Lindens Move to Throttle SL
by Pixeleen Mistral on 16/02/07 at 6:55 pm
Lindens realize serving paying customers makes sense?
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Robin Linden today announced that it could be possible that just maybe on a very busy day in the metaverse it might perhaps occasionally make some sense to sometimes limit who can log in – especially if nothing is working right anyway. There was no indication which Linden had the epiphany that most viable businesses prefer to serve paying customers, and turning off most of the features of the world is not leading to stunning levels of customer satisfaction. Sources claim that Unverified Linden – a Linden staffer with no billing information on file – was violently opposed to this measure and resorted to throwing a tantrum on the floor of the Lab screaming “I want free access for everyone forever!”.
However, in a blog post with the catchy title Contingency Measures to Ensure Service as Second Life Grows Robin hints that sometimes having too many avatars piling onto the grid results in an unhappy experience for all – so when this is happening, the Lab will limit logins to citizens who have verified themselves by paying for a premium account or buying L$ space bucks. Even more shocking – the Lindens will not accept new account signups during dire times when nothing is working right due to heavy loads. Dire times work out to be most weekends of late. Perhaps the customer retention rates have been rather low?
In related news Philip Linden was sighted stapling “Help Wanted: Metaverse System Administrator” posters on telephone poles near the Lab offices in San Fancisco – upsetting several RL resident when he intentionally covered their “Lost cat” and “2 Guys Moving Company” signs.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 16th, 2007
“”"In related news Philip Linden was sighted stapling “Help Wanted: Metaverse System Administrator” posters on telephone poles near the Lab offices in San Fancisco – upsetting several RL resident when he intentionally covered their “Lost cat” and “2 Guys Moving Company” signs.”"”
LMFAO!!! That’s too funny!
Prokofy Neva
Feb 16th, 2007
I say, put that lost cat and those 2 Guys Moving Company to work running the servers. They couldn’t do any worse…
Artemis Fate
Feb 16th, 2007
Not a bad idea. The whole “Get what you pay for” principle, hasn’t applied to Second Life accounts for a while, since premium and free accounts got (more or less) the same thing. So i’m all for reapplying that back into the business principles and giving people atleast one reason (besides a pitiful stipend and the right to pay more monthly so you can pay an outrageous price for land) to upgrade their account.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 17th, 2007
You know the headline… I bet someone though that the Lindens were choking residents literally… though I do know a few who deserve a good throttling.
Tenshi Vielle
Feb 18th, 2007
One word comment: DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
(translation: took ‘em f’ing long enough.)
Yo Brewster
Feb 19th, 2007
Actually this is a major step backwards for LL but one they clearly had to make due to the traffic they can’t handle at the moment. This is a very interesting turnaround — next only premium accounts are allowed to log in at peak times!