SLer Survey: Will You Upgrade Your Account to Premium Plus?

Note: For best results, take survey on a laptop/desktop!

Now that we've had a week to digest the new Premium Plus offering (details infograpic-ed below), here's a survey for the money question: Will you as an SL user actually upgrade?

Results next week! Wish I could take the survey myself, but just discovered "Hamlet Au" as a special legacy account does not even qualify!

Comments

[Damianna Deerhunter]

I need more information:

-What is "choose your home concierge service"?

-Wait what? With premium I get 1024 m2 of mainland for free? I have Premium now, I am supposed to get that? How do I claim it? How many prims are included? Premium+ gets double?

-And I still get a Linden home, is this included with the 1024 or 2048 m2 land?

[Dirran Skytower]

I expect this to go the same way as Second Life Enterprise, which was also announced with great fanfare and sank like a stone. It's a very expensive offering for not very much except a large number of groups. It's more expensive than most streaming services and more than twice as expensive as most premium gaming subscriptions.

I'd probably pay a (much) smaller premium fee for the group increase, but I've got no interest at all in the other parts of the offer.

Linden Labs really, really needs to do some serious research into what its user base actually want and what is happening in the rest of the Internet, particularly the gaming space.

[Cam De Vil]

I have selected yes though I have already upgraded, something that is missing from the list of perks for premium plus is the free texture/sound/animation uploads and the potential free mesh uploads in the future. As someone who likes to create this more than tips the balance on making premium plus worth it for the cost. Paying annually, I actually save $50 on what I would be spending on equivocal land and linden dollar fees too!

[Mint]

Dirran, the cheapest subscription to a web browser pet site I play (Subeta) is $3 USD per month. The most premium tier is $15 a month, which comes with several high-value perks. Is the site as complex as SL, no, but I have a lot of fun playing. Even the most premium tier is $10 less a month than Premium Plus.

My Nintendo Switch and game cartridges were a large upfront cost, but I've spent hundreds of hours playing these devices. A Nintendo Online subscription is $4 USD a month or $20 for the year and extends this playtime further. One year of online Nintendo access (which comes with free access to a few games) is cheaper than one month of Premium Plus!

I understand that LL needs to make money but the pricing is way too high given the cost of gaming options elsewhere. And especially given the state of the economy and the rising cost of living.

[Thern]

@Damianna
"Wait what? With premium I get 1024 m2 of mainland for free?"

You can buy 1024 m2 of mainland and hold it 'tier free' (no monthly land use fees). Depending on where you want to live, buying mainland can be dirt cheap - especially if someone is desperate to sell - or woah-expensive if it's a prime location - e.g. Blake Sea coast or continent edges.

"How do I claim it? How many prims are included? Premium+ gets double?"
- Look at the 'Buy Land' page on your SL Dashboard, the 'Ĺand to buy rent' part of the search inside SL, or browse the world map with 'land sale' toggled on.
- 1024 m2 parcels have 351 land impact ('prims'), same as on linden home parcels (except on linden home parcels the home doesn't count towards the land impact.. so there's that.) 2048 m2 parcels have double the prims of course.

"And I still get a Linden home, is this included with the 1024 or 2048 m2 land?"
With regular premium it's either/or: 1024 m2 mainland holding /or/ a linden home. (With Premium Plus you could probably hold both.. as a modern linden home is 1024 m2 - until they make 2048 m2 ones - leaving 1024 m2 to be used as tier free mainland)

[AlviHalderman]

I already upgraded. I was considering moving back to premium for a while, and while 25$ a month is pretty steep for a subscription, I am on SL for way longer than I use any of my subscriptions, and because of that, I decided to give it a try.

What surprised me the most since I got it was something I didn't expect: free textures and snapshots. I'm a content creator, and while it is hard to estimate how many textures I upload, I would say it's around 75-100 a month. I can always check my transaction history and find out, but what I'm trying to point out is that there is a bit of a mental block when you have to pay for uploads.

I've often used prim-based boards with fonts, notecards, etc., just because of the reluctance or lack of L$ in my account at that time for paying that fee. Same with snapshots, if I have under 200L$ left in my account, I'm probably not going to 'waste' my last Lindens on pictures when I can upload them of Flickr, so having this block out of the way will surely help me be beter at what I want to be better at.

That also ties in with stipends. I'm much better with money when its dosed like that, if I buy 2600L$, they'll be gone in a week. If I know that I'll have 650L$ next week, I probably won't buy more this week if all I want is something that's worth less than that.

After writing this, I think I'm realising that Premium Plus might turn out to be the only US$ I will spend in SL unless I want to buy something bigger. It has enough land usage for my personal needs (business aside), and 650L$ a week is enough for smaller expenses I have.

[Paige]

I upgraded to premium plus but will revert back to premium come the end of this month. For me personally it is not worth it.. Its also too much hassle to claim the 2048 land allocation. Id prefer to add the amount in linden and spend that on my avi lol. i think that premium plus would more suit people that upload lots of textures etc. that being said i think its great for some but not all :)

[Mundy]

If they would go quarterly I would say yes.

[Ilsa]

I will upgrade... when they realize that they need to give me a bit over double my grandfathered price of 400 a week, for what is basically over double the cost.

[Abz Alter]

I upgraded a few minutes after it was released. Been playing sl for over 13 years.

[Rogue Doulton]

Hello Fortnite

[Bibbitt Borel]

I get 500L$ stipend. But, would only go up to 650L$ stipend same as those who get 300L$. Us old timers should get more than double also. 1050L$ a week!!!

[Mina Nakamura]

I answered "other".

I will upgrade once mesh uploads will be free too. I tried to contact them about the concierge phone support, how does that work for people outside of the USA? I live in Europe and calling them costs me a lot. I guess they offer skype calls too but there is no information on that one. And I did not get an answer yet. I guess I get it once I am premium plus :P

Also, I think they had better name/advertise it as a "Premium Creator Pack" or something similar. It really is aimed at creators (except hair creators, they need free mesh uploads) That would have kept the pitchforks in the barn ;-)

[phoenixa sol]

Nope, I'm happy with just regular premium

[Not Today Fred It's Your Turn For A Headache]

I gave up Premium Plus one month after joining, but I'd had the regular Premium for something like 6 years beforehand. And then I woke up and realized the joke was always on me.

It cost me $5.00 a month MORE for Premium Plus just to get LESS for my money and be more restricted in what I could do - and as I'd chosen to have a Linden home, I wasn't allowed to use the ultimate privacy of banlines.

We all know how effective (not!) security orbs are - creeps MUST be allowed to invade your privacy FIRST and then be given 20 seconds 'warning' before being booted out.

Whoever came up with that rule is someone with serious mental health issues and a case of 'Me-God-You-Pleb' Syndrome.

But wait - there's always the option to buy land instead - crappy land in unsavory areas, of course, because nicer land (the kind that I so easily rented from SL's first and still-largest agency - Ansche Chung) is going to cost you anything upwards from L$59,999 to L$99,999,999+ for a piddly 2038sqm - or worse - a mere 512sqm.

Go ahead - open up your world map and start looking far and wide at price tags for a 2048sqm parcel of 'free' land in a lovely location with unobstructed water views. Your eyes will bleed.

No thanks - and screw that with a twist.

For $5.00 a month LESS, I had an absolutely stunning 4096sqm island with 2500 prims to play with - and no neighboring boundaries up against mine - plus a covenant that "encourages the use of banlines".

So I'd advise people ditch agents with a covenant that says otherwise, because banlines can be hidden by residents who use Firestorm Viewer so they won't ever see them.

All that for LESS than a Premium Plus membership, plus all the freedom to do as I pleased that absolutely none of LL's memberships allow.

Privacy to chill and relax unhindered after a week of hell at work is worth more to me that an insulting L$300 or L$650 a week. Puuuleeeease!

As an aside, I believe residents are footing the bill for free full sims and memberships given to the little brats of LL's sleazy hobnobs.

Kinda has that real world stench of cronyism and corruption, doesn't it?
So glad I ditched the whole thing. Imo, it's just another cesspool full of creeps, run by creeps.

I believe something superior this way comes - very soon - called Palia.