Tyche Shepherd

Earlier this week I finished a full census of all 5379 contiguous Mainland Regions. During the surveying I recorded ownership, area, prims usage, and the name/description of all Mainland Land Parcels.

The headline results are that :

30% of Mainland is directly owned by Linden Lab, 27% through Governor Linden.

LL holds the equivalent of 187.7 regions of known abandoned land. They also hold another 82.6 equivalent regions which is likely to be abandoned for a maximum of 270.3 regions worth. This is between 3.5% and 5.0% of all Mainland

22% of Zindra is directly owned by Linden Lab, the other 78% non-Linden owned comes to the equivalent of 267.5 regions

Total Mainland monthly tier paid is US$1,076,694 supported by 37909 unique premium account entities (25160 individuals and 12749 groups).



Now the details:


The surveying took place between Wednesday 19th and Monday 23rd November and covered all 5379 contiguous Linden Lab Mainland regions. Excluded from this were the 230 or so other regions also owned by LL but not part of mainland (Orientation Islands, Estates Services, Special projects etc).
My Survey Bot was able to physically visit all but 9 regions, The outstanding 9 regions were not open to the public but it was possible to completely survey them from neighbouring regions. Since 100% of all regions were included, this is a Census as opposed to a survey so there is no margin of error on these results.


Overview of Parcels

In total there are 141059 individual parcel covering the 5379 regions , owned by 37913 unique owners, The average parcel had a mean area of 2499.1sqm (Median = 512sqm) and was 49.1% full in terms of number of prims it could support.
23811 parcels of these were directly owned by Linden Lab. The Mean size of the remaining parcels was 2093.8sqm (Median = 576sqm) and on average these were 60.5% full.

The number of parcels by size is as follows

All Parcels:


All Non-Linden Parcels:

Microparcels are all parcels <=32sqm.


44.9% of parcels are group owned, though this rises to 52.7% for non-linden owned parcels.


24.9% of all parcels are empty , the full distribution of prim usage is as follows:



Overview of Owners


The 37913 unique owners of all Mainland parcels breaks down into 25162 individual accounts and 12751 groups.

Each non-Linden unique owner has holdings with a mean area of 6510.1sqm (Median 1488sqm)


4 of the top 5 unique owners by area owned are Linden accounts or Groups.

The owner with the largest holding is Governor Linden with 96,443,536sqm (27.4% of the total) in 21906 parcels
The second largest is Linden Department of Public Works Group holding 5,182,736sqm (1.5%) in 1017 parcels.
The third largest is the Blake Sea Group with 3,023,920sqm (0.9%) in 138 parcels.
The fourth largest is a non Linden Group which owns 1,150,224sqm (0.3%) in 481 parcels
The fifth largest owner is Guy Linden who owns 1,075,824sqm (0.3%) in 127 parcels on behalf of Linden Concierge.

This brings total significant Linden holdings to 105,726,016sqm of contiguous Mainland (30.0% of the total), the equivalent of 1613.25 regions.


Of Non-Linden land, 5.05% is owned by the top 22 unique owners.
The full cumulative distribution of land ownership is as follows :


The Gini Coefficient of the distribution of Mainland ownership is 78.1



I also calculated the monthly tier for each of the 37909 non Linden unique owners based on their total holdings. Here I made the assumption that each Group Holding was paid by a single individual and that all individuals had 512sqm free tier. There are in reality lifetime accounts and first land account with 4096sqm and 1024sqm free tier, there are also individuals who contribute to more than one group , and multiple donors for single groups. However it is not possible to identify exactly how many times this occurs so for simplicity I've treated all unique owners as distinct accounts. In the case of group owned accounts the Group bonus has been applied.

The total monthly tier for these unique owners is US$1,076,694

The number of individuals in groups within each tier category is as follows:


As you can see 14133 pay no tier at all.

The following chart shows the average holding in sqm for each tier category, and thus gives us some idea of the amount of spare tier.




Next this pie chart shows the total % of land held by all tier categories (including Linden accounts).



And finally the following two charts show the number of parcels owned by each owner as well as the mean prim usage across their holdings






On closer examination of all Linden Owned parcels it's possible to make an estimate of the amount of abandoned land in Linden hands.

Taking all LDPW and Blakes Sea holdings as Protected areas and all Guy Linden Holdings as Abandoned, its possible to analyse the Names and Descriptions of all Governor Linden owned land.

Out of the 105,726,016sqm directly held by Linden Lab, 88,012,864sqm (83.3%) can be identified as being definite protected land
whilst 12,302,848sqm (11.6%) is definitely marked as being abandoned. This leaves another 2,312048 (2.2%) with blank descriptions and 3,098,256sqm with other descriptions. Some of the blank parcels are definitely abandoned and many of the other descriptions look abandoned (i.e. have descriptions relating to private individuals/businesses etc).

Taking this into account it is safe to say that at least 12,302,848sqm is abandoned (the equivalent of 187.7 full regions) and that there is up to another 5,410,304sqm which is probably abandoned (82.6 regions), this comes to the equivalent of 270.3 regions. This is 3.5% to 5% of all Mainland.


The minimum amount is just slightly larger that the total amount of Land Auctioned by LL in the past 6 months.

Coincidently the non-Linden Adult owned mainland (i.e. Zindra in private hands) comes to 267.5 regions equivalent, about the same size as the potential maximum amount of abandoned land.

Also surprisingly enough direct Linden owned Land on Zindra only represents 21.8% of that continent , less than the average Linden owned % for Mainland as a whole.






Overview of Regions


The 5379 regions have an mean of 12.1 unique owners holding land in them (Median = 9), and are 44.7% full.

82% have at least one Linden Owned plot, and 1101 regions (20.5%) are completely owned by Linden Lab accounts.

The distribution of the number of owners per region is as follows:

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Desmond Shang

Absoluely amazing Tyche.


Also, considering the history of the old mainland... deeply concerning. A 70% occupancy rate... if the mainland were an estate (and it is) ~ this is trouble. I know their margins aren't the same as mine, but... is that occupancy rate is rising or falling? I think we know the answer to that. And yes, this is "high season" for land, kicking into high gear with the holiday weekend. If the occupancy drops or stays flat through say, January... we already know what summer will be like.

I think the issue is that the mainland isn't new and shiny any more, and while new and shiny still sells (even today) ~ areas considered "old" have a tough road to walk.

And to support the mainland ~ whatever added appeal it must have, sure won't help the private estates stay in business. It needs to shrink, just like private estates have to when times get tough.

Couldbe Yue

This has a serious wow factor to it! Thank you

Had I known you were coming round I would had the fizz and chocs ready. It's hard work scooting from parcel to parcel. Next time don't be a stranger.

I need some time to digest this but it looks like a lot of premiums buy the 512 and live on an island or that's a lot of first land with accounts that have forgotten to cancel the renewal. I'm sure there are a fair few premium accounts who don't hold land but 38,000 premiums is a lot smaller than I expected. No wonder they stopped publishing their stats as a headline figure, that's a huge drop in premium accounts.

I don't suppose you grabbed the acquired dates while you were sniffing around the mainland? for the 512s I think that could be very telling.

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Couldbe Yue

This is the problem LL have though. They can't just delete a sim when it's abandoned and leave holes in the mainland, nor can they apparently move sims lock stock and barrel. Once a sim is delivered to the grid and sold on to a customer it's there for good.

Zindra is interesting in that they have no large tracts of land there apart from the protected water, unlike the first continent there's no great expanse of LL held land (think the snowlodge). However, they recently added another 30ish sims to sell at auction. So their taste for money hasn't decreased and if they hadn't stopped getting uptight about people selling their mainland as part of the zindra move there would have been a lot more abandoned land in LLs hands.

With around 40 new private regions being added each week something is going to have to give soon. I suppose late January when the bills come in for the Christmas spending season will be the crunch.

Tyche Shepherd

I actually don't think things are as bad as you may think . 83.3% of Linden owned Land is protected space by design - not by abandonment . This implies that they built Mainland with a maximum capacity of 75% . They really work on different principles than private estates .

Also I ran a random sample survey estimating Governor Linden land holdings about 5 weeks ago which came out with a very similar figure to what I saw in this Census implying there has been little recent change. I wasn't monitoring the other 3 Linden accounts but it implies it's now very static.


@Couldbe - No I didn't record date of parcel ... doh Stupid I could have . Another time maybe.

Argent Stonecutter

Couple of points.

The people you're listing as "paying no tier" are actually paying US$6..US$10 per month for their "free" tier, counterbalanced by US$4..US$7 stipend. I know that many of these people really are paying the full US$10.00 per month, for whatever reason.

For the group owned land, the Coonspiracy has usually about eight to ten people donating their tier to it, and I'm paying directly for only 2048 square meters. I suspect that a number of other groups are doing the same thing.

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Cincia Singh

As Tyche so correctly pointed out, the "game" aspect of SL has to have continuity and places for people to roam to have fun. If the mainland were like the estates, i.e. disjointed private areas no one could see into unless the owner allowed, THAT would spell doom for SL; where would noobs go to experience SL? Corporate LL sims? Disaster!

I agree somewhat with this, although there are some really awesome areas on the mainland, and some estates are little more than bare sand and poseballs. Shiny/new doesn't translate to engaging and interesting.

I don't think this is necessarily the case. Estates have a "privacy" appeal to the type of SL resident who doesn't wish to engage other residents, be disturbed constantly or just wants to build without interruption or come other solo activity. The mainland serves primarily the free-thinker, social butterfly, free spirit, or engaged person who revels in living next to a buiild that's quite different from their own. It also provides the "park space" in SL. It takes all kinds. As for the "business" of private estates, I think LL has pretty much quashed the idea of getting rich off land in SL.

Just my 2L worth. FYI ... I pay tier on a 1024, with an additional 512 free from my premium account ($72 USD/yr) = 1536 sq m parcel.

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Tess Whitcroft

I wonder how much effect the folks who moved to Zindra and abandoned their old mainland lands is having on the total Linden owned land.

If you had done this survey before Zindra how much less Linden owned land would there have been?

Tess

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Tyche Shepherd

Premium Subscriptions are separate from tier paid to LL. The estimate was just Monthly Tier. I'm very aware that many land holding groups have multiple donor but I covered that in my assumptions . If you can come up with hard figures on how many donors donate what to which groups I can revise the estimate. In the absence of such figures then I stand by my estimate based on the assumptions I laid out .

Tyche Shepherd

I'm sure it would be a lot less - of the 12,000,000sqm of known abandoned land , 2,995,648sqm has a Description or Name of saying Zindra Abandoned or similar (47 regions+ worth, about 25%) However this is not all Zindra swapped land , The land I swapped was just labelled as being Abandoned and no mention made of Zindra for instance.

Argent Stonecutter

I think of my Premium sub as the first 512sm of tier. Stipend is a bonus.

Desmond Shang

The problem is that my estate and many many others like it are nothing at all like that.

In fact, the number one complaint of people coming from essentially banline free private estates is that the mainland is just a bunch of disjointed private parcels all with ban lines up, and you can't really walk, drive or fly around.

Privacy really isn't that big of an appeal for many private estates. I've yet to hear of one person come to my estate because of the privacy aspect, in nearly four years of being in business.

* * * * *

Tyche I take the point that the mainland is designed with a lot lower occupancy to begin with, but that makes things even more tipsy.

Consider a basic example that it might take X people to empty a private estate region, but only X - 5 people (just a rough guess) are required to leave a mainland region desolate.

I don't see the SL mainland as a healthy estate, and I don't see it getting better any time soon. It needs to shrink. Private estates don't have it easy with regard to shrinking, either ~ it's just tough noogies when we have to do it, regardless of how integrated our continents are.

It would be easier to delete a chunk of 99% of the SL mainland and bandage up the new region borders, for instance, than it would be to rip out the road, rail and sea links of one of my regions.

Lewis Luminos

This is an amazing piece of work Tyche. If I'd known you were doing this I'd have invited you (or your bot) to my house for tea while you surveyed Badger.

One of those 2048 parcels is mine.

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Cincia Singh

This is a generalization and not true. I fly around the mainland all the time and I don't encounter many ban lines. I visit clubs on estates and I see few ban lines, but I do see them. They're not as rare as some estate owners would have everyone believe.

I don't see your outlook on the mainland as healthy, so we're even.

No one has it easy, mainland or estate. If it was easy, everyone would do it. I find your disregard for mainland sims appalling and your valuation of your estate inflated. Both are easily deleted, both are equally valuable. Both serve a purpose, not the same purpose.

Desmond Shang

I love you too, Cincia!

laughs


I don't care if you find my views appalling. Lotsa people do! You are in good company.

As for what I think, well, what does it matter? I put my opinions to work ~ for every person who thinks I'm wrong, it's one less competitor.



People fled the mainland to come to my estate, not so much the other way around. Don't waste time arguing with me, tell them how wrong they all are...

Lewis Luminos

I have seen plenty of mainland sims, including the one I live on, that don't fit the description of ugly and disjointed. The side of the sim where my parcel is located is the shore of a 5-sim Linden-protected lake, and the rest of the land is gently sloping hillside down to the water's edge. There isn't one single ground-level build that spoils the view. I love it, I love the idea of being connected to so much of the mainland, and I wouldn't voluntarily live anywhere else in SL. My sim is on Sansarya, the oldest continent on the grid. I think maybe that makes a difference.

I've (briefly) lived on Estate land before and I found it boring, and no less chaotic/disjointed than much of the mainland.

Just4yucks Miami

I agree completely. I fly and drive around the mainland quite a bit. The Linden Roads are protected, of course, and my personal practice is to only own mainland parcels bordering Linden Roads. My main complex is located along Route 7A in Tikka, and I also have a small outpost on the Zindra Coast Road in Orburs.

I do fly "cross country" a fair amount too. Sure, the occasional ban line is annoying, but not more so than the average sim crossing insanity. I've only had a couple of occasions during my first year in SL where I've had to abandon my general flight direction to go far around (or just teleport) to avoid an extensive ban line situation.

I know for a fact that at least one of those major banline setups was on Heterocera. It leaves me wondering if banlines are more common on the "older mainland" continents than they are on the newer mainland. (I have no evidence for or against this - it is merely a theory.)

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Wildefire Walcott

Fantastic work, Tyche! The number of people/groups with 3 or more mainland sims worth of land is actually a bit lower than I expected.

EDIT: Also, there's never going to be an end to the mainland vs. estate debate. Different residents have different requirements; the mainland suits many of them, and the estates exist to suit the rest. There are no blanket objective advantages or disadvantages to either; any pros and cons to either one are going to be a matter of a resident's personal preferences and priorities. Vive le difference!

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Desmond Shang

That's actually my impression too.

There were some pretty horrid abuses going on, early on ~ it was very much an "I'll do what I want and tough luck" kind of environment for a very long time.

Nowadays, just the fact that there are rules (however poorly enforced) about adfarm blight and so forth, helps the mainland a great deal. It's not the total anarchy it used to be.

Something like 80% of the grid is private estate, but in terms of actual private estate rentals, it's a lot less than that. No more than half (40%), I'd say, and possibly even as small an area as existing mainland itself.

I'm not sure if there's a way to tease out that data, but it would be interesting if there was.

Khamon

Well Done Tyche

I hope you're intending to update these values on a regular basis, maybe just every month or two?

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abVanmoer

What an amazing piece of work Tyche

The one statistic that I couldn't find amongst the wealth of information you provided, but I may have missed it, is what percentage of land is "de facto abandoned" land.
That is land owned by someone who is no longer part of SL, yet the land has not been reclaimed by LL. There are at least three parcels in my sim that seem to fall into that category.

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Toritoys Tigerpaw

It's kind of nice to see that the probable amount of abandoned mainland is about the same size as resident-held Zindra. There was a fair bit of abandoned stuff before the migration, does this mean that people have since bought up the remainder? Or has LL converted any mainland to "protected" since then and taken it out of circulation?

I was a little concerned about unintended consequences as the ad farms and microparcels slllllllowwwwwwwly got cleaned up. Fewer junky neighborhoods->bigger supply of usable existing mainland->potential ouchies to prices. Huh, maybe that did contribute some

Hopefully LL will stop mucking around with new land for a while and let the mess stabilize!

Ray Figtree

Prices continued to go down steadily and steeply post ad farm removal because the amount of sims LL was dumping on the Mainland and the unveiling of cheaper estate land made far more of an impact. Only now are Mainland prices creeping upward again from their all-time low of L$1.5 a meter.

Fewer junky neighborhoods did not affect prices, but the end of ad farms did greatly improve most users Mainland experience.

The removal of ad farms and the ability to hide ban lines have eliminated the two negatives I associated with Mainland. And I agree that there are many gorgeous Mainland sims that rival estates, Carlisle and Qeestein being two prime examples.

Amazing job, Tyche.

NeoBokrug Elytis

Metrics Orgasm.

That is all.

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Tyche Shepherd

Unlikely , the full census is very time consuming. I will probably do a regular random sampling as I did back in October which is good enough to estimate Linden holdings and amount of abandoned land without going in to the full detail of all parcels. Since there has been next to no difference in the estimate of Linden holdings in the 5 weeks between the last survey and this census, its probably not effective to run this survey more than once a quarter.

I do intend running the surveys which estimate private estate Full/Homestead/Openspace penetration a bit more frequently (2 or 3 a quarter).