporting and generating your economy. Now, as so much land is being introduced, and the cost of new islands has been cut, and the Open Space sims(low prims sims or Voids) virtually free for anyone instead of needing to buy them four at a time, means that we now have fewer residents, our islands are shrinking. We already work 16 plus hours a day to try and fill them so we can survive. We are not on your payroll, but we have contributed to your economy in a very healthy way for the last 18 months. Now we are dying.
Further, the way VAT was introduced created a designed non-level playing field. Yes, it meant that USA people paid no tax or a few percent tax, while Europeans started to pay 17.5% VAT in England and 25% in some other countries. So now, we cannot compete fairly with the Americans as without the tax burden, they have room for massive profit and still undercut the eu players such as ourselves. VAT and other taxes should have been INCLUSIVE to comply with British Law, but your predecessors chose to simply ADD it to the existing high charges. We know why you banned on line gambling, to allow a couple of States in the USA to cease the threat of taking you to court. It was a knee jerk reaction and one that should have been reviewed. We suggested a long time ago, different but joined platforms on each primary Real World Continent. We could have been generating you all a good income from gambling while you still complied with us law and we would have paid the tax happily as we always seem to do. A blanket ban was childish and still hurts your economy.
Creating large tracts of land is simply printing phoney money, it’s a short term gain only, it does not endear long term growth. If you were in advertising or car manufacture or even camera equipment, you would know that turning cheap product endlessly turns you into to a Woolworths with a stock load of Edsels. Letting the residents fight for the land and introducing more, as demands warrants, keeps the prices stable and keeps the interest there. You’re a successful business person, you know this. I doubt my letter will get read, but if it does Mark, I hope you take one thing from it, Your customers are seeing things in a different light to many of those that line up for their pay packets and produce very little that actually contributes to the good of Linden Labs, irrespective of how loud they shout and how clever their wish lists are.
We gave and give you everything a customer could, even our loyalty, but many of us are starting to give up simply because we cannot keep up with the incompetence, the broken promises and the unfair tactics used against us. We are your customers, we love the concept, we give freely and generate income, please, listen to us from time to time.
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