I haz yr bucket!

Taken in the sea outside of the new location for the Gnubie Store. If you don’t get the joke, then you need to check out

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/14/i-has-a-bucket/

icanhascheezburger.com/?s=bucket

slurl.com/secondlife/Powder%20Mill/153/116/14

Brief thoughts on the increased supply of land in SL

Linden Labs have announced that they are going to increase the supply of land by opening another continent and they are going to reduce the price of buying private islands. Their announcement got over 130 comments before they closed comments on the blog post, and they closed it in less than a day. The Massively news service reported on this also here.

There is a lot of moaning from big land owners/landlords who will inevitably see the price of their investments fall. However, it may help to encourage a lot more people to buy modest plots to put a single house on. The big worry though is tier fees. I know some people that have bought their modest plots and indeed a few that went in together and are now selling up. It’s hard to afford the land, and particularly the land tiers, and I’m even asking myself, do I need all of my land? Over the hill from me in the neighbouring sims of Pavonia and Nolidae etc, I recently saw big swathes of land up for sale at about half the price that I paid for my land. Then again, my land in Sabre seems to hold value a bit more, because of it’s nice protected location.

I would be a bit miffed to make a big loss on my land if I sold some or all of it, but then if more people get to own land in SL, then I’m up for a broader, happier community. I do wonder if Linden Labs are just trying to bring in more tier fees to increase their own sustainability, and are prepared to do so to the detriment of land barons’ own profitability. But then again, a more sustainable Linden Labs company makes for a more sustainable SL in the broad sweep of things.

If a few selfish real life economists manage to talk us into the threatened RL recession, and end up making a profit out of market turmoil, then this is bound to have an effect on the SL land market. Simply, if you don’t have the money to pay your bills so much, SL land becomes a luxury that you can’t afford. What would Linden Labs do if they created all of this new land and then there was say a 20% increase in land that was vacant at any one time? Would they close sims, and concentrate people on remodelled ones, saying we’ll move you there for no extra charge? Surely, running all of those extra servers that actually run that new continent costs Linden Labs extra money, and their sustainability would be hit big time by running this with a hight vacancy rate.

One final reflection, and I can’t find reference to this anywhere in those blog postings, is the issue of maybe making land that bit better for land owners of all sizes. At what point will the advance in the power of computers make it possible for Linden Labs to process more activity on land. Primarily I mean, upping the prim count that you can have on land. When I bought my first house, I got a nice big villa and it ended up with rooms that needed to be filled with furniture, and furniture eats prims big time. I now have a house that is by no means low prim, but it doesn’t need all of that furniture to make it look nice. Should Linden Labs keep focussing on expanding more of the same thing, or on a mixture of more land with land being more productive/useful for everyone?

I’m pondering on just where the balance lies in all of this. Balancing the interests of our gracious hosts, Linden Labs, without whom we wouldn’t have SL; the interests of big land owners, and the interests of those that might make the plunge for a modest plot if only land were cheaper to buy. Also, consolidating the experience of your average modest land owner by making land that bit more pleasurable and useful. I do hope that they get the balance right, in the long term.