Written 7 November, 2008
Will the Last Person Leaving Second Life Please Turn Off the Lights?
Hi, everybody. M. Linden here. You know, the CEO of Linden Lab. That guy.
It goes against my every double-dealing, deceiving, layoff-loving, downsizing, outsourcing instinct, but I’ve been working the steps and I got to the one where I have to make amends for all the wrongs I’ve done.
I’m sorry to say I’ve lied to you all.
About our openspace sim policies: you’re not abusing the sims. Our servers aren’t overloaded. You did exactly what we knew you would do when we made them available singly and doubled the prim limits. You bought them like crazy and made lovely parks, oceans, and light residential areas. Yeah, a few folks abused them by putting malls and clubs on them, but even so, our machines were fine.
Here’s the real deal: Our servers aren’t broken. It’s Linden Lab that is broke.
I’m sure you watch the news. You know the stock market is in free fall. You know the world’s economy has collapsed. You know the credit markets have shut down, that getting a loan of any sort is just about impossible.
Hey, we have expenses! We have several hundred employees—and do you have any idea what our electric bill is? It’s not cheap to power all those servers! And speaking of servers, we have to find the money to buy a lot more of them so we can sell you more virtual land and then jack up the prices. And let’s not forget my obscenely large bonus. Well, not obscene by corporate standards, just obscene when compared to your paychecks. I’m not sure how you can afford those sims, considering what you take home. Doesn’t it cut into your caviar budget?
I know almost every one of you is mad at us here at the Lab. You should be. We deceived you. We did the old bait-and-switch, hoping you would fall for our bullshit. You know, convince you to buy an openspace sim, or four, or a dozen, and get 3750 prims for $75 USD a month, woo hoo! Then, after thousands and thousands of you bought them we would jack up the price to $125, hoping you would fall for our “you’re causing a problem” line. And you guys ARE causing problems. We had to hire a new full-time employee just to take the cash to the bank in a wheelbarrow. We had to buy the wheelbarrow, too.
And yeah, I know the new and improved openspace policy of October 5 is just a turd covered with gilt. Nothing has changed. We’ll still be charging you 66 percent more if you choose to keep your openspace as it is. We thought it would fool you. But with 128 pages of commentary on the forum, we can see it hasn’t. My bad.
We thought, yeah, sure, some of the owners will abandon their openspaces. We’ll just turn around and sell them again. But instead, you’re dumping openspaces in droves, and even getting rid of your full sims. You’re dropping your premium membership status. And no one is buying new sims, whether openspace or full. You say it’s because you don’t trust us.
I know a lot of you have established accounts on alternative grids and are just waiting until they’re stable and full-featured so you can close your Second Life accounts and move there permanently.
I know you’re angry. I get it.
But forget your anger, and do this. Trust us.
Trust us. We know we’ve done little to earn it and everything to lose it, but hey, we’re working a vision here. We need your money.
I know now that if I had come forth and asked Second Lifers to give us their financial support, they would have. I know you would have dug deep in your pockets and bailed us out of our difficulties. But I listened to that damn Jack. Yeah, that’s what I did. It’s all his fault.
So let’s just forget this all happened. Come back from the OSGrid. Come back from There. Come back. Buy more openspace sims. You’ll be content and happy with 750 prims for $75 USD a month. We’ll all be happy together.
Please?
Why is there an echo here?
Hello?
Hello?
Anyone?
Will the Last Person Leaving Second Life Please Turn Off the Lights?
Hi, everybody. M. Linden here. You know, the CEO of Linden Lab. That guy.
It goes against my every double-dealing, deceiving, layoff-loving, downsizing, outsourcing instinct, but I’ve been working the steps and I got to the one where I have to make amends for all the wrongs I’ve done.
I’m sorry to say I’ve lied to you all.
About our openspace sim policies: you’re not abusing the sims. Our servers aren’t overloaded. You did exactly what we knew you would do when we made them available singly and doubled the prim limits. You bought them like crazy and made lovely parks, oceans, and light residential areas. Yeah, a few folks abused them by putting malls and clubs on them, but even so, our machines were fine.
Here’s the real deal: Our servers aren’t broken. It’s Linden Lab that is broke.
I’m sure you watch the news. You know the stock market is in free fall. You know the world’s economy has collapsed. You know the credit markets have shut down, that getting a loan of any sort is just about impossible.
Hey, we have expenses! We have several hundred employees—and do you have any idea what our electric bill is? It’s not cheap to power all those servers! And speaking of servers, we have to find the money to buy a lot more of them so we can sell you more virtual land and then jack up the prices. And let’s not forget my obscenely large bonus. Well, not obscene by corporate standards, just obscene when compared to your paychecks. I’m not sure how you can afford those sims, considering what you take home. Doesn’t it cut into your caviar budget?
I know almost every one of you is mad at us here at the Lab. You should be. We deceived you. We did the old bait-and-switch, hoping you would fall for our bullshit. You know, convince you to buy an openspace sim, or four, or a dozen, and get 3750 prims for $75 USD a month, woo hoo! Then, after thousands and thousands of you bought them we would jack up the price to $125, hoping you would fall for our “you’re causing a problem” line. And you guys ARE causing problems. We had to hire a new full-time employee just to take the cash to the bank in a wheelbarrow. We had to buy the wheelbarrow, too.
And yeah, I know the new and improved openspace policy of October 5 is just a turd covered with gilt. Nothing has changed. We’ll still be charging you 66 percent more if you choose to keep your openspace as it is. We thought it would fool you. But with 128 pages of commentary on the forum, we can see it hasn’t. My bad.
We thought, yeah, sure, some of the owners will abandon their openspaces. We’ll just turn around and sell them again. But instead, you’re dumping openspaces in droves, and even getting rid of your full sims. You’re dropping your premium membership status. And no one is buying new sims, whether openspace or full. You say it’s because you don’t trust us.
I know a lot of you have established accounts on alternative grids and are just waiting until they’re stable and full-featured so you can close your Second Life accounts and move there permanently.
I know you’re angry. I get it.
But forget your anger, and do this. Trust us.
Trust us. We know we’ve done little to earn it and everything to lose it, but hey, we’re working a vision here. We need your money.
I know now that if I had come forth and asked Second Lifers to give us their financial support, they would have. I know you would have dug deep in your pockets and bailed us out of our difficulties. But I listened to that damn Jack. Yeah, that’s what I did. It’s all his fault.
So let’s just forget this all happened. Come back from the OSGrid. Come back from There. Come back. Buy more openspace sims. You’ll be content and happy with 750 prims for $75 USD a month. We’ll all be happy together.
Please?
Why is there an echo here?
Hello?
Hello?
Anyone?
2 comments:
Finally! Someone else who has seen this OS price hike move as an attempt to downsize rather than a grab at money. Even a LL geek would realize that would make people leave rather than net them 66% more profit. LL should have been honest. First people were betrayed and shocked by the absurd increase on an already outrageously priced product, and then everyone had the nagging feeling something still wasn't right. Yeah: 'LL doesn't love us anymore and wants a divorce.' and deep down we know it.
Makes OS Grid look better and better, doesn't it? Maybe LL has reached the level of scability at 75k or so concurrency.
Ya think?
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