Socially|Mundane

Last night at the Second Life blog, Jack Linden made the post we all knew were coming. All of it is plausible:

Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes « Official Second Life Blog: "Beginning 1st January 2009 We will increase the monthly maintenance fee from USD$75 to USD$125 per month. This price increase will apply to all owners of Openspaces on January 1st as well as new purchases after that date. There will be no grandfathering of Openspace maintenance pricing.
"For anyone owning class 4 Openspaces on January 1st, they will be upgraded to class 5 by end of January, to further improve the experience people have on those regions.
"At the same time, we will be increasing the upfront fee for brand new Openspaces from USD$250 to USD$375."

if you go over there to read the entire entry, you will learn that a large part of the reason for this increase has to do with how "Open Space" sims are being used. The original intent was to allow estate owners - those who already 'lease' a private region - to purchase at steep discount another private region that is intentionally 'weaker' in terms of abilities and prims alloted.


These were supposed to allow region owners to be able to add additional 'low use' regions, primarily intended for mostly water to 'barren' lands. A way to expand your existing sim at lower cost.

Though Linden Lab had to have known that people were going to use these the way they are now: in the same manner as full sims. Selling the land or renting it for residential space, business space, dance clubs and so on.

Not only is the prim usage being pushed to the hilt, but the numbers of people coming through simultaneously is putting huge stress on the server hardware hosting these things. Unfortunately, since so many Open Space sims share the same server hardware, when on Open Space region brings the server to a crawl, it affects the other nine - whether there are people there or not.

I do not doubt this is the real reason for this policy and pricing change. However, the "whew" factor also has to do with what Open Space sims did to the economy and land pricing. People flocked to these things, abandoning mainland and private estate leasing for their own little Open Space privacy.

Personally, I am happy for this policy change and the rate increases. Good move Linden Lab. What the hell took you so goddamnedlong?

courtesy of Seconf Life Blog