You spin me right round baby right round

Good news screams the blog, the Openspace, I mean homestead, price rise that many people said wouldn't happen, isn't happening. Well not for a year at least, oh and if you abandoned one after January 1st you can reactivate this, oh and you need to get one in the early summer sale or you will pay the higher price, oh and this is all in the cause of predictability.

Peter Stindberg was quick off the mark to im me about this, we'd recently both agreed in the blog comments here that we didn't see the price rise happening. neither of us will claim to be Nostradamus, this was so utterly predictable. However the accompanying spin is what makes this humourous.

"So, given that things seem to have stabilized in the Second Life economy and that Linden Lab's business remains strong and our revenues are healthy, we are able to forego the planned Homestead price increase in July for one year, but only for Homesteads purchased (or reactivated, see below) before July 1, 2009. In other words, any Homesteads purchased before July 1, 2009 will have their monthly fees Grandfathered at USD$95 per month until July 1, 2010. This includes any Homesteads that you currently own at the time of this post."

Even a world famous DJ would struggle to spin this well, but it really is a case of it all going Pete Tong for Linden Lab over this issue. They were simply wrong to have caused the damage they did in the first place. They ignored all calls for grandfathering when the first price rise was announced. They indeed objected that grandfathering causes a two class system. Every excuse under the sun was given for not listening to the community in Autumn, and now they claim to be listening to the community?

This simply won't do, it's absolute balderdash, it's pure unadulterated spin, I thought Jack had stopped attending spin classes.

Grandfathering is a controversial issue, Linden Lab continue to claim it rewards loyalty, yet allow it to continue on transfer. Who are they rewarding there? Grandfathering does create a two class system, there's no doubt about that.

How long the class 4 /5 distinction exists for islands is under review at the moment. Linden Lab have hinted that they may move away from such a system, so they should. Mainland owners aren't under this class issue. How they go about this will be interesting, if they do indeed go about it. Watch that blog space for the next turn of events.

The people who stuck with homesteads now have the deal they probably should have had from the start. Those who abandoned in the wake of the decision prior to January 1st are still left with a bitter taste, even those who abandoned afterwards are bitter about it.

Linden Lab won't make their mistake right with spin and they won't make their mistake right by desperately trying to tempt people to buy a tarnished product, script limits are still to come, again watch that blog space.

This is not about predictability, we still have the adult content nonsense to deal with. An issue that yet again Linden Lab simply are not listening to their community about. We have the camping issue, an issue that Linden Lab are simply not listening to their community about. Neither of these issues tie in with the claim that:

"Stability and predictability build confidence and when you're confident, you invest more."

They're a bit late with coming to that conclusion and as they continue to make policy changes that undermine confidence in their platform, it's hard to see just where this claim is coming from.

Good luck to those who stick with their homesteads, I'm happy that you're not going to be faced with the choice of conversions or abandonments but Linden Lab really need to talk with a straight face, this "We come in peace, shoot to kill" attitude is not good for confidence. Once bitten, twice shy.

They chose to bite the hand that feeds them, they're doing it again with current policies.