second life abuses the power it received, by its takeover of xstreetsl, here is the post related to this abuse on the jira, now philip has gone I guess this gouging of the client base will be the norm, the endless commercialism will kill the game.

read the jira post here and strongly complain :

they use the these following excuses to take these actions :

Why are free listings on Xstreet SL a problem?

1: The items are a large percentage of transactions which have associated costs but no value, which means that cost must be shared by all users.

:retort: well since the users are currently paying that cost and it is shared by all users then it is our choice as to whether to accept it or not, or whether we would prefer the changes you are offering, in my opinion taxation is more proportionate when taken from a single point. if your charging a transaction fee, then you may not also introduce listing fees which is what you are doing, or vice versa. I would probably even prefer to set a minimum commission price in lindens of items upto L$10 before introducing listing fees.

I also severely doubt if a way was found to reduce the burden of freebie sellers delivery costs, on listers who generate commission from sales of non freebie items. that the we would see any reduction in commission charge as a result, thereby I state this suggested benefit to us the users is a false proposal, As these changes are not really about reducing costs to users who sells items that generate commission at all.

2. They decrease the price that other merchants can charge within a category.

retort : Rubbish > Freebies help create competitive pricing models, but in reality I have in no way lowered my prices to compete with freebies nor would any sensible seller. you want something cheap you get a freebie, you want something decent you have to pay for quality. there are some exception to this rule but generally its true.

3. They hinder the shopping experience because a “sort by price” puts all freebies first
They garner so much attention that Residents are driven toward the freebies instead of quality, fairly priced items.

: retort : whining bullcrap, name a webstore anyone uses, where you cannot order items by price ? that is an essential feature ? drowned out by freebies ? come on people might buy them to see the quality ? then once they have, if theyre too rubbish they will buy a better item and pay real lindens thats obvious, the words “quality” and “fairly priced” are so unbeleiveably subjective, and there use in the above statement, seems to be farcical in the extreme. If you want to solve the search result issues first then why not prevent people listing dresses in 30 colours and calling them nonsensicle things, such that they drown people out in listings, such as searching for a pear reveals dresses, jewellery laptops , before it reveals the fruit itself ? these are more of a pritorty to sort.

My conclusion :

This isn’t about benefiting the users, this is more about subtle revenue increase for Linden Labs itself now philip has left, ie Nows the time to start squeezing the users of the game for whatever can be made from them. Second life already receives good revenues by commision on decent item sales, if these introductions were about unburdening us from supporting the freebie community as listers, then i would prefer a system whereby there was minimum linden commision on items even freebies when delivered from the site, whereas in game freebies would still carry no commision. The real issue here in my opinion is not freebies. Its the subtle back door listing fess for all sellers, the following are the two really evil concepts. Now if costs and revenue scenarion of xstreetsl doesnt add up and more revenue needs to be generated, then please changel the pricing model but do not introduce listing fees onto users who regulalrly sells items as this is complicating the pricing model and like ebay auctions is utterly irritating, a simple pricing model is best, charging to list will deter sellers.

Monthly Listing Fee of L$10 for all items L$1 or greater

in other words even items with commission still get a lsiting fee charge regardless of whether they sell ? of L$120 per annum is they may as well say to list any item on xstreetsl will cost you about 44c per annum or 27p per anumm in money before youve sold anything, it is much better to make it fully commission based.

Separate freebies into their own category

hmm that just seems silly to be honest. because if you really want to find a good item in xstreetsl, you have to use the advanced option and search under multiple criteria anyway, why not have those advanced options on by default ? or change the default order by which things are listed when a simple search for an item is conducted ? ie like the pear search under a basic search yields such logically off results ? if someone puts in pear theyre looking for a fruit !, not a dress or a laptop or a peice of jewellery. As for users you consulted approving these changes this seems strange, who were they ? what was the group consulted nuber of people and demographic ? I certainly as a seller wasnt, this to me as per usual strikes me as vocal commercial minority, who are massivley self interested being pissed of that some people are more philanthropic with their time and give things away for less money than others, this is because they are generous and this is a good thing, Second life was really founded on programmers and users generosity crossed with a restrained form of commerce, and to change that ethos now, will only drive away more users. it seesm that these programmatic changes being made to this website are not about enhancing the web page for users and more about tweaking the money model, to create more income for Linden labs.

My Solution :

I would handle it this way, with the following amendments to the changes , if it is necessary because xstreetsl is loss making ?

A: Put a minimum commision on all freebie items sold through xstreetsl of one linden upto a 100 linden dollar monthly maximum charge for freebies listings per xstreetsl user. Thereby not penalising the Person who sells the odd freebie. make this payable either by the seller or the purchaser choosable when listing, so as to account for both promotional advertising and genorosity.

B: No listing per month fee at all, for any item above L$10 that has generated a single sales commission within a month in which it is listed.

C: maybe all items under L$5, can only be listed if they provide a second life link/landmark where they can be visibly seen and purchased, so as to reduce people purchasing freebies for the sake of determining their quality, and then storing objects that dont meet theyre quality requirements for an indefinite period of stagnation in their inventory.

D: retain in game freebie items, distributable from vendors and objects.

E: when an item hasn’t sold even once in a year then add a dorment tag onto it and remove it from general listing searches such, that if a seller wants it to re-appear in listings they have to rejuvinate the dorment listing visible from within the seller control panel by changing it in some way, for it to then re-appear. This would be a way of reducing search load for items that are practically never purchased.

F: or make a special category of freebie the seller can use, that has no commision or listing charge, that is not delivered via the website, and may only contain one image and an sl link/landmark and description, such that if your depserate for a freebie you have to visit in game to get it, this would reduce xstreetsl website server load and increase in game activity to attain freebies, thereby deterring unnecesary xstreetsl freebie purchasing load.

G: or even make it so the user can choose to a pay a L$1 commission to xstreetsl directly when purchasing to receive freebie objects direct, rather than use the in game link in the freebie listing so as to reduce server load. With the condition maybe that a user with a linden balance below L$200 are not charged for delivery to their inventory of their first x number of freebie items.

certainly amongst my suggestions above I think is a better mix of pragmatic compromise ? listing fees is what i really object too, as it complicates the pricing model for the average seller, so if listing fees are to be implemented to cover costs make sure perhaps they affect the listings on which no practical commision is occuring, prior to the listing being made dorment or something.