Linden Lab 2011 Pricing PolicyImplications and SolutionsOctober 2010

Communities Impacted•Educators (schools and universities)•Museums like The Tech Museum of

Innovation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in SL

•Government agencies like NASA and NOAA•Libraries•Relay for Life (the American Cancer Society)•Virtual Ability•Advocacy organizations like the National

Space Society

Public Perception• With educators losing their jobs, cutting budgets, LL is going to lose more

than educators. (Lorelei Junot)

• LL is nothing but pure greed and it never stops. (Kimo Junot)

• A lot of the quality of the SL world depends on educational and nonprofit clients (Hack Richard)

• “I can only surmise that they are trying to encourage educators to go elsewhere” (KariaKae Karu)

• When you decide to work with your customers instead of against them feel free to come find us. (Nuhai Ling)

• This is not a good indication of LL's health (Cabbage Acanthus)

Public Perception• People are always going to be willing to pay a premium to maintain

property on the Second Life grid, but when you can rent an entire sim with 30,000 prims on the Open Sim grid for sixty bucks a month, well, nobody is going to throw their money away forever. (David Cartier)

• Many people join SL to interact with the Non-Profit and Education communities.  And they go out and buy things. They join the economy. (Talvin Muircastle)

• Clearly noone ever likes a price hike on service - particularly when service is not improving - but to see double the price in one stroke of the pen is compelling reason for any non-profit/education institution review the stability of the company who would make such a decision. (Professor Noarlunga)

• LL doesn't have a clue how to work with or manage volunteers.  They routinely abuse them (Talvin Muricastle)

Public Perception• my University has a site here that is always under criticism about whether

it is a tool or a game (that has now been answered, it's a game, not one we are playing). (Michael Timeless)

• The more I look, the more a solution such as OpenSim++'regular-ole-Apache-LAMP-architecture'++ lightweight viewer (e.g., Unity3D) seems attractive for me (as a developer) and for the people I care about (DoD, US Gov Innovators). (Dana Moore)

• I usually speak positively about Linden Lab and Second Life during my classes and seminars, trying to promote and bring more institutions, corporations and residents into Second Life, but it seems I will have little to say in the future. Anything positive that is... (Max Key)

• SL has in 3 years gone from a place where you can be anything and do anything to being even more draconian and oppressive than some police states out in the real world.  (Shockwave Yareach)

Says it all ......Funny thing is, a lot of us hang around, sticking with you, trying to make it work.  Yes, in part that's because y'all are the only game in town, in a lot of ways. But it's also because we have ties here, connections, communities - and we don't want to see those die. And it's also because SL is still a wonderful platform for being creative.

A lot of us love this place, despite all of our bitching. And we're trying to hang in there with you, make the best of it, create and maintain community here. And, along the way, make some money for you.

But you're making it really... really... hard.•Molly Fitzgerald

Impacts to Edu/NP Community• Cost

• Adjustments to budgets mid-year

• Grant Funding (multi-year, fixed cost)

• Re-work and remodelling

• Approximately 20% of the total population in Second Life has some form of disability.  The more than 70 health support groups here are at greater risk of being unable to participate and provide their services

Impacts to Second Life• Edu/NP move out of Second Life

▫ Fewer Private Sim Leases▫ Fewer Avatars (most of whom have payment information on file)▫ Fewer New Entrants (Students, Clients)

• Reduced fluidity in the SL Economy

• Reduction in maturity and diversity of the SL ecosystem

• Which institutions are going to be able to afford to be in Second Life and work with these new teen residents

• This is bad for Linden Lab's publicity, and their potential for growth in markets that are subject to the regulations of Section 508 (or similar policy in other countries.)

Other side of the Coin• Good move LL, I am glad you are doing this because there are quite a few

people out there abusing the discounted educational regions and not utilizing them like they are supposed to be utilized (Digital Digital)

• The colleges and universities have a ton of taxpayers money, they are busy spending money buying up the best buildings in towns so to lose a discount on Second Life hardly dents their pocket. They compete with private businesses for work and training so they should not get discounts when private companies cant get the same. (David Batty)

• Perhaps the discounts were always too deep. (Qie Niangao)

• For $150/month, I imagine you could do a lot more ... reach a far wider audience in the millions or hundreds of millions with non-3D web tools, conferencing services, e-course software, etc. (om Piers)

Trust Issues• Introduction of VAT with 1 day’s

notice;

• Removal of the Second Life Mentor’s group with little to no warning;

• Layoff of +30% of staff, including Enterprise & Education evangelist/coordinators, and closure all International offices with little or no warning;

• Layoff of Commerce Director just before a scheduled release of a new online Marketplace;

• Elimination of the Enterprise business product without warning;

• Philip’s comments of Second Life being on solid financial footing (SLCC 2010)

• Reduction of both premium and standard support to US business hours, outsourcing of helpdesk staffing, increase in wait times for live support to 1/2 hour or more, and handling of tickets to 8+ weeks;

• Elimination of the Teen Grid at the start of the school year with 2 weeks’ notice;

• No transparent or visible plans for addressing an official policy of allowing minors on the grid;

• Termination of Community Gateways with less than 24 hours notice;

• Elimination of discounted pricing for Universities and non-profits, with insufficient notice for budget planning;

Official Positioning Statements• The Nonprofit Commons will not leave SL, but we may be forced to

downsize and reduce our 4-sim archipelago down to only one or two sims (Susan Tenby – TechSoup Labs)

• We (Virtual Ability) intend to remain in Second Life, as our services here are central to our mission.  But we will likely need to scale back. (Gentle Heron)

• I will not be renewing any of my islands as they come due. (Professor Lax)

• Rockcliffe is going to have to scale back our land holdings rather than proceed with planned expansion as we had hoped over the coming year. (Phelan Corrimal)

• Please be aware that we (NOAA) can only guarantee your placement through our next renewal cycle slated for February 2011. . . . therefore we will be closing down all but our primary islands. (Eric Hackathorn)

Proposed Solutions• Correct some of the policies that have made people quit and lower the

prices a small bit, and you'll have customers paying for the servers once more.  Restore "ownership within SL" to the TOS and people will be more willing to invest again.  (Shockwave Yareach)

• Basically, the Educational/Non-Profit (mainly Educational) discounts need to be extended until at least June. The best would be if the increases came in either August or September, January is a killer for the reasons already mentioned by many others in these comments. (Cybin Monde)

• As of the next academic year, starting MM/2011, the educational/nonprofit discount for full sims will be reduced to 35%.  Plus, <description of deal for homestead/open sims> (Nika Talij)

Proposed Solutions• Pay the undiscounted fees for the

same service.  Not a very popular choice at the moment, but it's an option.  For all but the most specialized non-profits, even the new SL fees will be buried in the noise of the institution's operational budget.  Undoubtedly, however, many projects involving SL are specialized enough that it's a non-trivial budget item; those projects may not be viable with the new pricing.

• Find creative ways to scale back use of SL resources.  Like the rest of SL, most non-profit sims sit nearly idle nearly all the time.  Is it really necessary to maintain full sims, all the time, for all the organizations who currently use them?  It seems to me that an organization with an established reputation (e.g., Non-Profit Commons--although they appear to be scaling back themselves) could coordinate scheduled access to a core of full-primmed sims for large gatherings, with satellite Homesteads owned by individual non-profits.  This won't work for everybody, of course, but it may be an option for some, and may even benefit the constituent organizations.

From Eric Hacathorn (NOAA) posted to GuSL Mail-list on Oct 5 @ 12:11pm

Next Steps1. Don’t Panic – The EDU/NP Community is collaborative and we look after

our own. If we work together we can develop creative solutions to the issues.

2. Terrence is going to be speaking at the Non Profit Commons meeting on Friday. Some RESPECTFUL questioning would be in order (from Orange Planner)

3. Ways and means of imparting on Second Life the illogic of this decision and get them to the table to find better more workable solutions