The recent Linden Endwonment For The Arts deal for the arts community to be granted the use of twenty sims for a year has once more brought the tier issue to the fore, tier is expensive in Second Life, however there are some cold harsh realities that even a British (Ok Half Irish) lefty like me understands. Linden Lab cannot give away land to all and sundry, they have salaries to pay, bills to pay, development needs, they can’t run the place on free air.

However, it is about time that Linden Lab looked at some alternative means of income, tier is still too large a factor in their business model, which gives them very little wiggle room when it comes to reducing it. Linden Lab’s other means of income appear on the face of it to be transaction fees on Linden Dollar sales, selling Linden Dollars directly and Premium Memberships, Premium Memberships are actually relatively cheap, especially when you take into account the three hundred Linden Dollar stipend a week, older accounts have higher stipends, such as four hundred and five hundred Linden Dollars a week, which basically pay for themselves.

There was a time when Linden Lab could also generate income from auctioning mainland sims, it was not uncommon for a sim to sell for USD$4,000 at auction, those days are long gone.

Continue reading “The Tier Conundrum”