Linden Lab has today announced an end to the First Land program. The program gave every SL member who upgraded to a Premium Account the ability to buy their first 512m2 of land for $512 Linden Dollars. The discontinuation of this has a number of ramifications:
1. New premium members will have to fork out the Premium Fee and then another significant chunk of money to buy land on the private market
2. Rental options are likely to boom as it becomes an even more affordable option compared to outright purchase
3. There could be an impact on the longevity of some users in SL. Using a RL Example – people arguably tend to treat the houses they own better than ones they rent and tend to have a more sentimental connection to what they own. The majority of rental options require payment to a business using PayPal or other payment option which adds a further administrative burden to the SL user compared to those who purchased First Land. This could all increase the churn rate of SL users
One suggestion made by a number of residents on the Linden blog is the idea of a grandfather clause whereby those who have signed up to Premium accounts prior to today’s announcement be allocated a 512m2 block for $512L.
Linden have stated they are looking at other ways to boost the value of upgrading to a Premium account. Linden Lab’s action in that regard is likely to be as swift as the wider SL community reaction to such a significant change.
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