Reader-Submitted Commentary: Linden Lab's Continued Greed

  
Due to the recent increase in purchasing lindens an added 7.5 percent, which is higher than the sales tax in my state which is neither zero or low, I am forced to cancel my premium account. They cap it at $9.99 however, all this does is make it so those who buy over $150 USD lindens aren't charged more who could probably more afford it.  This mostly effects those who buy between $100 USD and $140 USD, which is what I think a lot of regular users may purchase. Buying more frequently in smaller increments won't help as you are charged $1.49 per purchase on top of this new charge.  

I know Linden Lab seems to think that most people who play Second Life are some kind of at least middle-class pay pigs with huge sums of expendable income. But the truth is, many of us are in fact either working class, unemployed, or like me on a low fixed income due to disability, retirement or similar.   They have raised the cost of premium in the past 2-3 years. They have raised the cost of buying lindens for the 4th time in five years, and they raised the cost of selling them at least once. They have also raised the cut of MP sellers that they takem forcing them to raise MP prices.

I feel that in addition to just plain greed, we are being forced to pay for their failed projects (Sansar) and poor choices moving the servers to Amazon business cloud servers, not even the gaming ones, to save money, which has resulted in a number of bugs and issues. To those whose stores or groups I left, please understand I had no other choice.  

Linden Lab gets away with this kind of horrid move and generally poor customer service to a large degree because they are somewhat of a monopoly in complex immersive adult virtual worlds.  IMVU is geared more towards teens and not really competition.  Avakin seems similar to IMVU.  Inworldz is long dead.  I have tried some other grids but never logged in more than a few times.  I have too much time, relationships and money invested in Secondlife anyway to start over unless forced to do so.  Many people they know who have been here for years almost daily are in a similar position so the Lindens know they can charge whatever they like.   

Oh and the increase on buying lindens comes  right at the beginning of the annual Fantasy Faire, which benefits Relay For Life, an organization that raises money to fight Cancer. So I hope that doesn't affect them raising money.

Kἶէმƈεlἶმ Lմἶղƈօɾἶმlօէε Kεlνმɾl (Kitacelia Resident)