Khamon

This is a discussion thread created to accompany Tyche's New SL Sims in past week stats thread.

__________________
A Journey Through the World of Lever Harping

Desmond Shang

Hi ~ please forgive me sticking to this format, usually when I'm inworld I get 'pounced' and get buried in work as I do most of my own estate work... I can do skype as well (desmondshang), feel free to poke me but it's tricky for me ~ I run three small businesses in RL and have three kids... my skype conversations usually go 'be right back' ~ 'forgive me gotta take this call' ~ 'that's my daughter texting she needs a ride' ... and so forth. Forums (which I don't have much time for anyway, and really don't) are at least asynchronous, so I can stop, take a call, then keep typing. Though occasionally I forget what I was trying to write, and sound like an idiot on a post. Ah well. I can most easily talk on Desmond Magic (my secret alt) in SL, instead of Desmond Shang. Don't tell anyone that's my secret alt though, it's a big secret and I would hate for it to get out...

* * * * *

Alright... it's... wall of text time!!!


The rest of this, well, I respect your situation and clearly (I think) have nothing against you ~ I hope you don't see my views as anything personal against you, because they are not. I have no idea how big your estate is, or what you do, or your country of origin (this matters re: SL business due to various national laws) or anything else. This is long; please forgive me for that.

Like it or not, I have to take a bit of a wider viewpoint due to US law. I am a United States citizen, a California resident as well, subject to the US Internal Revenue Service and all that jazz.

All people in US business are responsible for understanding what I'm about to say, this isn't esoteric knowledge or anything. Essentially, when the rubber hits the road here, it's the US IRS that makes the determination if I'm actually running a business or not. This is based on a number of factors, some of the most crucial being:

a) do you generally make money with the business over the years

b) do you make over a certain small amount on a regular basis.

The first one is to avoid people simply making money losing businesses as a tax dodge. Businesses can do something that people can't: they can write off expenses. If you have a business selling lemonade, sell fifteen dollars of lemonade but expense your new car against that business, you'll have a problem.

The second one has to do with the difference between businesses and hobbies. The IRS won't let you write off expenses for a hobby, if you are making too little profit. On the other hand, if you do make a few bucks (and this bar is fairly low) ~ guess what, you are a business. Welcome to business taxes, licencing, wage taxes and all the rest.

Okay, why would I even bring that up... basically, like it or not, most small estates of a few regions aren't even businesses, due to the above criteria. They are hobbies. That's not to say anything bad against them, it's just what the law here says.

Okay, so what? Well, with a business in the United States, we now have a little issue about working hours.

It's one thing if a hobbyist gets their friend to "work" on their estate and help people find their lost virtual pets. It's entirely another issue if you are a business, *especially* if you are in California, and may the gods help you if you are in Arizona.

For someone to legally work (that four letter word!) on your business, they have to be someone cleared to work ~ either a US citizen, or have a work visa. There's an I-9 form for that. They can be a contractor, in which case you can report their earnings with a 1099 form, and you'll *still* need their RL info for all that. If not a contractor, you'll be paying minimum wage for hours worked, social security, medicare, sending them a W2 earnings form yearly and so forth. Oh, and something called worker's comp! (insurance).

But wait... what of someone just... volunteering? Sorry, the IRS here determines if someone is lawfully a 'volunteer' as well, when push comes to shove. This is usually what employers have said here many times ~ oh, my friend Jose and his crew are simply 'volunteering' to help clear my 40 acres, we go way back! None of these guys are working! Yes, they are from out of the country, but this is why there are no wages involved! This is tax money out of the IRS's pocket, and they take a particularly dim view of it here. The fastest way to get in big trouble as a business here, is to get reported for not paying minimum wage, or using 'volunteers.' There will be plenty of your competitors in any industry to tip off the IRS.

You are probably thinking: Desmond, you have GOT to be kidding me, this is for SL! Sadly, I'm not kidding you. Yes, most people likely get away with all this stuff every day. But any US citizen "doing business" this way is taking a lot of risk. One phone call to the IRS by a disgruntled volunteer... hoo boy, I can't even begin to tell you how bad that would be. "I was an unpaid 'volunteer' and I worked 12 hours a day on a computer with no worker's comp insurance for six months... yes, yes sir I can back that up. I have logs on my computer. My employer was Mr X of Estate Y, and oh, I don't think he was paying taxes either..." then... "oh, no, I don't have a US work permit! I work remotely!"

Yeah, you don't want to be the owner of that business, who used that 'volunteer.' You are about to pay fines, back wages, back taxes, and possibly face some criminal charges as well. Sound crazy? It happens every day here, to landscaping businesses, to painting businesses, to cleaning services, you name it. "Oh, but they were helping me in a video game!" The judge isn't going to care; the IRS isn't going to care. It's just another violation to them.

For this reason ~ I don't know about people in other countries, but anyone in the United States making statements about the 'workers' on their estate ~ oh man. You may have heard about the huge political fuss in our neighbouring state of Arizona, about employers vis a vis undocumented workers. Video game or not, if you are a business class estate owner in SL (as our internal revenue service would determine it, not what anyone personally decides) ~ you had better be paying minimum wage and insuring your workers, who have I-9 forms on file and pay into medicare, social security &c.

* * * * *

Alright, I'm sure many people will see that as a big, long, unrelated rant. It isn't, and is necessary to understand a larger business perspective. All the above is standard business practise in the United States ~ we ignore it at our own risk, and it has some pretty heavy implications.

Here's the first implication: US large estate owners have a very, very high 'cost of doing business' unless they operate unlawfully. Which, at the end of the day, is another very high cost.

Are they likely to get caught? Well, probably not. But this is *exactly* the reason why I never became a huge estate on the grid. I have a corporation backing my estate, I have other business operations independent of SL, and a lot to lose were I to operate unlawfully. A lot of us who started back in 2006 faced this question: do we really want to operate here on a large scale? A lot of us said: no way. We are here to some degree, but weren't about to bet the farm on SL.

We could see, even from back then, that business would eventually become unsustainable at current tier pricing and increasing land oversupply. Linden policies were clear, and still are. It's no fun being caught between an oversupplied market, and relentless tier. My tier payments are small ~ a *mere* 6000~some dollars a month these days. Imagine if you were running a business ten times that size, paying 60,000 a month. Good place to be right now? Short answer: no.

So... what if you operate out of Europe? Or China? China may be okay, I don't know... but I'm 99% sure the Euro legal operation constraints are just as onerous as ours in the USA, if not far worse. Right now, the large estates are facing a huge game of chicken with each other: who can undercut the most, survive doing that the longest, &c. Yes, they are still mostly fundamentally profitable at this moment in time I am sure (and so is my estate, even at only 40 regions or so) ~ but just barely, unless they are surrendering marketshare as fast as people leave SL. This is not a good place to do business long term any more.

Here's the key question: as an investor, would you want to own an SL estate, or have, say, a fast food franchise instead? Right now, owning an SL estate of any significant size doesn't make a lot of sense. Your 1 year, 5 year and 10 year prospects are terrible. It's about like having bought stock in AOL~Time Warner, back in its heyday.

* * * * *

That's the background. Let's look at knock~on effects. Say that tier, tomorrow, was leveled to 295 / mo standard, 125 / mo homestead for *everyone*.

As an estate that is a business, not a hobby you would have a few options:

a) operate at a loss, until you folded

b) operate unlawfully, try and offset your losses against your workers, skip paying taxes &c (see lengthy explanation above)

c) cash out, put your capital into something that actually made money.

Desmond Shang

*Intermission*



You have been reading Desmond's post for one hour. Isn't it time to take a break?

Remember to stretch, relax, and get some excercise. In South Korea, if you are a young person, you must take a mandatory break until tomorrow.

Please remember to read Desmond's posts responsibly, and get plenty of fresh air!

Desmond Shang

Okay, to continue... (yeah, yeah I know... whee)

Considering the options ~ I can pretty much guarantee that every sensible businessperson would immediately choose cashing out, gracefully or ungracefully.

Right now the grid is losing what, 50 regions a week or something? In a few short weeks, we would lose *thousands*. I've heard that "oh, there aren't that many" old tier regions on the grid... but the ones that are still here, are crucial. Any of us with any business sense spent the money and bought them from third parties, for years and years after 2006. We had to. It was obvious this rainy day was coming.

In any case, raising tier or flattening it at current pricing would be financial suicide, and I think our service provider knows that. What we *might* see instead, as Tyche's stats are showing that the grid is steadily bleeding regions at its present price point, is a *lowering* of tier. I wouldn't be surprised if tier was lowered across the board, except for the old tier regions. That too, would take away a lot of advantage for the big estates, and I'd wager that we'd still see thousands of regions leave the day that happens.

Finally ~ homestead tier hikes notwithstanding ~ I'm pretty sure that if the old tier regions had a price hike, it would be an *instant* class action lawsuit. Yes, there is stuff in the service terms like "prices may change with some notice" and whatever, but... there's a limit to this, and if it were ever challenged in a US court, things could go pretty badly despite whatever the service terms say.

For instance, say you start a five year lease on a car for 5000 down, and 200 a month... then two years into it the lender says: "Oh no, now it's 300 a month! See, see this little thing in the contract here?" With US contracts, there are very real limits to the amount of shenanigans that can be pulled. This has been illustrated time and time again with successful class action lawsuits against telecoms, and so forth. Big businesses here try it all the time, often get away with it, but that doesn't make it legal.

They run a very real risk, if they try to hike old tier rates. They aren't "grandfathered" at all ~ that isn't even the correct term. We entered into a contract, and whatever other contracts people entered into after that with their regions... that's not our fault. Considering this, I think it's the #1 reason that old tier regions haven't gone away ~ if you are paying 50,000 US dollars a month in tier and that goes up by 150%, it makes no sense *not* to sue... no matter how nice you are, or how much you despise having to do that. I'm sure it would be tied up in the courts for years, and finally end up as a settlement. Net result: no advantage to flattening tier at 295, for our service provider.


At the end of the day, all of us big or small are de facto partners of our service provider; I don't wish them any ill will, nor do I think they wish me any.

I think all of us are just in an unfortunate situation, and there's not a lot to be done about it in 2012, except an eventual (and in my view: certain) lowering of tier at some point.

Okay, I'm going to go do something else... let the lolcat pictures roll

Lizard Howl

Wow Zeebster.

You are so full of yourself I barely know how to begin to respond. You are clearly someone who, as the saying goes, thinks that your own shit don't stink.

Having said that, thanks for taking the time to post on this Forum. You do something that no other Estate Owner does (none of the huge Estates anyways) so I do thank you for that.

However, I don't think you are sincere in saying you will "reach out" to anyone who can match your level of service - because you don't think there is anyone in that category. And who knows, you may be right.

I do know this. My customers are happy. Check the Testimonials on my website and read it for yourself. I'm sure there are many other small and mid-sized Estates that offer great service to their customers. I looked for Testimonials on your site but there didn't seem to be any...

If you really want to learn from an Estate that offers good service - make yourself accessible. Who the heck are you? Well, I can figure it out by snooping around, but do your customers know who you are? Do you publish your phone number, email address, skype ID, real name? Or are you comfortable hiding behind your trouble tickets and SL avi? Don't answer that, its a rhetorical question.

And in answer to your threat of dumping 100 vacant sims on the grid at 17K/wk? Go for it. Even if they are all GF, thats nearly $20K/month in tier just to hold onto those sims? You must be a mathematical wizard to make that work.

The clear trend is the land market is flattening out. The top few Estates are getting larger, the mid sized Estates are shrinking, and many Estates are dropping off the grid. Frankly, if I lose customers due to DSE, ACS, or any other huge Estate undercutting my prices, I have no one but myself to blame.

I love my business, and I love my customers. Someone asked me the other day what are my "plans" for the Estate. My plan is simple: to keep it profitable. That means I buy sims when I need land, and I sell sims when they are losing money.

I'm not going to keep sims on the grid just for the sake of maintaining a sim count, but as long as they are profitable I will keep them. If a year from now, or five years from now, we are down to two sims, and my customers on both sims are happy, thats good enough for me.

Lizard Howl
Owner of Segarra Estates and
Littleboots Land Company

__________________

Hi, I'm Lizard Howl!

Katya Dirval

WOW! Desmond wasnt kidding when he said he had "something" to add as well

Good job creating a thread to support Tyche's thread.. Lots of interesting stuff to read during my ciggie breaks

Desmond Shang

Yeah, sorry about that, I was procrastinating a bit this morning...

RE: the comment above about providing real name/address/corporation contact, that's important, and there are a raft of laws about that depending upon where you are.

I've got it posted, but I don't leave it out too obviously... just to keep that 1% of the SL population that are stone cold crazy, from driving me nuts. Usually I just tell residents or prospective tenants; even if they don't want to know. Honestly, chatting on the mobile is a WHOLE lot faster than "hi..." (two minutes) "I have a question..." (two minutes) "It's about land..."

* * * * *

I do hope this thread doesn't devolve into an estate e~peen contest.

Just to make sure, I'll give everyone someone to be 'better than' with regard to speed of service, pricing... the whole laundry list. Enjoy!

My service can be slow. People looking for a discount are best advised to look... elsewhere. I've got an ego few can match, and think far too much of myself. Testimonials: there's more than one person on this forum who has just LOST IT after some dry commentary of mine ~ that's testimonial enough, I think. Griefer groups hate me; anti griefer groups hate me *even more*.

Worst of all... you'll likely HAVE to deal with me directly if you are anywhere near my estate. Which is full of elitist oldbies, sharp tongued bloggers, cynical old content creators, fortune 500 execs, tech business owners, current and ex Lindens (some bitter, some not) and yes... even lawyers at play! Beware! The average person would do well to run screaming. We even set up Caledon Oxbridge to *educate* the incoming hordes, the very best we could. There isn't anything much more elitist~attitude one can do than that, is there? grins... We've been positively awful, too! The war with Neualtenburg is well documented. Bay City *still* raises their aerial defences if the Caledon Jack is seen on an airship flying overhead...

You have all been warned

RandomCruiser

I am happy Dream Seeker Owner is confident a 600 sim shrink can solve the low tier issue, still i am not so optimist.
Nearly half SL customers are European, in this moment Spain is under strong pressure with half joung peoples without a job. Portugal is a nightmare. Italy faces a drop of 10/15% of the spending power of its people. England it's not in a good situation thanks to a real world 140 % public debt (well hidden by governament). France faces an huge financial measure to drop costs. Germany faces a skyroket increase of public debt, the whole Europe is in recession, Euro is down for this reason not for a war beween currency speculators.
It's not SL, it's the ability to spend that is dropped. I don't know if we ever see healty sim prices anymore, no matter how many sims there are on the grid.
It's so easy to understand even for a Landlord: common user can't afford to pay 22000-24000 lindens/week for a sim....plain and simple, the whole price structure is broken.
So, because not many are rich or mad max, the only solution is a massive drop of the Linden Lab Tier even at the cost of layoffs and worsening of the service.
Other things are only dreams of persons unable to see the world's economic trend in upcoming years.
The incredible 2008 disaster in SL land economy (slightly compensated by the invention of Homesteads) did not teach anything to anyone.
This time the things are worse.

Khamon

It taught some of us. The subsequent sixty-six percent increase in homestead tier taught us even more. The practical experience was obviously lost on Linden Lab. I agree that things are worse this time. And likely the same mistakes will be made all over again by the Lab and most rental estate owners.

Zeebster Colasanti

You need to do your homework. No snooping around required. Just read. As my front web page states, we're incorporated in the Province of Alberta under the name of Dream Seeker Estates Corporation. You can look up corporate registry to get my name, address and telephone number. Why do I post that information publicly? It's quite simple: because I do run a legitimate business and have nothing to hide from. Let me flip this question back to you: Who the heck are you?

Desmond I want to thank you as well for taking so much time to write your original post. The issues you raise are very valid, which is the reason why I have hired a taxation law firm at the time when I was incorporating the business to sort out these issues and set up my business properly. You did miss one point, though: sales tax.

In Canada, a business that collects $30,000+ per year in sales revenues is required to withold a 5% GST tax from all Canadian residents. If Canadian residents cannot be identified then all customers must be assumed as being Canadian residents. I am sure that similar laws pertaining to sales taxes exist in US and other countries (VAT anyone?). So yes, I do withold a 5% GST from sales to Canadian residents. Oh and BTW, revenues is the Linden dollars we collect, not the US dollars we get for cashing them out.

Cheers!

~ZB

Whitestag Gothly

Hi Kat yes it is and I think it hits the nail on the head...

Whitestag Gothly

To my knowledge Linden $ is not a recognized currency anymore than eggs or chickens are in any government in the world..

5.1 Each Linden dollar is a virtual token representing contractual permission from Linden Lab to access features of the Service. Linden dollars are available for Purchase or distribution at Linden Lab's discretion, and are not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab.

You acknowledge that Linden dollars are not real currency or any type of financial instrument and are not redeemable for any sum of money from Linden Lab at any time. You agree that Linden Lab has the right to manage, regulate, control, and/or modify the license rights underlying such Linden dollars as it sees fit and that Linden Lab will have no liability to you based on its exercise of this right. Linden Lab makes no guarantee as to the nature, quality or value of the features of the Service that will be accessible through the use of Linden dollars, or the availability or supply of Linden dollars.

You acknowledge that Virtual Land is a limited license right and is not a real property right or actual real estate, and it is not redeemable for any sum of money from Linden Lab. You acknowledge that the use of the words "Buy," "Sell" and similar terms carry the same meaning of referring to the transfer of the Virtual Land License as they do with respect to the Linden Dollar License. You agree that Linden Lab has the right to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate such Virtual Land as it sees fit and that Linden Lab shall have no liability to you based on its exercise of such right. Linden Lab makes no guarantee as to the nature of the features of the Service that will be accessible through the use of Virtual Land, or the availability or supply of Virtual Land.

Ayesha Lytton

I have one staff member who gets paid enough for the government to care. I give her an independent contractor form, so everything gets reported properly.

Unfortunately I'm not currently making a profit, due to the terrible land market. People seem to only care about price and not community anymore. Only very long established and strongly themed places like Caledon seem to be surviving. The rest seem to be doomed to assimilation by The Borg...err, ACS.

__________________
Solace Beach Estates: Beautiful Residential & Commercial Land for All Budgets!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Solace%20Beach/193/48/23

Desmond Shang

I left out a lot more than that, but it was such a monster post that I was embarrassed to write any more.

There are also a lot of grey areas, for instance valuation. Which lost value faster, new SL regions or new Yugo automobiles? It's a tough question.

Even squishier, and I'm not going to dig into this because I really don't want to pointlessly hassle the service provider ~ the concept of "$L" is anything but straightforward regardless of what claims are made in service terms. It's a real minefield for a company to say "Here, you can buy this, but... if we decide for any reason it's worthless, you've got nothing!" Just imagine if you walked into an amusement park one morning, were sold ride tickets but then an hour later you were told you couldn't ride the rides.

It's a lot like that, and even worse $L can touch on banking issues, gaming issues, money laundering, yes even various national currency laws... you name it. Game 'currencies' bedevil governments, and they clearly don't like it ~ I think what happened in asia a few years ago is just a harbinger of what will happen globally...

WSJ article about it

Desmond Shang

*hugs* Ayesha ~ I worry that you are working a full time job for free so people can play.

Keep an eye out for yourself in all this. A good lot of SL residents would have you work 80 hours a week for free, and then *still* ask for a discount. I let other estates deal with that crowd; they can have 'em if they want.

Whitestag Gothly

Oh no problem at all, when i am on skype I am usually on a call anyway, maybe if I rent a lot over there and IM hey where to hells the owner of this place I will get a chance to say hey lol.

I agree with all you said. In your definition I would consider my estate a hobby. I have never taken 1 cent out of my account, instead I use it to promote venues and DJs in tips and put on concerts for tenants buy stuff i think looks good and sits in my inventory unopened for months...

In reply to Zeebs (Babysitting) most of my tenants like 70 % to 80% are friends and if in distress if I have time I think a fast resolution is better than a region full of pickles and beach balls. The friends I have in SL that are tenants I try to help as much as i can and that goes for the ones that help with my estates (some worthy some were just out for the take and are not) ya live and learn in SL. But all is profits so no harm done but does tell you a lot .

I have a tendency to handle my estate more like you and Lizard, I take care of most all of the issues and with a few friends that help there isnt a 24 lag time I would say no more than 8 or less and mostly in mins.. If the economy hits hard i have no problem in letting empty regions go and keeping the ones I want for fun.

As far as taxes goes this is a update

Tax Consequences of Virtual World Transactions

Tax Consequences of Virtual World Transactions


Online games create computer-generated settings for multiple users to interact as characters called avatars. These avatars frequently exchange goods and services in both the real and virtual worlds. Cyber-economic activities in the online world may have tax consequences that real world avatar counterparts need to consider.

The IRS has provided guidance on the tax treatment of bartering, gambling, business and hobby income - issues that are similar to activities in online gaming worlds.

In general, you can receive income in the form of money, property, or services. If you receive more income from the virtual world than you spend, you may be required to report the gain as taxable income. IRS guidance also applies when you spend more in a virtual world than you receive, you generally cannot claim a loss on an income tax return.

--
I have been thinking of expanding the estate into a business but yes am hesitant also because of the rates and present setup. I have about 14 regions my son has the same so combined we would be a bit under you. Neither of us will get many more we go slow and stay in profit as best we can.

I agree that the pricing of the tier will have to come down to GF prices and possible a good thing would also be the no setup fee for regions. Some have it through credits anyway so why not. If the economy is bad it would be a good time and also at least fall into the range of being competitive to off world SL clones looking to do and setup the way they think it should be.

Sid Nagy

It's a buyers market and in 99% of the cases land is land and nothing more.
So it is no more than logical that most people are more interested in a good (= cheap) price then in anything else.

I've leased with a few well known land barons over the last 5 years and the main concern of them is that the money is on time in the tier device.
There are some that spam you every week or even faster with their available free land, others contact you the moment you land a meter out of your own parcel, to ask if you are interested to buy the neighboring lot, there was one that leased more prims out then there are available on a sim, gambling that not everyone uses the limit.
You can all call it costumer service and special touch and what not. But it taught me only one thing: lease where it is cheap and if I don't like it, I drop the land at the end of a tier period, and I'm off to another baron.
Service is marketing bullshit. That is how it stands IMHO.

Lizard Howl

Hi Zeebster -

Not surprised, you missed the point of my question. The point of my question was - how accessible are you to your customers?

Ok, I took another look at your website and found your statement of corporate ownership "Dream Seeker Estates is a legitimate tax paying corporation registered under the name of Dream Seeker Estates Corporation in the Province of Alberta, Canada."

You have a statement of corporate ownership on your home page.

On my home page I have a welcome video from myself, and my wife, with our RL names, welcoming potential customers to our Estate.

Sure, I have a corporate entity too. So what.

From a customer service stand point, nobody cares that I formed "Segarra Estates Virtual Real Estate LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company." Likewise, nobody cares that you formed Dream Seeker Estates Corporation in the Province of Alberta.

You threw down the gauntlet claiming you, among all the Estate Owners in Second Life, have the only Estate that offers good service. It was a ridiculous claim.

Anyways, there's not much sense in keeping this pissing match going, as the numbers speak for themselves. You have one of the top 5 Estates in SL as far as sim count, and I'm not (and never will be) even in the top 20.

All hail the mighty Zeebster!

Lizard Howl
Segarra Estates Owner

Katya Dirval

It depends what you're renting. If you're just renting a small parcel of land and you know what you're doing you usually dont need anyone to help you.

However if you just rented a sim and it takes 2-7 days before someone finally comes online to give you your estates rights that's a pretty crappy service. Same as people who want to have terrain files uploaded to their sims. If they rent a sim and are not set as estate owner service is very important. Unless people dont mind sitting on empty sims for days or a week waiting before they can continue with their plans.

Also dont forget about the lovely glitches SL has to offer or someone making a big oopsie on their land/sim that would need an immediate roll back of the sim to avoid that people lose their precious no copy items for good or would affect too many neighbours if the roll back doesnt get done immediatly (in this case LL might decline the request of a rollback). Im sure if you ever had to deal with one of these things you would agree that a fast response from your land company is vital.

Anyways, just my opinion

EDIT -

I do agree with that, sadly the walmart mentality and some businesses offering land way too cheap gets that effect. However alot of those companies cant afford staff or simply own too many sims that they're always understaffed. It's when you run into problems when you realize service is more important than you think. If you've been on SL for over 5 years I guess that for you service might not be worth paying extra for but for alot of people this doesnt count. I cant even count the people with last name Resident that are renting from me and often need help.

EDIT 2 - Disclaimer

I know alot of companies with just 1 owner supporting their residents by the way, small/medium estates that offer great service. However a person has to sleep as well so if you read my post dont think im saying an estate company would need staff to offer good service. That wasnt exactly what I meant although I do think it's good to have someone around 24/7 to keep an eye on things

Sid Nagy

I agree that a reasonable response time is important. And of course it is different if you lease a complete sim or just a 4096m.

If I had to lease a sim from a land baron, I almost certainly would rent a small plot from that baron first, and then I would test the response time and willingness / capability to help first.

Most of the barons I leased from had a very reasonable response time and handled things the right way.
But a lot try to message that they do something special.
And that is simply not true most of the time.
They do exactly what all the serious other longtime landlords do, nothing more and nothing less, and that's why I'm saying as customer: I go for the best deal, not for the great words.

Katya Dirval

True, but if you never rented land before and dont know anyone who did either, you only have those words to base your decision on.

Only after renting from several others you will learn who actually has the best deal and im pretty sure it takes people with your age on SL to pick that up. Newbies going for the best deals out there are usually the ones getting scammed or ending up at some shady company about to collapse because they dont make profit.

Edit -

I better get back to work .. Tyche's thread tomorrow might explain why

Take care

Zeebster Colasanti

It does not matter what we acknowledge. The fact is that I am in a business of reselling software license (the license to use Second Life virtual land). My customers are those who purchase that license from me (rent land), not those who purchase Linden dollars from me. I generate revenues at the time when I collect Linden dollars from my customers. Linden dollars have a real value established through normal forces of market supply and demand and legal court precedence already exists where a judge agreed with its real value. I'm not really going to argue this point, though. I am simply repeating what my tax lawyers who have done a lot of research on this subject have advised me of.

Zeebster Colasanti

Any customer can request my personal attention to an issue and in all such cases I have responded to the customer personally.

I commend that, although in my opinion it is not necessary. I happen to be a shareholder, and a director, and a CEO. But I am not a General Manager, I do not think that I need to advise some 2000 people of my vacation schedule, nor do I think that they should be inconvenienced when I decide to take a month vacation. You provide very personal service and your residents are your friends. That is not the business model that I operate. It doesn't make one better than the other, they are just different.

If I ripped someone off and they wanted to sue me, they wouldn't go very far if they sued me as a person. They would definitely need to know the corporate entity. Disclosing this gives the customers a peace of mind. I hand over large amounts of money to Linden Lab because I know who they are. I couldn't give a rat's ass who owns how many shares or who the current directors are.

I do not recall EVER making such statement so please do not put words in my mouth. I distinguished between different types of service and suggested that for those customers who care to receive quick service regardless of who is or is not online, the level of service provided by my estate is hard to match. It is matched, by the way, by at least 3 other estates that I know of.

That doesn't matter. I believe that I have said in a recent post that there are a number of small very well managed estates with themed communities and a personal touch that they offer to their residents. They may be small, they may even be tiny, but I do believe that they are invaluable to SL. I don't know your estate but by the sound of it, you very well might be one of them. And so I tip my hat to you.

I am really not your enemy. I don't even think we appeal to the same market segment. Our business models are very different but this does not make one any better than the other. Some customers prefer one business model, others prefer the other. In the end, across the SL landscape, we complement each other.

Whitestag Gothly

No I will not argue the point Zeeb my info comes from the US legal university professors that teach law and specialize in virtual value. One of the biggest things is its not a international agreement so you will have states, countries ect all not in agreement on it all.
Now if in Canada they deem Lindens as a solid form of currency I do hope you paid the tax lawyers bill that said that in lindens...

Desmond Shang

That's the discount end of the land market. Competition is incredibly fierce there, as people try to undercut each other and hang on.

Look hard enough, and you'll even find land for less than tier. Yes, I'm not kidding! There are scores of independents sitting on 195 / mo regions from way back, have a few longtime tenants and the whole thing is a net 80 bucks a month loss or whatever, to them. If you can save them another 40 bucks a month, they don't much care how many prims you take while they play Diablo 3. If it's just a great deal you want, and you can pick up stakes, pffft, just ask around. Most of these people are fairly stable.

The "prims for money" kind of places ~ if that was all that SL was, a huge number of us would have dumped it long ago. Forget about Caledon ~ I'll talk about my competition. If you go to New Babbage and don't notice anything but prims for money... that would be an incredible loss. If you go to Winterfell and simply don't 'get' it, or not pick up upon what's going on in Steelhead, or New Toulouse ~ that takes downright effort to miss. "Themed estate" or "roleplay" or whatever *totally* misses the mark. It's more like immigrating to a country. With longstanding ties and relations with other countries. Active embassies, universities, fleets. These little nations DO stuff ~ sometimes colonise other worlds, sometimes coordinate business efforts, all manner of things.

To give you a taste of one small part of it, say you made furniture to sell. Okay... great, just another furniture person, but when you have someone doing houses that work with it, another person doing clothes that work with it, another person doing events... this *works*. It's about the difference between being in an MMO clan, and trying to solo the same game.

And no, it isn't for everyone; lots of people don't like that much interaction. But it's a far richer experience, and we get a lot of people who just like to live around it, and watch the goings on without saying too much.

Some estates attract extreme dealseekers; others price that end of the market right out. When I was at lower rates, I can assure you, we had on average *far* more petty squabbles, clique wars, petty drama and so forth. Now, while that stuff never fully goes away, it's the difference between Motel 6 and the Ritz. Odds are, one demographic is far less likely to take all the towels and toilet paper.

And you are right on one thing ~ nobody much cares about what service claims I make or don't make. I'm the least important part of the whole estate.