Yeah, that's right, nobody is more surprised than myself. There must be dozens of comments on other blogs where I ranted what a bad deal Premium membership is, that the only halfway visible benefit is to be eligible to buy Mainland parcels and that this is a dubious benefit at best. And that Premium membership is really unattractive and a waste of money. So why did I change my mind?What changed is my perception. When I ranted about Premium membership, I primarily had the Mainland parcels in mind. Paying almost 120 US$ a year to be able to buy parcels in a constantly changing, ugly neighbourhood seemed like a bad joke to me. But if you change the perspective, things seem more attractive again. In a recent discussion fellow blogger Uccello Poultry suggested to me:
"As for you not having a premium account, I can only encourage to you think about it more seriously. A successful and influential business owner friend of mine had a basic, No Payment Info on File account when another resident (falsely) accused her of stealing his product designs. Her account was canceled without a hearing or any reasonable recourse for appealing. She lost land and property of substantial value."This made me think, especially since I had similar notions from two other people in a rather short time frame. Like it or not - Linden Lab seems to deal different with Premium and non-Premium members. As a non-Premium member I can't file support tickets, and can't call support. So I started to look at the Premium membership as a sort of insurance.
Another thing that bothered me was that Linden Lab wants hard currency for the Premium membership. All I ever put into SL was 15 EUR - and my personal situation does not allow me to spend the amounts each month some of my friends spend. My friend Rika Watanabe opened my eyes to the possibilities of the LindeX, explaining to me that Linden Lab first charges your US$ balance before they start to charge your credit card. Provided you have enough US$ balance on your account - and this can be filled by selling Linden Dollar on the LindeX - your credit card never gets charged. So I can - with only a little complexity - pay for my Premium with Linden Dollar. With this final piece of information, I sat down and did the math:
26.78 US$ quarterly Premium fees, thanks to Linden Lab's double taxation of European residents, equals 6990 L$ at an exchange rate of 1:261. I could game the LindeX a bit and probably get a better deal like maybe 1:259 but that hardly matters. In those three months I will receive a stipend of 12 * 300 L$ = 3600 L$. This effectively reduces the Premium payment to only 3390 L$. The bottom line is that I will pay 283 L$ per week to become a Premium member and have a direct line to Linden Lab.
Up to now, this only focused on the "insurance aspect". However I am entitled to get a 512 sqm Mainland parcel at no extra cost with my Premium membership. As ugly as Mainland is for the most parts, a Mainland parcel has a few advantages, the major one is that Mainland won't go away. My translation office and the GREENE concept shop are on a beautiful sim, of which I am resident since August 2007. It is owned by a company who has various other sims in SL, and managed by an employee of said company. For all I know, right this second the folks at that company might have a meeting and decide to stop their SL efforts. Or right this second my landlady might get an offer from a different company and leaves her current employer. I might log in tomorrow and the sim is gone. There is no guarantee it won't. However, Mainland will stay. So if nothing else, a Mainland parcel is a pretty secure server location for your SLX,
But why stop here? Rika shared a few other interesting facts with me. I can donate my land to group and get a 10% bonus. Ivanova, my partner in GREENE concept, could donate her unused Premium land allotment to group as well, and together we could buy a 1126 sqm parcel with approximately 256 available prims - at no extra cost. This would make for a nice little rent free shop - provided a stable neighbourhood can be found. An additional benefit of group owned land is that it can be in arrears with tier payments for a pretty long time before being reclaimed - a fact that not a lot of people seem to know (and which can change anytime).
Finally I expect Linden Lab to make Premium membership a better deal in the short term future. It has been discussed that Premium members might be preferred access rights during high concurrency. I assume there will be other benefits as well like maybe lower upload fees or more land. I also expect the additional benefits will come with higher Premium fees. And since Premium accounts are known to be grandfathered I might get a better deal by getting in early.
Bottom line is: my perception changed from "why should I pay hard currency to buy an ugly Mainland parcel" to "for 283 L$ / week I get recognized better by Linden Lab, can file tickets and get at minimum a secure server location or even a small shop for free".
Sometimes a change of perspective is a good thing.
14 comments:
I'm glad you finally came to this perception after 2 years, but all of this information was available to you back then had you only unplugged your ears and stopped streaming the memes about Mainland and premiums that flow from the tiny percentage of SL residents that blog or bark on the forums.
The Mainland is not ugly, Peter. Fly around. Look at what's for sale. There are many fantastic bargains to be had. There are many well kept skims. I have land on 65 sims. They all look good because people work at it. Stop purveying this myth, and do some shopping and homework. And yes, you can create groups and get the extra bonus and therefore extra prims. You can sell off the Lindens and that nearly pays for the account.
But you are also once again purveying this myth of the alleged "double taxation" by Linden Lab. Nothing of the kind is going on. You seem to be whining once again that LL should deliberately *lower* its prices and make the product *cheaper just for you* compared to the rest of us just because your EU governments tax heavily to pay for your EU socialism. That's all it is -- a tax on top of a price.
That an American company should somehow compensate for your need to pay for your socialism with your taxes by democratically elected governments is part of that socialist entitlement for which you are already so well known. It's ridiculous and nobody here in the U.S. should stand for it. If you don't want cyber goods to be taxed, then rally and get your governments to change their laws, stop banging on a U.S. company and demanding special pricing to accommodate both your socialism provided by your governments, and your need for a cheap ride.
Congrats, Peter! I'm glad you got your "Insurance." It makes me more comfortable knowing that my account is less likely to get locked up for stupid reasons. Sorry I didn't mention the land benefit to you. And it warms my heart to see group messages from HUGGY's Coffee House to think that I use my land allowance to support this great free marketplace and SL institution (http://world.secondlife.com/place/09331665-a766-0b4c-2356-9ad7e9c7e6e7).
Prok: Quite a bit of the mainland is ugly, but maybe not to the owners. Then again, so are many private regions. It's opinion. Deal with it. I agree with your opinion about the VAT. Many folks I know have had to curtail their use of SL due to VAT and our world is so much the poorer for it.
I currently have my premium account payment schedule set to annual. I like to SL® shop and would most likely buy L$ if I did not get a stipend (I have not purchased L$ since before GC). If I sold all my stipend (which I don't), at your calculations, my premium account would cost me US$12.23 annually.
What do you mean when you say a group can be in arrears with tier payments? I don't think groups make tier payments. Groups don't hold L$ or other currencies. Do they?
Maybe Rika can elaborate on that, as she mentioned it to me in the first place. But in any case it's only for parcels larger than (in our case) 1120 sqm.
A group is not an individual and therefore cannot have a credit card or pay. (and doesn't have a L$ balance either) All group land payments are made by donating it the land allotment (commonly termed 'tier', thought it's not quite correct) that members pay for already.
I have personally observed that when a group has less land allotment than it actually owns land because some members withdrew it, and multiple owners (not sure if that's a condition for this effect to work or not) nothing will happen with it for months. It won't be revoked automatically like it can be after a 7 day grace period from a non-paying premium account. The only thing that happens is that no new objects may be rezzed on it.
I joined back when stipend was L$400 a week so the decision was much simpler.
There are 52 weeks in a year. Annual subscription fee US$72.00
52 x L$400 = L$20800 = US$73.98
US$73.98 > US$72.00
I'm glad you're able to concede that there are ugly private islands, but this isn't just "opinion". There is a lot more consensus and objectivity about what constitutes "ugly" that you seem prepared to admit.
There are miles and miles of ugly flat glaring white pancaked sims like boards with horrid ugly prefabs on them sold as cheap "buy" rentals -- hordes of them! Some commercial islands have just as much ugly clutter and signage as mainland. It's not like something magic happens to the same tacky human tendencies just because they move to an island. The more expensive tier might somewhat migitate it but not really.
BTW, I'm all for people being allowed to be just as tacky as they need to be on their land. I'm not an elitist about taste, which is what the posters here are.
I think there are some objective problems that cause blight over and over, everywhere:
o the inability or unwillingness of people to place houses on anything but the flattest of boards (driving the creation of pancakes). If more prefabs were a) copyable and b) had foundations or stilts that were easy and attractive to place we would see better landscaping, tiering of islands, and less blight
o land cutting and extortion with ugly builds/ads -- this is deliberate, and there is now a Linden policy against it, and another one developing -- the right to build what you like and express creatively doesn't mean you are entitled to take that right away from another by completely devaluing his land and blighting his view. Just because we can't buy the view doesn't mean you get to hijack it from your minority parcel on a sim.
Hahaha!
Welcome Home!
I always thought it funny when people came-up with the resons why NOT to go premium.
I own TWO sims and a 4095 mainland parcel. Why? Exactly like you said: I keep my shop, onrez/slx and hippo servers there.
It's $25 a month and I can still add a nother 512 (and 117 prims or so) at no additional cost.
I am fortunate enough to own two sims and a fair sized mainlan parcel (which actually looks great, by the way - take a peek at my plot and see my work-around for the slow rezzing - in my picks)
I have yet to have my 'payment info' used by Linden Lab in a year. That's where LindeX comes in handy-dandy.
I haven't spent or used real life currency in the last two years or so. All done through L$ and LindeX exchange.
WELCOME HOME. :)
As I wanted to have an "insurence" on my account too, I validated my paypal acount and national ID card (age validation).
Now the L£ I earn goes in my pocket and not in LindenLab premium account. :p
Just as Todd, I joined when stipend was still 400. I bought my first parcel 512 and started there my shop. I sold the parcel after 3 month and now I resident on an island. But I never regret I became premium. I think people also looking at your profile make judgments whether they can trust you or no, and being premium is a big plus.
Where does the profile show wether you are Premium or not? I had payment info on file since my 3rd month in SL.
"Where does the profile show wether you are Premium or not? I had payment info on file since my 3rd month in SL."
Now it should say "Payment Info Used" in your profile.
Those of us in SL a while are in the "know" ~winks~
Well, as I said, my profile showed "Payment info used" since ... hum... January 2007. I used LindeX then for the first time. That tag does NOT say if you're Premium or not.
Could be they've changed it (I don;t usually read profiles)
It used to be "Payment Info Used" was other than premium account (You added a card or PayPal to buy L$) and "Payment Info On File" if you were a premium member because it remains on file 'at the ready'.
So I guess they changed it (Mine used to say 'on file' but also now says "used".
I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it because the majority of people are not premium. The *vast* majority LOL
But, it's like all the lace under the dresses in 'Gone with the Wind" - The director was asked "Why - no one will ever see it?"
To which he answered "True. But *you* will know it's there".
:)
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