Saturday, November 11, 2006

Land Prices...

I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say: What. The. @#$*.

As I'm writing this, the average cost of a 512m sq. plot in the city costs 3,500L$. By MG standards that's just another drop in the pot. But look at it this way: the average TG resident has under 1,000L$. When I bought my first plot of land in the city on the Teen Grid, it only cost me 512L$ for 512m, 1L$/m. Now Land Barons are selling for as much as 6-8L$ per square meter.

Today's word is extortion (ex-tore-shun) can you say extortion kids?

Whats been bothering me is that land barons don't really provide a worthwhile service, and yet they are making more money then anyone else in Second Life. They force themselves into our economy by buying up entire sims worth of land as it becomes available, thus preventing anyone else from buying it at the regular 1L$/m. Then once they have all the land, they're free to charge whatever they want for it. When I asked one prominent land baron why they charged so much, he/she claimed that they needed all the money they could get to cover there huge tier fees. Maybe I'm the only person who thinks this is a good idea but: why not just boycott land baron land. If people don't buy there stuff, there forced to pay tier for it longer, and they wont have the money coming in to buy new land to sell. So therefore, we could effectively put them out of business.

Bottom line: when you buy land from a baron, your helping to increase land prices for everyone.

So hey, give it a shot maybe? 1L$/meter sure does sound nice.

1 comment:

Jackson Krupp said...

yo boooooyyyy. you gotta understand, its a never-ending cycle. Once barons are boycotted, land prices go down, but then someone realizes opportunity for profit, so they buy up all the land at 4L1/m and sell it for higher. basically, you have a good concept on paper, but in the metaverse it wont work out. example: Merc was our biggest and only land baron for a long time. a lot of people opposed him, and eventually boycotted him. This forced him to quit. when Merc quit land, he gave all his land to Brooke. Prices dropped from L$4/m to L$3/m. Then Fabian came along, and he started small, and sold land for L$2/m. Brooke then had to lower his rate to 2/m, and then he quit. Fabian was the only one in the market, and he raised his prices up from 2/m to 3/m, and eventually to 4/m. Not much of this has settled in the the community, and there was not much protest, but now as he is buying more and more land, people are starting to boycott again. The cycle will not end.
Anyways, Barons are not "that" bad. atleast they aren't noobs running around in a sandbox shooting, selling, and putting up porn. But anyways, noone is forcing you to buy from them, so you cant be that upset. If LL raised their initial prices from our land grabs from 1/m to 4/m lets say, then there would be more reason to complain.

Basically, if there is a store selling clothes, and one average designer with a lot of items is selling clothes for a lot more than other residents, you are not forced to buy the clothes, but you can get the same quality clothes for a smaller amount of money. You a rent forced to buy the more expensive clothes, but they are there just in case if you see something you really like, and you would pay more for.

Now switch clothes for land.