Canada's trying to draft a DMCA-like copyright law to bolster its current looser, freer system. No, Canada! Don't do it! DMCA is bad! It will stunt your grown and grow hair on your palms, NOOOO!
Seriously. Bad idea. Listen to me on this, I live in America. I know how bad the DMCA is.
Now. Other topics. Pink Linden is sending around a survey to SL merchants. (Apparently, omitting me. Nice to know I'm completely ignored by all sides...unless they're paying me...and then I'm a big deal and must be fired.
(...Ahem. Sorry. Anyway...)
Friend of mine had completed the survey, but still had the link he was sent, so he sent it my way. What neither of us can figure out, how'ver, is the survey coding: id est, will the survey credit to him if I take it, or credit to me? Do I need to be sent it with my own special little coding?
Instead, I took pictures of the damned thing, because it's on crack, start to finish.
The first and second questions aren't bad:
(As always, click for the larger version.)
Standard, even: have you ever taken out a classified ad, what sort of things do you sell? Simple questions.
There's one in the next batch that gets very odd, though.
Do they really expect people to answer that honestly? I'm not talking about the ones who do personally create everything they sell. But for the ones who don't? If they don't create what they put out, they aren't going to be honest enough to give a percentage accurately.
It's a specious question to ask.
The next couple are again odd--after all the trouble they went to, to all but ensure that the Linden view is clearly and unambiguously stated (namely, that this is a game, that no profit is guaranteed or intended, that anyone using this game as a means to increase RL income should stop), to ask first, what percentage of the merchant's given RL household income is provided by SL, and next, how much each merchant makes on average...it seems ridiculous and surreal. What do the Lindens care about how much anyone's making...unless the Lindens want a bigger cut down the line?
I suppose owning land, or at least renting it, and the main activities we do in SL would apply to a merchant survey...as much as it sounds like Big Brother Linden...Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the really odd questions--the ones about Linden-made vendors (for a fee), and listing things automatically on XStreet (for a fee), and the ones about asking if it would be a good idea to charge five or ten US dollars--you know, what they consider a 'nominal sum', I'm sure--per listing, per item on XStreet...
They're on crack. There's no other word for it. They have completely and utterly lost their minds.
Does anyone know a Linden who might be able to confirm why they've suddenly turned into minute-by-minute, charge-by-the-moment types? I mean, this isn't even money on the dresser, thanks, seeya next week--hells, it's not even watch five minutes of porn for free, pay eternally for the rest of the movie.
This is robbery with a smile and a chainsaw strap-on. And not a nice one, either.
What's going on with Pink Linden? And who's telling the insane little bunny to hop out with this survey in the first place?
and the weight is crushing down on my lungs, I know I can't breathe
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6 Comments:
That is the end of the survey. The first parts are quit disturbing. Trying to see how much money they can get out of merchants for very little in return. Question 1 talks of offering a vendor system with guaranteed delivery and easy upload to Xstreet. For this they will want a 10-15% cut. Another question was a SL Mall. Where merchants could have free land to build whatever size shop they wanted and LL would advertise the place. LL would get a steep cut. There was another proposal of a web presence and some other benefits for $10-$100 US dollars. The last one I remember is cross marketing prominent xstreet ads and in-world search ads. I believe this was sent to a random sampling of SL residents. I am not really a merchant and I received it.
I got one a while ago, which I ignored. I honestly thought you'd gotten one too, and at the time our online times weren't meshing due to what I had going on in RL.
I thought the questions were a bit too personal for my taste about income.
Anonymous,
I'm wondering how they got their random sampling, frankly. One of my friends got it, and he just this year opened a small store--he hasn't uploaded anything to XStreet, nor does he intend to.
Another survey participant was Fawkes Allen--he's had stuff on (and off) XStreet nearly since he's started, but he has an almost religious aversion to advertising.
And then there's me--granted, I can spin out paranoiac theories all day as to why I didn't receive one, but if we break it down to the truth of things, I actually own a commercial parcel in Caledon, so...huh?
I feel a little less rabidly paranoid that it's a small sample, though. Of Linden-based CRACK.
Alexandra,
Not only that, but the whole charging for cool listings on XStreet, charging $5 to $10 per item to automatically list--I mean, look, it's still a pain to list things on XStreet, it was NEVER easy, but it can be done. I'm not paying anything for something I can do myself.
And now that I'm thinking about it, why are they still charging to sell things on XStreet, anyway? As a separate service, that makes sense. As a Linden-owned service, all monies are in a (reasonably) common pool.
That, and the rampant copybotting without Linden interference in the least, are the two biggest things killing XStreet right now.
I took the survey, and I poured a bit of cold water on the Lindens regarding the branding concept: that XStreetSL competitor metaLIFE.net already has an excellent branding program, and it's free.
The Linden vendor concept was good up until the point where you would be charged an instant listing fee if you listed items directly from the vendor. That would only force people to stick with magic boxes. Or jump ship to another site if they eliminated magic boxes for vendors.
The Mall concept, I don't have much of a problem with as long as the 30% of sales comes from only sales made in the Mall in exchange for the free space.
Now, see, that I wouldn't mind--you want to give me more exposure and take a bit off the top for that, I'm fine with. It's that $5 to $10, and $10 to $100 USD, suggested at various times that gets me.
I mean, listen, I have friends for whom $100 is nominal--I have friends who think nothing of getting paid and spending a third of their paycheck on a high-end gaming system and nine games, just as an impulse buy. (Hells, I have one friend who refuses to move out of her mother's house until she has $35,000 in savings--because she doesn't think she'll be able to successfully live on her own for six months *without* that as buffer space!)
But for me, in my current situation? $5 is sometimes the difference between paying rent on my parcel, and not. $10 is something I have to budget for. $100 is something I cannot, ever, afford, because we're talking half of my current rent. (Yes. Really.)
$100 USD is not some 'nominal sum' I can just throw around on a whim. It's ludicrous. And especially if there are other options out there beyond slapt.de (I didn't know about metaLIFE), then why would anyone pick that $10 to $100 option for the vendor?
EVER??
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