Survey on Linden's Upcoming Freebies Policy: Is It Good For the Second Life Economy?

Online Surveys & Market Research

The Lindens just announced a policy for its ecommerce site, targeting low-cost freebie items sold on XStreetSL: "[Since] the increasing quantities of free, cheap and stale goods are hindering that experience for shoppers and merchants alike," as Colussus Linden puts it, "we will take action to counteract and balance them within the marketplace, for the benefit of all." This will be done by adding small fees and commission charges to all xStreet sales, effectively penalizing extremely cheap items. The announcement has riled many content creators, including talented figures such as Ordinal Malaprop, who's retaliated by removing all her wares from the ecommerce site. Outrage aside, my main curiosity is this: As quality content offered at very low rates, freebies are often blamed for harming the SL economy. So will this new Linden policy help improve the economy, at least the aspects that are part of xStreetSL?Please take the survey, and discuss in Comments.

Hat tip: Wizard Gynoid.

Comments

[McCabe Maxsted]

It's a ridiculous policy in my opinion. I already have one friend who's closing her listings due to not being able to pay the new fees, as well as a few others who are simply on principle.

[magggnnus]

this is also a serious strike against niche products.
many specialty products you can find on XStreet now, which may not be selling often enough or be pricey enough will disappear from the marketplace.

[Nadine Nozaki]

My stuff will soon ne gone, as there are no more SLXEchange boxes, getting monein into Xstreet is to hard, and I will not purcase teher either. The only gaining form thsi is alteratives as slapt.

Before i could for the money i gained in Xstreet spend that on a little luxary. Buying form Xsteet was not affecting the inword money as i have not materialized the money yet. The fee's for Xstreet was is still much higher that the alternatives, but with this change it just way to expenisve, most my stuff are now free at Xstreet untill i can close down and move out... Bye Bye...

[Scree Raymaker]

This is the end of XStreet as we know it, and once more proves that Linden Lab are only concerned with profit, rather than keeping current customers happy.

[Jovin]

Xstreet is a mess, it's ugly and slow and full of crap products. This might clear a lot of that up but at the expense of a lot of the better merchants and their products. It's the Linden baby being flung out with the bath-water again.

[Otenth Paderborn]

Funny, "free, cheap and stale goods" don't overly hinder my experience of the Internet--perhaps because there are a number of effective search engines and directories that I can use.

I would say that Linden Lab's spectacularly abysmal search engines are the problem.

[AnnOtooleInSL]

Hamlet this is more than just freebies being affected. LL is mistakenly assuming low sales means poor quality.

Maybe you could apply some attention to the mandatory monthly listing fees and minimum commission designed to remove small businesses from the grid.

[Razitra Artizar]

I've spent the last several weeks ushering new folks into SL, folks joining for RL work who might not have joined otherwise.

You know what really engaged them? Being able to shop for freebies on XStreet - the fun of shopping, the ability to experiment without paying and learning to look at an ad and be able to judge how it will look on an avatar, and having items delivered to their avatar was exciting for them.

And I know that they went on to buy Lindens and get non-freebie items. Quality freebies on XStreet are a gateway for new residents - to feel further engaged with SL, to become part of the community, to become part of the economy.

[anya ristow]

I like the idea of a minimum listing fee, but why they made it more complex than that is a mystery.

If an item isn't worth 10L (about 4 cents) per month to list, then maybe it's just clutter, anyway.

[JeanRicard Broek]

This is not all about freebies.. A quote from the announcement:

# All non-freebie listings will now be charged L$10 per month to remain listed in the Xstreet SL Marketplace
# Currently, less than 20% of Xstreet SL listings make at least one sale per month.
This displays just how much clutter of unsold items exists on Xstreet SL.

This is the XStreet version of the OpenSpaceSim announcement, changing the basuic rules of the game. Why does EVERY discussion by the Lab result in destruction of a marketplace in SL, Do they really think There is a bigger market ahead,so lets clean up SL, clean the deck for the Pros? This is all about making SL a smaller but tighter RL $ machine for the Lab and raises the cost of entry for builders/startups/developers ie: a large mumber of the current & remaining residents/players.

They praise the "Residents contributions then but don't do anything to enrich & strengthen the current Marketplace, only themselves.

I hate seeing 100 listings for the same 50linden skirt in 100 colors but there are other ways then shooting everyone to kill the troublemakers.

I predict a real outcry when the first debits to sensible builder/avatar's linden balance occurs. 100 listings will cost 1000 linden/m or in US$ about $4/m.

The days of starting a small virtual business as a hobby or experiment are over. Say goodbye to the small creative designer trying to cover a small rental tier. SL & XStreet will be like Renderosity with fewer items priced from $5US - $200US.

[FlipperPA Peregrine]

My stuff will soon be pulled too, which is a shame. This reeks of a bottom line money grab. While many "freebies" are rip-offs, stolen, or thinly veiled advertising ("demos"), this is another example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater rather than coming up with a reasonable policy that would require some enforcement.

[CyFishy Traveler]

Messy, messy. Not all freebies are 'promotional items'--HUDs to enhance certain inworld experiences, for example, aren't necessarily promoting anything, but having them available via XStreetSL can be convenient.

While I appreciate the efforts to cut down the signal to noise ratio, this is a clumsy way to do it. I suspect we'll be seeing a new SL commerce site sprouting up soon to pick up when Linden Lab dropped the ball.

[Crap Mariner]

Perhaps this is a fee that Premium and Concierge members should have waived?

You know. Customers who are putting money into that economy thing (ie LL coffers) on a regular basis.

Oh. Right. Premium's not supposed to have any benefit other than the joys of having Linden Lab as your landlord on Mainland along with the Weekly Pittance.

My bad.

-ls/cm

[Arcadia Codesmith]

COLOSSAL blunder. At a time when the residents are uncertain of the Lab's direction and motivation, imposing a punative fee on any aspect of the Second Life experience betrays a profound and utter ignorance of community dynamics and public relations.

Even if we hypothesize that they're deliberately trying to drive away the existing community to make space for the educorps (a deeply cynical view that I've been trying to resist), this move still doesn't make sense -- what corporation or university would be stupid enough to do business with a company that is so willing to antagonize its residents in such an arbitrary manner?Executives and university administrators are frighteningly clueless most of the time, but even their idiocy has limits. Apparently Linden Labs has no such boundries.

If XStreet feels "cluttered", perhaps it has less to do with the demos and freebies and more to do with the fact that the site's organizational hierarchy has all the efficiency and subtle grace of a compost heap.

[Nexus Burbclave]

I'm with Ann on this one. The real target isn't the "junk and freebies". Some very powerful merchants have decided that they don't want anyone threatening their fiefdom, so they've pulled some strings to raise the barriers to entry.

I guess I'm going to remove my existing listings and replace them with one listing... a "one finger salute" t-shirt listing directing people to my store.

[Nova Dyszel]

my niche and community based items will likely be taken off xstreetsl as a result of this.

feeling the need of myself and friends for some more visibly political and queer content in sl I created a small tshirt shop and have a number of items on xstreetsl for free or low cost. this kind of item doesn't sell a lot but is important to those who do occasionally find and want it. selling these items made me almost no profit, and nothing compared to what i spend in sl, but they did help enrich the tapestry of sl in terms of diversity.

LL has little thought for building community it seems.

[Jennyfur Peregrine]

I'm kind of glad that I never got around to listing stuff on xstreetsl. Laziness FTW!!!

Not that it matters much since I haven't been in SL for a couple years now. I've always kept my stuff available. Mainly because it would always annoy me when a designer would leave SL and take their shops with them lock, stock and barrel and then you could never find their stuff again.

[Robert Graf]

LL and the FIC have made one big blunder after another for the last several years. They have made it absolutely clear that "it's their way or the highway". I picked the highway back in March. I joined OSGrid, setup a couple regions, and have returned to the real reason I am in virtual worlds like opensim or SL. Meeting new people, creating, and having fun. I don't have to spend every moment inworld worrying about meeting tier, worrying about sales, worrying about rentals. I just have fun and for me thats what it's all about. Any content creators that are offering freebies now would be more than welcome on OSGrid. Welcomed and Appreciated! ;)_~~~

[Nexus Burbclave]

This would also be a good time to point out that slapt.me, apez.biz, and meta-life all remain free to list. Am I missing any?

[Sparky Warwillow]

Who cares about xstreet? It's not user friendly anyway. I never bother with it.

[Scarp Godenot]

The 'corporate profit is everything' motive on which this is based, completely shows that LL doesn't understand it's residents at all. And that is appalling!

They want to REDUCE the diversity of the shopping experience? It is a Computer Database you idiots!! The space costs NOTHING!

CLUTTER? Fix the GD search engine you FOOLS!
More money for LL? Charge a commission on things that actually sell!

All of that is just noise. What this is about is money. PERIOD.

They see the pie and they want some of it. End of story.

They couldn't give a shit about their users. It is obvious. So so obvious.

AND they just don't understand the new models of internet commerce AT ALL!

I could rant here for a long time, but I won't......

I'm disgusted.

[Archie Lukas]

It's the evil money grabbing merchants at LL again.

Bastardos

freebies are an enticement, I won't even bother to look at X-Street if they become this fixated with their profit margins.

If LL didn't like X-Street the way it was - don't buy the bloody thing then.

PS
Bastardos !!!

[Mythridian]

Forcing that listing fee is forcing sellers to set higher prices for their products.
And that means MORE CASHFLOW IN though real dollars. If people want to buy something.

Said enough?

[Csteph Submariner]

I have just pulled all my items from Xstreet. I only have a very low turnover of goods and it's not worth it to me if i have to pay to keep things listed.

So long, Xstreet.

[Gahum Riptide]

This is a terrible thing because there are a lot of things that one can only get on Xstreet. What a shame, I can only hope that LL will rethink this.

[Annechen Lowey]

I begin to think they found out what a headache managing the marketplace can be, and this is their way to be able to blame content creators for the collapse of xstreet. By raising the rates, they clear out 90% of the listings, making policing the rules easier for them. If it succeeds, they could have a better enforcement of the listing protocols, and if it fails, they can blame all of the vendors leaving to cause the collapse. Win-win situation for them.

[Robustus Hax]

Whats next, I got to pay a premium fee on my premium membership fee which gives me the right to pay my tier fee?

I'm convinced the Lab just sits around all day thinking of ways to add charges and thinking of ways to get its filthy fingers in every market in the game.

Someone needs to stabilize Open Sim and an economy over there, QUICK.

[Quirin]

i buy a hellavu lot of lindens but i absolutely LOVE freebies and cheapies. Plus if its an awesome item i am more likely to go to that persons store and shell out L's since i feel i got a deal. This is crazy its just one more way for them to make more money and control everything.

[Eirik Haefnir]

http://www.apez.biz/

Fuck Xstreet. It was already crap before the Lindens touched it, and it just become worse ever since.

[Ona]

Honestly, part of me feels bad for LL in the fact that a % of the population has been ranting about a clean up of xstreet for awhile now, and when they go about doing it, everyone rants about that as well. However, I think they way they are going about this is wrong. 99L to list a freebie is just rediculous. I could see THAT as maybe a 10L/month promotion, but definitely not 99L. As for the 10L/month listing fee, ridiculous. I would rather pay a one time fee of maybe 50L and that's it rather than 10L/month. Lastly, the 3L minimum fee. They are already getting the 10L/month, why the 3L fee as well?? A % is far more acceptable in my opinion. 3L is great if the items you're selling are high priced, but most of my stuff is under 200L so that knocks it down to 190L, and if I don't make any sales on it in a month, I'm screwed out of money for nothing. Overall I think they have the right idea, but they still need to refine and rethink this whole thing more. I never even HEARD about this issue until this morning or I would have sat in on those meetings.

[AnnOtooleInSL]

Hey Hamlet are you going to post the number of votes with the final poll results?

[Valentina Kendal]

"All non-freebie listings will now be charged L$10 per month to remain listed in the Xstreet SL Marketplace"

all I can say is, if you are now going to charge me L$10 a month to list my items then you DAMN WELL better give up the commission you also make for them when they sell!

But they won't. This policy will greatly deteriorate the experience for new SL users who are able to outfit their AVs cheaply and offline via XStreet, all so that LL can maximize its profits and increase the number of hours spent in world. This will backfire big time on them financially and in user good will.

[Emeline Magic]

It will make no change. I will put my freebie to 5L$ with a message "TP to my shop to get this for free"

[Mako Kungfu]

This is indeed a shame. Freebies are what matters most as far as my XStreet experience goes. As a merchant, I use XStreet to list things I've made that have no place in my in-world shop (ex. my bestseller, which is a random 1-prim, 1L cheese wedge) -- things that are fun, silly and/or noob-friendly that are certainly not worth paying to list. I also use it to casually browse and get a sense of what is out there, competition, upgrades, etc. As a shopper, I use XStreet specifically for freebies and to locate larger items -- I *never* buy those large items on XStreet, preferring to take the SLurl or check the creator's picks for an in-world shop and buy there after getting a better sense of quality and detail. For me, XStreet is like a time-saving library and a resource -- they are stripping it of this functionality by alienating the niche vendors and effectively killing the freebies/cheapies that are so useful to everyone. Every time they say the residents have spoken/fueled their actions, it leaves me baffled -- I've rarely, if ever, felt represented by the residents involved in these decisions, and, after 2.5 years in SL, that is frustrating.

[Ciaran Laval]

The disappointing aspect of this and the part where as far I'm concerned the Xstreet staff lose goodwill is in the issue of charging L$10 to list any item that isn't a freebie. That wasn't part of the discussions, that wasn't an agenda item, so it appears that they used the freebies issue as an excuse to raise costs.

There are other issues such as not making a proper provision for demos, not making a proper provision for people who are genuinely giving to the community rather than using freebies as an advertising tool and not dealing with clutter in the form of the same item in different colours.

[Servian Serevi]

I do much better in world than I ever did on xstreet, but I don't think the new rules will hurt my pocketbook so bad that I'll lose money.

I suspect that much of the "clutter" of xstreet is due a lot of creative and entrepreneurial SL residents trying to build a nice hobby business. Still much of it is junk that serves no purpose being on xstreet. Let that stuff be made available in the countless second-hand malls and freebie warehouses.

In defense of Linden Labs, LL does pay for server space for the xstreet marketplace. A small fee to list your products shouldn't shock you unless you're used to getting everything in your life for free. Also, why so much fury over LL wanting to make more profit? Isn't that the same reason that most people list their products on xstreet?

Those who want a cheap way to distribute their free products should try to come up with a new creative solution. One example could be working a deal with a mall owner to give you some prim space to put out some freebie vendors or boxes, in return for bringing in a little more traffic from "freebie" hunters.

I'd just like to see SL residents moving beyond the shock and reaction phase into getting energized to creating solutions!

And as a final thought... The minimum listing fees sound like great news to the in-world freebie spots… hmmm… maybe there's room for growth in that market?

[Jennyfur Peregrine]

@Robert Graf OMG Feted Inner Core??? is that still around??? Hahaha thanks for making me chuckle!

[Hamlet Au]

I wonder, wouldn't it be preferable to separate freebies onto their own separate xStreetSL page? That seems to work pretty well with iPhone apps.

[JeanRicard Broek]

The firestorm has started !!!! 888 posting in 27 hours, 8000 plus items removed from apparel listings in SLX in protests, Lindens banned from shops. Anyone remember last October?

Above via: https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/4902?tstart=0

Add this from Pink Linden "just for consideration":

1- Second Life-Certified Vending Machines

This would create a unified store management, provide premium merchant support and a guarantee for deliveries. Features would include automatic listing on XStreet SL's Web platform and metrics to see how business is performing. The catch? A surcharge of 10 or 15% on all sales.

2- Listing and Promotional Program

For a 5 to 10 US dollars fee for each item listed, Linden Lab will cross-promote your virtual goods on XStreetSL and Premium Classified Listings.

3- Merchant Marketing Program

To spur growth, Linden Lab thinks out loud about bringing new tools such as branding systems, customized store systems such as a Web storefront, and automatic consideration for large scale promotions. Other tools such as tracking purchases in real-time would also be offered.

The price? 10 to 100 US dollars per month, depending on sales volume.

4- I kept the most outrageous for the last point: The Mall of Second Life.

Land would be offered for "free" to merchants. LL would offer promotions along with it… while taking a 30% surcharge on their sales.

Above via: http://15timez.blogspot.com/2009/11/outrageous-merchandising-ideas.html

[Metacam Oh]

"I wonder, wouldn't it be preferable to separate freebies onto their own separate xStreetSL page? That seems to work pretty well with iPhone apps."

Where's the money in that?

[Chance]

How long till they try and apply the same metrics to our "messy" inventories? You haven't worn that outfit in the last month, let us help you by purging it from your inventory".

[Hamlet Au]

There is a fair amount of money in free iPhone apps, Metacom -- some app makers integrate advertising, others incorporate an in-app payment system. Many more use it as a try-before-you-buy offering, giving away a small version of an app for free in the hopes you'll pay for the full version. Presumably xStreet could do something similar if they put freebies in a totally separate channel.

[Cube Republic]

This was done I'm guessing because sellers were having wars to get their products to the top of the rankings, and thus get attention. I think it's a good idea to charge, and streamline the experience. At the end of the day; servers cost cash, and so do linden labs xstreet servers and that bandwidth needs to be paid for. I had some free speakers for sale on xstreet as well as a cave and those items went into several thousands of deliveries until I withdrew them. I don't see why someone who perhaps has paid for listings, a % of sales to LL, featured listings etc should compete with someone basically giving away stuff for free. Surely this devalues the whole idea of it being an ecommerce site. Also the 'elite crew of creators meme' folk toss about is really silly. Good stuff will and has always sold its self. I'm always being suprised by new creators of the grid, and ones I've never heard of delivering novel and new content. Having a website full of content with a large % recyled from full perms kits is for me destroying the experience. In some respects it's as if 'selling content' rather than 'making new exciting content' has become a 'game' in itself with loads of people trying to be the next best thing while just peddling tried and tested crap for an ego trip.

[Nyoko Salome]

:0 let me say as, i guess 'an established merchant' - i'd personally had nothing to do with this, as someone upstream suggested. ;0 maybe others, but i don't know about them, so i say 'please prove first' before just tossing that kinda stuff out... ;0

i'd only just recently tried my first try at xStreet's 'featured listing' (3k/month) option (and yes, even first time since the namechange since slExchange ;0). my results?? :\ no change. none really whatsoever to account for the expenditure... so i cancelled it and haven't much though yet again about trying another. :\

that's just my very recent experience... funny that it happens like this. ;0 much like the rest of my life! i'd already recently planned upon repacking things like my 'grinz' freebies into one pack, so that would help save on this new cost consideration.

[Remo Barcelos (new avatar)]

After two years in SL, spending many evening and weekend hours building dozens of high quality furniture, buildings, homes and scripts, that I either sold or gave away on Xstreet (5000 texture changer rugs given away in the last 90 days) I pulled all my products off of Xstreets, abandoned to the estate manager my 16,000+ square meter estate and gave my avatar and his inventory worth over $1500 US to an acquaintance I met in SL. I quit SL and I feel better for it. It became obvious to me that management at Linden Labs, a $50M+ year revenue enterprise is truly and verifiably, not dedicated to the welfare and happiness of their users. I became very uncomfortable knowing that as a user of the Second Life system, and someone who had spent over $3000 US in 24 months that flowed through that organization, that I was being used by Linden Labs for purposes that were not in my best interests. For me it was not about the money, I do not struggle financially. However it became very obvious to me that Linden Labs with their large revenue stream was imminently capable of greatly enhancing the user experience, of making decisions that would make the users happier, of making the moves to do many of the long outstanding things that the user base has always asked for, but that they are deliberately choosing not to do these things. In good consciousness I could no longer support being a part of such an organization. In the month since I left Second Life I have found alternative virtual worlds of great sophistication and perhaps greater integrity than Linden Labs. I can say without doubt I am enjoying my computer time building things in a different virtual world far more than I previously was in Second Life. This extreme move is not for everyone, but for me it was a breath of fresh air and I am very pleased that I left Second Life for a better life.

[Khamudy Mannonen]

I'd argue that this really has nothing to do with freebies. The Lindens have simply brought that up as they know it is a buzzword that would divide opposition to the plans they have for Xstreet. By making the dialogue about "freebie clutter" they can completely side-step and ignore the fact that Xstreet was such a difficult place to use because of its terrible system of categorisation, pathetic search features and generally cludgy UI.
All issues that could be fixed by an overhaul of the website. However that would require development time, time that it seems is better spent 'more important' things.

Instead, the quick fix is to just change the pricing structure to force out the majority of smaller / niche merchants and those who are just starting content creation. Instead of organising the over-stuffed filing cabinet, they've decided to burn the paperwork.

[Valentina Kendal]

Making freebies harder to find and more to purchase makes for a less enjoyable newb experience and won't do anything to stop the lack of new user growth in SL.

The $L10/month surcharge per item will drive small creators off XStreet, leaving it to the larger designers/creators who are probably behind this move.

I've made $L100,000 on Xstreet over 18 months and paid them $L5,000 in commissions. I never took any of that money out, and used it to buy other people's goods on XStreet. After I remove my 150 items from Xstreet, that money won't be spent in world, instead it will just disappear from the SL economy.

LL must have crunched the numbers that even if they lose the 80% of Xstreet items that doesn't sell once a month, and all sales on those items, the commissions and monthly $L10 surcharge on the remaining 20% will increase their revenue from what it is currently. At least I hope they were smart enough to crunch those numbers...

[LittleLostLinden]

Holy Moly.

I guess to me it doesn't matter. I have not once purchased anything out of world.

To everyone else. I think there are more important conspiracies going on at the lab. Like the bot\camper fiasco. There are still just as many, all around you. The 70k is really only 45k in concurrent real people.

[Leondra]

Wrong thinking, in my opinion.

What's cheap? I experimented w/xstreet selling my jewelry (my art) at L10. It's a grin when I get a sale, or a nice compliment.

I admit it, I am a freebie addict. (probably a SL 12 step group for this) I subscribe to the freebie blogs and groups.

BUT I am even more addicted to the innovation that is ever evolving in SL. So, I may pick up some freebies, but if the product is unique, high quality and intriguing, I BUY other stuff. I want to follow creators and see what they do next.

SO, LL, take a re-think about this.

[Nexus Burbclave]

It is done. Rather than pull my items completely, I have made one special item in honor of this momentous occasion as a placeholder.

[Huns Valen]

dis is wiggidywiggidywack yo

[Sin Trenton]

Well, I stopped being surprised ages ago.
No protest, no anger, I simply deleted my things on SLX.
And no, I had no freebies on SLX. But I still have principles.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

I had alot of items listed on X-Street including some freebies. None of which were junk. Treehouses and prefabs that were very carefully constructed. Wildly imaginitive stages. Music that I spent decades writing and recording before SL was even a glimmer in Philip Rosedale's eyes. All to be scorned as 'junk' simply because it doesn't sell in sufficient quantities to cover the extra up-front listings fee.

I had to remove my stuff. It's not drama, it's survival. In RL, I'm your typical mid-50's starving artist on and off welfare. I simply can't afford to put money into SL ventures. I'd like to but eating, keeping a roof over my head and paying my bills come first. Everything I've done in SL has been financed by L$ I've earned from my treehouses, stages or live music performances.

For me, X-Street is no longer a viable option as the monthly cost of keeping my items listed would frequently outstrip my sales earnings. Fortunately I found my old Meta-Life inventory box, so I'll give them a try and see how it goes.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

In my business, we have a multi-tiered customer model.

Ultra-rich clients have a team of experts standing by to attend to their every need, day or night, and the best people are assigned to those teams.

Merely rich clients have an assigned specialist to see to their accounts, and they get priority service.

Normal clients get assigned to the new hires, en masse. They get form letters, and attention as time permits (it usually doesn't), and if one gets peeved and leaves, nobody really notices or cares.

I hate, hate, HATE this model. It's an archaic remnant of a feudal aristocratic model of valuing people by their holdings rather than by their intellegence, creativity, charisma, or other factors so much more important than the knack for acquiring and holding on to money.

I abide by the system at work because I have to. I do NOT have to submit in my free time to a system that values me less than an institutional, educational or large retail client because my account is not a major revenue stream.

Unless they pull their heads out soon, LL is going to suffocate. News flash for the new kids on the block; Linden Labs didn't make Second Life, the community did. And we can unmake you. Chew on that for awhile.

[Anonymus-Not]

Wow, that's good news. Xstreetsl today is == find gems in the trash.

Already, people pulling down items (like the guy mentioned in the article who had all these year 2005-6 quality trash) is a great, great blessing for the avid shopper.

Oh, and premiums don't whine. As a premium member I receive more $ a year than I have to pay.

[Mr Happy]

It's a good move. Regardless of price there's a lot of crap on XStreet that will no longer be there when they add a listing fee. I've seen stuff on there listed for a huge price that clearly will never sell simply because it's crap. Without a listing fee the crap would remain there forever. There's no better way to filter out crap than to charge people to list it.

Well done, LL!

[Corcosman Voom]

"I wonder, wouldn't it be preferable to separate freebies onto their own separate xStreetSL page?"

@Hamlet - that appears to be on the roadmap.

"Separate freebies into their own category:

•There is already a freebie section on Xstreet SL. This section will become the place to browse for new freebies.

•We will remove free listings from the browsable categories and keyword search results on Xstreet SL.

•Expected Delivery: 60 - 90 days"

[Ari Blackthorne]

Not intended as a "snarky" response - and I am 100% dead serious when I say all you merchants who are leaving XSL in droves on "principal" - good, go.

You are providing the rest of us with a better chance of visibility.

In real life when change like this happen, a business either adapts or shutters its doors. So adapt for throw-in the towel I say.

And because of all this, I vote *yes* on the new XSL roadmap.

[Samantha Poindexter]

You may stand out more on XSL, Ari, but will it help you if nobody is looking there?

I'm thinking the answer is "no."

[Nexus Burbclave]

@Ari, if that is not intended as a snarky comment, you have achieved epic comment fail. There was one sentence in your entire comment that wasn't complete snark and borderline schadenfreude.

[Renee Roundfield]

I had two freebies up -- ashes for Ash Wednesday (I have an idea a lot of those are running around on vampire sims, but still) and a welcome mat that had a sample script in it for people to either use or learn from.

Many of my items are priced at 10L, because they are fun little things. Gingerbread man, snow man, a stalk of broccoli. Seriously, how much should people be made to pay for broccoli?

I'm spending the weekend moving my stuff over to slapt.me.

[Rex CrononTo me it seems that most of the clutter is generated by those that like to game the search by using keyword spam, and secondly by those that have tens(somewhere between 10-50, or more?) of listings of the same item but in different color variati]

To me it seems that most of the clutter is generated by those that like to game the search by using keyword spam, and secondly by those that have tens(somewhere between 10-50, or more?) of listings of the same item but in different color variation.
I don't blame clothing/skin sellers for listing multiple items of same color since is impossible for buyers to change the color of clothing/skin.
Those that for example sell one pair of sculptie shoes in every possible color, have no reason to do so, since they could very easily add a script that would change the color.
To me the major reason that search is so cluttered and why is so hard to find things seems to be KEYWORD SPAM. Because of what these people have done(and some are still doing), many more is very likely that will have to pay dearly:(
p.s.
for more, see my post on the second thread, located here: https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/40625#40625

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

LL killed off the superior OnRez shopping portal and the OnRez viewer in favor of the dreadful Xstreetsl site. They bungled that and now they bungle this.

In my nearly three years in SL, I've gone from being utopian about SL and LL's vision to gradually but inevitably bashing the company for awful decisions. Like others, I've come to see how they do things: a decision gets made, then the Resident-base is told "we want your input," the pre-arranged decision is announced, and then the Residents yell on the forums.

With OpenSpaces they backed off a bit, as they did long before my arrival in SL with the prim-tax. Perhaps they'll modify this decision.

Too much attention about the latest policy has gone to the freebie market and not to the low-cost, small-volume items one could get (if one could find them) in the mess that is Xstreetsl.com. Those small merchants are being squeezed by LL.

It's impossible to find some of these items in-world, by the way. Just try a search at Xstreets, bad as it is, and then try to find a result with SL's in-world engine. Good luck to you.

It's a pity.

[Coke Supply]

I've pulled all my stuff from xstreet AND won't be putting it back again if they reverse this decision. Fuck them. What Scarp Godenot said above is 100% true. I've been in SL for 3 years now and LL have never given a shit about anything except how to extract our cash from our pockets. And if they have to spit in our faces to get it, then that's what they will do and you won't see them flinch as they do it either.

[Wizard Gynoid]

The manner of Linden Lab's announcement of this decision is incredibly inept. Announcing the intent to charge a commission on sold items is not a surprise. I expected that, given that LL bought the SLExchange website. But to charge for freebies? That's just plain ridiculous. Yes, there a lot of them on the site, but avies *love* their freebies. Anybody who is in touch with the SL community would know that! I have found very valuable freebies on Xstreet. Yes, I had to wade through a lot of crap to find the jewels. But it was definitely worth it when I found the jewels. And yes, I offer some freebies myself. It's just a nice gesture I think. I didn't have to do that, and now the Lindens are discouraging me from the practice! Unfortunately, this action communicates a callous and cynical disregard for SL culture and its community. I'm sure that was not LL's intent.

[Loki]

I pulled all my items from Xstreet, i cant have myself worrying over items that are not making money each month actually loosing me money by being listed. I sell items to help pay for my overpriced homestead tier, Being listed on Xstreet makes things harder.

[Ari Blackthorne™]

My comments were not snark.

So my only main reply is simply this: business has overhead sometimes. All those of you who run your nusiness on an emotional peradigmrather than adapting go ahead and leave XSL. All the better.

I will stay. and the more of you who leave the fewer of us who remail = better visibility for the ones to think logically, rather than break into hysterical knee-jerk argument avery time Linden lab sneezes.

[Unguent Whitfield]

The Lab cannot afford to loose the goodwill of the small time creator, who would otherwise be advocates of Second Life in real life. Those who create, and invest time are a precious resource, and play a vital role in the ongoing viability of this virtual world. I urge those at the Lab who plan long term to consider the "roadmap" again.

[Jeroentje Jansma]

When I look at this piece of the text from the SL blog:

" Monthly Listing Fee for Freebies of L$99:

•Listings for free items will now be treated as a marketing/promotional tool and thus will have a price.
•L$99 is the price of our least expensive listing enhancement and so we will start there. "

.. I got loads of freebies or dollarbies from XstreetSL, NONE of them are marketing / promotional tools! Great gadgets/Fun items created and shared by people that don't have shops and/or sell other items for high prices and/or have no other items listed!

And the second bullit: trust me, they will go from there and raise that L$99 in the future!

LL is trying to get the same amount of income from less and less paying people. Think about all the sims that are given up. Shop owners that gave up their shops and only sell through XstreetSL

So.... let's all hop over to http://slapt.me and let XstreetSL die a silent dead.

And here, on the blog of Allegory Malaprop, a listing with XstreetSL alternatives:

http://allegorymalaprop.blogspot.com/2009/11/xstreet-alternatives-recap.html

Regards

[noname]

it's simply about money and its ridiculous, as if they dont already have enough of our money. i have the solution for LL they can take that game and incert into their asses. i WILL not be bothered with such bullshit!