Hi [Enter name of new hire], Welcome to Linden Labs.
I recycled the above, I used it for a whole bunch of other people who have come to the forum and said “I am new but we are going to change things for the better, we need to listen to you, give us your ideas”. And we do, we give you all ideas, concepts, suggestions. Some good, some awful and some not worth printing, and every now and them, we come up with a terrific idea and somehow, after all is said and done, it turns into just that, “Just Another Good Idea” (JAGI).
Your product has a lot of rough edges, is sloppy in some parts and is broken in others, the JIRA tells you that but I understand it will cost money and brains to fix a lot of the issues and that could detract from immediate income generation.
So a new JAGI needs to not detract from Income Generation while at the same time, fixing something that is broken.
Your ideas over the past two years have been perplexing, Windlight, Voice, Banning Gambling rather that create local servers, updates needing a whole package to be re-downloaded instead of a module for that package (huh!) so a new JAGI would have to have a value and a point and that could be implemented with minimum disruption.
You product has a huge addicted user base. No matter how much you mess up (and admit for once that mistakes in judgement are too frequent), we are still here. If you ever had a company that needed customer generated feedback, it is this one, but it seems no one at Linden Labs listens to their customers here. So a new JAGI needs to come from listening to us, your user base. (We are for the most part friendly, but remember, we outnumber you a million to one).
To round up, a JAGI needs to continue to generate income and hopefully improve it.
A JAGI needs have value that does not require disruption or a change in infrastructure.
A JAGI needs to be easy to implement, (Those are the best kind, low outlay, huge return)
And a JAGI has to be borne from your customers.
Here is my JAGI
Premium Accounts
The value of the premium account is miss understood when compared with Non Premium account holders. I would change little for the premium account holders. I would make a change to non premium account holders to widen the gap between account holders and non account holders.
1) I suggest that non premium account holders, Alts, Bots, Campers, Greifers etcetera are rewarded with in inventory scrub every 24 hours. ( yes, remove all created and or purchased content). Reason: if the account is to be used to sample SL then it is no loss, allow the character to be persistent but with an inventory cleaned out after 24 hours.
2) Allow non premium account holders to forcibly expire after thirty days. With the name being locked for 30 days more against re-use. How many times do you need to log in and explore before deciding you want to retain inventory and a name?
3) Remove the option to hold funds from non account holders. That way they can’t be ‘gifted’ funds from other avatar accounts and buy weapons or other things that can be used to reduce the quality of game play for those of us who invest into Second Life.
4) If the account is an ALT account, and the account is riding on the strength of a premium account, then for account purposes, it should be part of that account and counted as the main avatar. So if there are 40,000 logged in and 10,000 are ALTS camping or taking up numbers, the true account of logged in accounts should be 30,000.
Or
4a) If an premium account is logged in, and an alternative account for that holder tries to log in, the premium account avi should be bumped off. Restricting one avi to one user. If the second account is a premium account, then allow the second avatar to add to the total number of avatars on line without bumping off the first or primary avatar.
Remove negativity
I am not suggesting Camping Avi’s should be banned, but if you want to set a dozen or forty avatars to camp to swell the numbers for your sim, then pay premium for each one, then we will see how ineffective campers are and Linden Labs will make a tidy sum in the process.
I am not suggesting that people create alts for negative reasons, or for attacking those who have displeased their owners, but if you had to pay premium for your avi in order to attack the other player, then losing your accounts upon detection would be a far more costly process.
Resolve
Simple changes, they have defined values, they increase the revenue for Linden Labs and go some way to creating more visible numbers with more accuracy. It means little or no change for the vast majority of users who already contribute heavily to the success of Linden labs, and the removal of some free accounts ability to grief, camp or clutter, would be an impact appreciated by every premium member that ever existed.
Please vote for my JAGI.
http://forums.secondlife.com reply# 374
3 comments:
Rivers,
I think that's a great idea and if LL is serious about the free account in the means of sampling the world
and not as a tool to boost user statistics that should right do it.
Ouch!
This is certainly the WRONG way to go; and while it pains me to say so, it demonstrates a naive view of SL commerce and the value of free accounts.
Yes, the "free" account system is abused by a minority, but the counter side to this is that Premium accounts make up less than 17% of the SL community. Therefore, the vast majority of those creating commerce in SL - in terms both of physical content creation AND the purchase of the same - is from people with FREE accounts.
I myself utilise a free account, and I provide content in-world (houses, skyhomes, furnishings, scripts, etc.). Your suggestion would wipe this out in an instant; and as a free account holder, I'm in the majority here.
"So what?" you may say, "Upgrade to Premium and the problem is solved".
My reply is simple: why should I? What are the benefits in paying an additional $10 a month?
- Is the platform more stable for me? No.
- Am I better able to protect my content from copybots? No.
- Do I get better support from LL in the event of problems (land, transactions, etc.) No.
- Is my in-world experience better handled? No.
- Am I likely to contribute more to in-world creation? No - I'm doing that virtually full-time with a free account.
And as a consumer, is having a premium account more likely to cause me to contribute to the SL economy? No.
The fact is, and remains, that Premium accounts offer very little return or solid, tangible benefits. Rather, they create an wholly artificial "two tier" perception of SL usage that is leads to the kind of wrong-thinking that is evidenced in your post.
IF premiums subscriptions gave a TANGIBLE benefit to SL / LL (i.e. in terms of providing an income stream to LL which the company could use towards improving grid stability and in-world services), then your argument _might_ have some merit.
But premium subscriptions offer NO SUCH INCOME STREAM. In fact, Mark Kingdon (LL CEO) is on record as stating publicly that, "Premium subscriptions are immaterial in our overall business."
That is, premium subscriptions have absolutely zero impact on, or input to, LL's business model or on their income stream.
Nothing. Zero. Nowt. Nada.
This being the case, and given the fact they offer no _genuine_ benefits over "free" accounts, then the correct course of action is simple: do away with "premium" accounts in their entireity.
Further, to argue that capping free accounts in such a draconian manner (inventory sweeps, etc.), would deal with campers and bots is wholly inaccurate. Such actions may inconvenience a few bot users but the vast majority (there to simply camp and earn lindens) would be wholly unaffected.
Similarly, 30-day account expiry would do little to actually "improve" SL, other than mightly inconveniencing the 80%+ of genuine SL users who contribute to the on-world experience you and I can enjoy through taking the time to build products, landscape land holdings, and in buying products others have created, etc.
I'm sure not a few contributed enormously to your own business by buying land parcels from you.
The bottom line is, and while you may feel offended that I say so, that your suggestion here is in the same category as LL's recent actions over OpenSpace sims which you have so eloquently railed at elsewhere.
That is, you are putting forward an idea that will penalise a vast majority of honest individuals who have every right to enjoy SL as much as you do, in the mistaken belief that you are somehow "benefitting" SL as a whole.
(edited to correct a couple of missed typos).
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