I am an openspace simulator tenant.
Harbour was delivered August 2, and I have been careful ever since not to overtax the resources allocated to it. I can tell you right now, even though I am not currently logged in, the top 5 scripts. Yes, I have monitored them that closely. And I would like to think that I would be a good example of how an open space region can be used responsibly. It’s rare to see even three avatars in the region at a time, and I never dreamed of bringing my business to the region. It relies on scripts, so it remains on the mainland.
Trick or Treat, Linden Labs is raising the rent on open space simulators by 66% starting January 1. They justify this by saying it is due to overuse of resoruces by the openspace simulators, but they aren’t specific about what resources are being overused. There’s a lot I could say here, but I think that the discussion about the policy change in the wake of Jack Linden’s blog post is far more eloquent. This has blindsided a lot of residents, and they’re unhappy abut it. All I can say is that I think this is being badly mishandled, and addressing the issue differently would have helped. I hope they’ll take a hard look at how this is playing out, because it isn’t pretty.
As for me, I’m just wondering what the next shoe to fall is. They insist that simulator resources are being abused but don’t say what constitutes abuse. For all I know, my peaceful corner of the grid is part of the problem. It would be nice to be told instead of wondering.
So I’ll stand on the porch and look out at the peaceful vistas of my garden while I can and wonder what’s next.
They opened the floodgates with the price drop and prim increase, provided weak and confusing tools to measure and monitor performance, didn’t give specific benchmarks/performance limits for the product, and then didn’t leave themselves a specific route to change/alert the service beyond the standard amorphous limitations under TOS/AUP.
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I write this from work… hrm… I work at an actual hosting company. Mitch Kapor describes LL’s revenue model essentially as hosting, so there should be some way to compare, yes?
Okay… yeah, we run virtual hosting sites here for ten bucks that are legacy headaches, but we’ve slowly but surely stiff-armed them from standard support of full dedicated hosts. Virtual customers will never get in the way of someone with a private rack or a colo due to our routing and priority on tickets.
Many are seeing that they need to go to dedicated hosting or a virtual hosting reseller for full service and response. If they don’t and they persist in hogging resources, well, this is covered in the TOS/AUP.
When action is taken against them, only the “troublemakers” or “greedies” are affected directly by their actions.
On the downside, they do not have adequate tools for monitoring their load/impact on the main box. Even if they did, they wouldn’t understand it.
But in this case, the transition has been over a long period of time, we have hard limits for resources on those accounts, and when they violate the soft limits frequently they get suspended and forced to make a decision on their account’s future. And any announcements involving changes of their service had more than 2 months lead time.
Yes, I can see both sides of this… but the abruptness of the announcement as well as the fact it comes so soon after the product was released, well, it’s making it hard to trust them when it comes to future products.
How will I know that I’m getting Class 6 level service if they want to sell me Class 6 at some point in the future?
How will I know that I’m getting reliable access to a personalized last name if I try to buy one?
At what point do I lose trust and confidence that when I have my mouse cursor on the “Buy Lindens” icon, I instead open an IM window and ask for their PayPal ID?
As I approach the end of my second year as Crap Mariner, I wonder what it will take for me not to look at the third with concern instead of excitement.
-ls/cm
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