SL Increases Listing Fees on XStreetSL

Posted by Miro on November 20, 2009

Second Life residents are up in arms over the announced price hikes for listing good in XStreetSL. In droves, people are pulling their items from the site, and few appear to support the move – or they are simply being silent for fear of being abused. Here is my take on the issue.

On his blog, Ari Blackthorne comes out in support of the changes. He makes the same basic arguments as most other supporters. And he makes valid points. Will this move eliminate a ton of crap? Yes it will (see end of post). Will it make searching easier? Yes it will. BUT….

Search could have been (and still should be) improved in other ways. Like adding filters to exclude zero priced items for example, better categorization (eg, sculpted prims need to be moved up in the hierarchy and then subcategorized).

But technical issues aside, what those in favor fail to see is that not only will the changes deal with the “crap”, they will also eliminate a lot of high quality content.

The Amazing Hobo Bicycle Blimp

The Amazing Hobo Bicycle Blimp

For many, SL is a hobby, a pastime, and nothing more. They don’t want to deal with the hassle of setting up a store but they enjoy making things, and sharing their creations with others – all for fun, and/or as a public service. All these things will go too, I expect, or most of them. How many big animation companies base their AOs on the ZHAO II? Probably most – and that is free. Unless the people behind that have enough income to warrant keeping it listed, it will go. Or what about this little gem, The Amazing Hobo Bicycle Blimp by Arcadia Asylum? There are many very high quality free (or nearly free) items listed on XStreet, and they will be removed, which in my view will be a loss to the entire SL community.

On the whole, it seems that most who support the changes have either failed to consider this, or – as is likely in most cases – simply don’t care. All they are concerned with is their own income, and they welcome the reduction in low cost competition. I could cite specifically one maker of Asian-inspired builds, whose work is high quality but way overpriced. It is possible to find better, at half what she charges. I have never bought from her and never will, because there are better, more reasonably priced alternatives. It is therefore more than understandable that she would support the elimination of some or all of these alternatives. This does not mean that such a reduction is good for the SL community as a whole.

This price hike reduces competition, which is never a good thing – except for those who stand to benefit, the overcharging merchants, certainly not the average consumer.

I expect that the causal hobbyist making things for pleasure and sharing them for free will just shrug his/her shoulder and remove their items. Understandably. It is the only logical thing to do – unless they happen to be willing to fork out cash to continue giving away their creations.

As for merchants who are pulling their items off en masse, there I agree with Ari, that’s a dumb knee-jerk reaction, and they are only hurting themselves. As always, the solution is to examine the situation and adapt to it.

So, we at Animations Rising will be reducing our inventory listed on XStreet until we find a cost-effective balance, where sales made justify the expenses. We will also be looking to find alternate sites where we can list products – either a selection, or the bulk. In fact, it probably would have been wise to list elsewhere already, but sheer laziness got the better of me. It is never wise to put all eggs in one basket. Slapt.me looks like a decent alternative – or it did – the site has been slow to unresponsive since yesterday. Perhaps they are unable to cope with the massive influx. We might also look at Apez, which is a more firmly established online site.

In summary, I think people on both sides of this discussion are being highly egotistical – in different ways of course, depending which side they agree with. The supporters do not see – or do not care, which is far worse – the damage this change will cause. Most detractors have just taken personal offense and so are pulling out, not seeing that in so doing, they are playing right into the hands of those who want reduced competition; they see only their injured feelings.

As always, in my view, the best course of action is to go with the flow, adapt, and keep going as best one can.

Added:
It should also be noted that a lot of the “crap” products won’t be going anywhere; those who offer such products often make enough to be able to cover the added expenses easily. So, from that point of view, this decision is also a fail. What is does is remove some of the “crap” and some quality, low cost or even free products. It doesn’t come close to meeting the stated goals (much like the stupid decision to put adult content into a ghetto totally fails to remove adult content everywhere, it just removes it from search, making life less predictable – contrary to the stated goal). So overall, a weak solution to the problem, in my view.

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Last modified on November 20, 2009

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