EOTB: "Membership Mania" Offering Higher Group Limit, More Perks For Upgraded Accounts

 

 

On Monday February 10, Linden Lab announced their "Membership Mania" week. Everybody, basic accounts included, is getting higher group limits. And there's now more perks for upgraded accounts, including a few Linden Home types available for Plus.

 

February’s Membership Mania continues with even more surprises and rewards for our valued Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus members! If you thought last week’s announcements were exciting, just wait until you see what’s in store this week. From free daily Linden Dollars to expanded benefits across the board, there’s never been a better time to be a Second Life member! 

To begin with, everybody is getting a higher group limit.  This includes Basic accounts, who are having it raised from 42 to 50. Plus accounts are getting it raised from 50 to 55. Premium residents are going from 60 to 70 groups. And for Premium Plus, the limit is going from 140 to 150.

The last time the group limit was changed for basic accounts was in 2011, when it was raised from 30 to 42. At Second Life's beginning in 2003, it was just ten.  In 2004, it was raised to 15. In 2006, it was raised to 25. In 2016, it would raise the limit of Premium accounts to 60.

 

In 2019, Linden Lab announced it would be cutting the limit back, but eventually relented and kept the limit at 42.

Less important but still useful, the number of stored IMs will be going up. For Basic, the number will be going up from 15 to 30. For Plus, from 15 to 40. Premium goes from 80 to 120. Premium Plus goes from 160 to 240.

 

Linden Lab is lowering the cost to be a Linden Home owner. Those with Plus accounts are now eligible for one. But, they won't have the selection Premium residents have. They will be limited to just three kinds, Newbrooke Sakura, and Campers. 

For those wanting to add one more decoration to their Linden Homes, more good news. Linden Lab is raising the Land Impact levels. For land parcels 512 square meters in size, is up from 175 to 234 LI. For those 1024 in size, 351 to 468. And for those 2048 from 703 to 937. 

And for those using the Mobile Viewer with accounts over Basic, good news. The Lab will be paying you to log in daily with their "Linden Reward Streaks"

 

 

For a limited time, we’re rolling out Linden Reward Streaks, an exciting new way for Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus members to earn free Linden Dollars daily simply by logging in to the Second Life Mobile app. 

To claim some free Lindens, log onto the mobile app if you have an account higher than Basic (download it first if you don't have it). If you log on for a second day in a row, you get a few more Lindens than the first day. If you log on for a third day in a row, you get still more up to day seven. After that, you get the same amount of free Lindens for as long as you keep logging in every day, "Look for the Streaks pop-up when you log in or find it in your main menu. "

To check the blog post in full, Click Here.

A Reader Responds on Linden Lab's Price and Fee Hikes, Group Limit Cuts

On June 4, yours truly made a commentary about Linden Lab's decision on May 29 to raise Premium account prices by 37% (or a little over 25% for those paying monthly), the doubling of the fee to cash out Linden dollars (2.5% to 5%), and their decision to cut the group limits on basic accounts from 42 to 35. While the Lindens canceled the last part of their plans due to feedback, I questioned why the Lab made that move to begin with while also raising prices and fees while their successful Linden homes were already bringing in more money.

Some people felt the commentary was overreacting to Linden Lab's move. Most of those comments on Facebook were simple ones to the tune of "If you don't want to pay, you don't have to play." But one reader, an Elizabeth Jarvinen, took the time to explain why she felt the comments were a little harsh.

I've been one of very few residents who routinely helps out both the Lindens and the third party viewer devs with bug reports and problem solving on SL. There's been talk for years about how group size and group numbers have been problematic. Whether people believe it or not, the facts remain the same. Group membership, particularly very large groups really weigh down the SL system. That's also why they limited viewing group members / roles to groups with (under) 5000 members. 

Balancing Public Relations with Technical Solutions is not easy. It's one of the hardest things with doing anything 'on the internet' in this era~ people can always construct a narrative that has conspiracy and ill intentions, marked with corporate greed and personal gain for~ well~ pretty much any situation really. That being said, I also condemned the notion of cutting basic groups, and I'm glad they listened.

I also feel a bit compelled to point out that with regard to "small land owners" a year ago they literally doubled their parcel sizes for FREE. How was that forgotten so quickly? I get that people remember bad things more readily and that Loss Aversion is a human propensity ~ but, I really wish it wasn't.

Also also~ random addendum, the reason there was teleport failures was literally related to the linux version that the servers were running on. Not, as your article suggests, things being moved to the Cloud. Sounds silly, but that's what it was. So the issue was basically an unforeseen consequence of some other software developer that changed a thing that SL uses to exist~ and that caused teleports in SL to change behavior.

The parting words of your post seems to indicate that you believe that the Lindens of old were less greedy somehow~ and that the new ones are putting the screws to the residents just 'cause they can. The fact of the matter is SL is a dinosaur, an aging behemoth. It's made it this far, due to some very good design choices by those early Lindens you revere, but it also is struggling due to some very poor ones that did not age well. Solving these issues may not always have the most socially expedient solutions, and I may not always agree with them. But I'd rather they try than we all get a "June surprise" of Linden Lab closing it's doors and the Second Life we all know and love becoming a footnote of the history of the Internet.

Do you the readers agree? Disagree? Further comments are welcome below, as well as any reader submissions.

Commentary: Linden Lab's Surprise Price Hikes and Group Limit Cuts

Individual Lindens can be quite friendly and helpful. The moles I've run into at the SLB grounds, they've been very cheerful and reasonable. But when it comes to Linden Lab, older residents often have mixed opinions. We're grateful of course for their creating the virtual world, and admire the effort the first Lindens put into getting it going. But it seems once they became a big success, they began to change. They've kept the virtual world upgraded, with additions such as Windlight, Mesh, Animesh, and more. But they've also made a number of questionable moves over the years, a number of which got people wondering about their motivations and how interested they were in listening to the concerns of their customers: us.

While some residents were grumbling about the Lab moving Second Life's data over to Amazon Cloud servers, which they complained were leading to a number of glitches such as the teleport disconnects this spring, in general, the attitude about Linden Lab this year has been mostly positive. The new Linden Homes proved to be highly popular, and were almost certainly the big reason for the number of Premium accounts going up this year. Considering that more than 700 added were snapped up in less than half an hour after they were made available, all the Lab had to do was to offer more to further encourage residents to go Premium. Instead, they made the decision to raise the cost to residents for Premium accounts, in addition to doubling the fees to cash out Linden dollars.

As one person on the forums put it, this was bad timing by the Lindens. Being done so soon after their latest release of Linden Homes, it made the Lab look more than a little greedy. Plus being done just as Second Life's more active residents, such as it's media, were getting ready for two of it's biggest events of the year, the Relay Weekend and the Second Life Birthday, this became the latest "May/June Surprise" that the Lab has pulled. One wonders if they decided to make their move now so with everything else going on, it might not be noticed as much.

Talking and listening to the residents, while sims may be cheaper, with Premium going up so much the smaller landowners won't see a benefit. With cashout fees doubling, some content creators have been complaining this will hurt already small bottom lines. "Why are you punishing people that help keep SL more interesting, LL? ... the less I make here, the less time I can devote to creation in Second Life."

Of the Lab saying they would cut the group limit of basic accounts, the residents didn't buy the explanation of more groups per resident taxing the system. Some of the largest complaints came not from run-of-the-mill basic account residents, but by merchants, club owners, DJs, and content creators, saying they relied on people joining their groups to help advertise their events and products, and Linden Lab's move would throw a monkey wrench in how they did business.

Needless to say, the calling off of Linden Lab's planed basic account group limit cut was a sigh of relief to many. Still, people wondered why the Lab wanted to do that to begin with. Indeed since the Lindens cancelled that part of their plans, I've had people ask me if the Lindens never seriously intended to carry it out, but that was part of a strategy to satisfy the residents by ditching what would be the most disliked part of the announcement. One recalls their ordering all third-party virtual currency exchange businesses to close down operations in May 2013, and two weeks later after numerous and vocal complaints doing a partial reversal of their decision by allowing them to sell Linden dollars, but not cash them out (two years later, they would order them to shut down again, this time for good).

Going back to the account price and cashing out fee hikes, if Linden Lab was already poised to make some more money with people getting Premium to get one of the popular Linden Homes, why raise prices? Indeed I've been hearing various people saying they won't renew their Premium status. So while Linden Lab may be getting a little more money as a result of this move, the amount from Premium accounts will be significantly shorter than the 37% hike. Of raising the cashout fee, Jo Yardley of The Berlin Project pointed out some people just might bypass Linden dollars alltogether on some Second Life transactions, "If cashing out keeps getting more expensive, people might just start asking tenants, customers or clients to start paying them directly via Paypal."

Yes, we understand the Lab is trying to make land more affordable and reduce the "tax burden" on landowners. But as a Premium account is necessary to directly own land in the first place, how does jacking up the price by almost 40% benefit those who own only one to a few sims? Maybe a hike of five to ten percent now would have been understandable. But this kind of increase plus the doubling of the cashout fee just after how successful your Linden Homes have been just reminds us longtime residents why we are so wary of the Lab.

As this is the time that the Newser reflects on it's anniversary, yours truly can't help but look back at some of the parting words of our predecessor paper's editor Dana Vanmoer, "One thing I would hope for the future of SL is that the Lindens go back and realise what they are destroying with their policies. The sheer creativity, communication and international impact somewhere like Secondlife can be is being eaten away by the Lindens stupidly ignoring the content creators with their ill thought out policies which help no-one except their own pockets." Nine years later, it seems we are still dealing with policies that could have been thought out better.

Linden Lab, we're grateful for this virtual world, but how can we put much trust in you if you continue making moves like this time and time again?

Bixyl Shuftan
Editor
Second Life Newser

Breaking News: Linden Lab Cancels Basic Account Group Limit Cut

On Wednesday, Linden Lab announced that in addition to their Premium account price hikes and increasing the fees to cash out Linden dollars, they were cutting back the number of groups residents with basic accounts could have. The residents reacted quite negatively, more than a few calling the Lindens saying that more groups per resident was taxing the system either highly exaggerated, or outright false. Finally, the Lab partially relented. Less than two hours ago on the official blogs, the Lab announced that due to the "strong and convincing feedback from many in our community," they were cancelling the cuts for basic account group limits.

... many Residents have shared how they rely heavily on Groups to stay informed about new product releases as Merchants use this feature to regularly communicate news and updates to their customers, and how much Groups are used for keeping communities active.

We hear your concerns and, as a result, Group Membership limits for Basic Residents will NOT be reduced as part of our Premium Membership changes rolling out on June 24.

The other parts of the May 29 announcement, notably the Premium account price increases and the cashing out fees doubling, remain the same.

Grumpity Linden Tries to Explain The Price Increases, Group Limit Cuts

The news of Linden Lab's Premium account price hikes, basic account group limit cuts, and cashing out fee increases on Wednesday May 29 got quite a number of reactions from the residents. In the early morning of Thursday May 30, Grumpity Linden decided to start a thread on the official forums, "A Brief Note On Pricing Changes," to explain why the Lab made these decisions.


Of why the Premium account prices were rising:

We looked. We hadn’t raised premium prices in the history of premium prices in SL. Crazy! A lot of value has been added to premium over the last few years (new Linden Homes, double tier, reduced mainland prices, premium access, more offline IMs, more transaction history, more groups, more animesh, experiences, and yet more to come) and we are raising prices to reflect that. 

Of why they were lowering the group limit of basic account members:

We’re not lowering limits out of spite, groups really are quite a strain on our back end for a variety of painful historical reasons, including overloading group functionality instead of having other tools.  This subject alone is worth a novel liberally sprinkled with tears. So anyway, we don’t hate basic users, and in fact we work hard to retain our free-to-play offering as one of the most generous across many industries. But yes, no big surprise, we do want to nudge active residents to become subscribers, because we think it’s a great value, and - as many have noted - we’re also running a business. 

But no, we're not shutting our doors to non-premium residents. Rumors of our insanity and villainy have been slightly exaggerated.  

Of the credit processing fee hike:

Fees to process credit are going up, effective June 24.  L$ buy fees are not. Yes, this is another step in rebalancing the economy.  It’s also the right step, because the regulatory climate has evolved dramatically since SL first started out, and in order to continue to offer a platform for creators to actually make money, we have a lot of ongoing work to keep up with those regulations. Compliance is generally no fun (shh don’t tell our compliance people I said so - they’re wonderful and actually think it’s fun!) but it keeps all of us in business and the bad guys out. If we weren't doing this work, we would literally have to stop offering the ability to process credit.

Grumpity would go further to explain why the Lab felt these moves were necessary:

We’re making lasting investments into SL in infrastructure, features, and content.  While we set aside some special morsels only for premium members, the work we are doing benefits everyone - region crossings, attachment reliability, marketplace improvements, inventory stability, land auctions - are just a few examples.  No one project will please all of our residents, but we make an effort to address the needs of all communities in turn. We can’t get everything done immediately, but we’re focused and determined to keep SL successful and evolving. It’s a unique and thriving world we work hard to support.

Look, this is obviously a bitter pill.  We can't keep slashing land prices at the rate we did last year.  We can’t raise other prices and yet keep everyone happy.  But we sincerely believe this is the best path forward - and hope you will come around too.  

P.S. we haven't given up on Last Names either. 

Grumpity did get credit from some residents for her willingness to come forward and speak, but few were convinced, content creators and merchants saying the Lab was making it very hard for them to do business inworld. Jo Yardley suggested if the cashing out fees kept going up, some residents might start dealing directly with each other via Paypal than use Linden dollars.

The debate is almost certainly to go on for quite some time. Readers are invited to made comments and send reader submissions. How will these price hikes and group limit cuts affect you?

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Raising Price of Premium Accounts, Reducing Group Capacity in Basic Accounts

Yesterday on Wednesday May 29, Linden Lab announced "Land Price Reductions, New Premium Perks, and Pricing Changes." But it's the "Pricing Changes" that are getting most of the attention plus The "Premium and Basic Account Changes."

The Lab announced "the difficult decision to make our first Premium price increase in over a decade." Their monthly rate was going up by over 25% from $9.50 USD a month to $11.99. Their quarterly rate was going up by almost 50% from $22.50 every three months to $32.97. And their yearly rate was going up by almost 40% from $72 a year to $99.

The Lab did say on June 3 they would be offering a "limited time offer" until June 24 for Premium account residents to renew at the old rate for one more cycle, including for those being billed monthly to switch to quarterly or annually and for those billed monthly to go quarterly. For basic accounts going Premium, being billed quarterly would no longer be an option. That option would remain only for existing Premium accounts.

Linden Lab was also increasing the credit processing fee for selling Linden dollars to Paypal and Skrill accounts from 2.5% per transaction to 5% (with a minimum fee of $3). In Nov 2017, it was raised from 1.5% to 2.5%. The Lab gave "increased regulatory and compliance costs" as the reason.

The good news for Premium account residents, Linden Lab announced that effective June 24, their group limit would rise from 60 to 70. The number of stored offline IMs would rise from 50 to 80. Unfortunately, Basic account residents would be taking a hit. Their group limit would be cut from 42 to 35, and their stored offline IMs would go down from 25 to 15.

This is the first time that group capacity for residents has been trimmed back. In October 2010, the limit for all accounts was raised from 25 to 40. In January 2011 it was raised to 42. In June 2015, it was raised to 60 for Premium residents, with regular ones still having a limit at 42.

The best news was for landowners. Linden Lab announced that the tier for full sims was going down again, effective June 3. For most, it would be from $249 USD to $229. The rate for grandfathered, or "bought-down", sims was also being cut, from $195 USD to $179. The $30 fee to add to the prim limit was unchanged.

The residents were quick to react, numerous comments in two threads in the Discussion Forums, "$99 Problems," and "What Are Your Opinions ..." There's also one in VR Universe. Needless to say, there were many expressing disappointment and anger, with accusations the Lab was acting out of greed.

For the blog post in full, Click Here.

Eye on the Blog: Group Limit Extended to Sixty for Premium Accounts

Late last week on May 28, Linden Lab announced they were expanding the number of groups for premium accounts. The new limit for these has gone from 42, which remains the limit for normal accounts, to sixty.

Today we’re thrilled to be rolling out another perk for Premium members: now you can be a member of 60 groups! Groups have been a consistently popular feature among the Residents of Second Life. It may not be obvious, but group membership can have an impact on the performance of a number of systems. That's why in Second Life's early days, Residents could only join a maximum of 10 groups. Over the years, we've made improvements that enabled us to raise the group limit to a maximum of 42, but we know that for some power users, even that isn't quite enough, and today we're happy to raise the bar for Premium subscribers.

The Lab stated while they would like to raise the limit further, "We must make sure that the recent gains in group performance are not jeopardized." The group limit raise took place immediately. The Lab went on to say "Downgrading from Premium membership will not remove you from any of your groups, but it will mean that you cannot join any new groups until you remove yourself from enough groups to get below the Basic account limit, which remains at 42."

Daniel Voyager wrote on his blog that over the years, the group limit has gone up over time from Second Life's beginnings. When the Grid officially opened, residents were limited to just ten groups. Compared to today, some of today's residents would consider this a ridiculously small number as there's all kinds of groups, for music and dance clubs, combat roleplay squads and platoons, estate community announcements, breedable pet fans, political discussion clubs, stores, even for Second Life families and circles of friends. Jo Yardley commented in the official blog that she thought "I think we have almost 20 just for our sim alone."

But over time, the limit would go up. In 2004, it was raised to 15. In 2006, it was raised to 25. In 2011, it was raised to the limit it was for all accounts until recently, 42.

Linden Lab has tried a number of ways over the years to encourage residents with basic free accounts, which were introduced in 2006. This has included offering them free gifts, sims only residents with premium accounts could access, discounts for the first month when signing up, and more. Some residents have commented these perks have seemed a bit small. But for some whose group limit keeps maxing out, raising it to 60 may be a very welcome convenience they're willing to pay more for.

For the comments in the Linden forums, Click Here.