Continuing the push to try to make Second Life premium accounts more attractive, Linden Lab is offering a limited-time, one-off discount on new premium accounts.
The discount only applies to basic accounts, and only to a quarterly subscription – which normally costs US$22.50. Until 8am Pacific time on Monday 12, basic accounts are eligible for a 50% one-time discount on that rate. By one-time, I mean that when or if you renew that premium membership, it’ll be at the normal rates (US$9.95 for a month, US$22.50 for a quarter, and US$72 for a year). Remember, that if your account is already a premium account, this discount doesn’t apply to you.
Ordinarily, I’d say this was a good thing to try out. With the number of accounts I hear about having trouble (the getting-suspended sort of trouble) when reverting from premium back to basic, however, I must confess that I view the whole deal a little more dubiously than I otherwise might.
The list of premium benefits is here, though yes, they’re phrased quite confusingly – particularly the “Exclusive mainland building rights” which seems to skirt dangerously close to being actually misleading or deceptive, due to its gross oversimplification.
gotta luuuuv SL and their shady marketing practices. reminds me of opium dealer’s. get the new one’s in, and let’s just screw the old customers good. the ol ones, they ain’t gettin no discount cuz they’re hooked on it fer life.
http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Home
“Premium death penalty” as it is known. Policy to suspend and eventually delete premium accounts when their membership expires and LL cannot charge for another period instead of just downgrading accounts to free always seemed deeply wrong to me. It made holding premium accounts much more dangerous than free account. A very good friend of mine lost her account that she had from 2006 because she didn’t login in six months and her CC info was not accurate.
Last time I head, Yoz Linden said that they won’t be deleting premium accounts anymore (but they won’t be downgrading to free either). But then again Yoz says a lot of things, and from my personal experience not a whole lot of it is exactly accurate, so take this with a grain of salt.
My own experience, before I ever entered Second Life, was a sudden two months without net access.
I was in hospital.
Right now, I’m seriously wondering if Premium status is worth having, but if they’re killing accounts which want to go from Premium back to ordinary…
Look at their own web page: https://secondlife.com/my/account/membership.php?lang=en-US
You can choose a different membership plan at any time. If you change your plan, it will become effective at your next billing date. Be sure to click the Save Changes button to confirm the change. All rates are quoted in US Dollars.
“Free” is a Membership Plan.
Look, if somebody doesn’t bother with making the change on that page, and just refuses to pay, I’m not surprised they have problems. And my spell in hospital is the sort of thing that can trigger such a mess-up. I didn’t have a choice. If Linden Lab can’t handle that they’re incompetent as best, fraudulent at worst.
But how many of the stories are people who could have used that page, and didn’t?
Oh, credit card expiry? If they’re not sending a reminder email, Linden Lab certainly can be blamed.
Last year my account was suspended for missed payment, life got hectic and it slide by me. my ticket to be reinstated was held for more than six months before being dealt with, and it would not have been then had I not pursued it. Even though I can now attest through personal experience that content of suspended accounts are no longer deleted. It would be foolish of me to make myself vulnerable to such shoddy treatment again.
Without premium members there is no mainland ownership, does any one know how many there are?
Coming soon: Free Lag with every purchase! Don’t wait, act now!