Costs and Land ownership
Membership of Second Life falls into one of two categories: “Basic” and “Premium”. Basic accounts are free to create and incur no monthly fee. If you wish to have more than one account however, secondary accounts (Alts) incur a one-off fee of US$9.95, which may be paid with a credit card, or a positive PayPal balance.
Basic accounts are subdivided into “verified” and “unverified”. A verified account means that the user has submitted a credit card, PayPal account, or telephone number to verify their identity. However, users may create an account without any verification of their identity. This was a highly unpopular move that sparked protests. In response to this, Linden Labs added the ability to prevent unverified users from entering a parcel of land, and introduced an option to the LSL function llRequestAgentData() to return an agent’s payment status as one of:
- No Payment Info on File
- Payment Info on File
- No Payment Info on File AND Payment Info Used (Only Beta/Lifetime users fall under this status)
- Payment Info on File AND Payment Info Used
The fears of “open registration” were that it would lead to an influx of minors on the main grid – both opening Linden Labs to potential lawsuits and its users; and allow griefers to quickly and freely create a new account as soon as one account is banned for their misdeeds.
Premium accounts come at a rate of US$9.95 each month, with discounts for paying quarterly or annually — $22.50, and $72, respectively. The premium accounts come with the privilege of owning 512 square meters of land, known as ‘First Land’. This is approximately 1/256 of 1 simulator, or “not much”. They also come with a weekly stipend of L$400. The ability to acquire additional amounts of land bring an additional charge, called land tier.
- US$195.00/month: 65,536 square meters – Entire Region
- US$125.00/month: 32,768 square meters – 1/2 Region
- US$75.00/month: 16,384 square meters – 1/4 Region
- US$40.00/month: 8,192 square meters – 1/8 Region
- US$25.00/month: 4,096 square meters – 1/16 Region
- US$15.00/month: 2,048 square meters – 1/32 Region
- US$8.00/month: 1,024 square meters – 1/64 Region
- US$5.00/month: 512 square meters – 1/128 Region
These are the official Linden rates – it is possible to find island owners (see below) who will sell or rent land for lower rates, usually with some restrictions as to its use. It is also possible to get low-cost rented accommodation with no specific land ownership, and to own land without a premium account through a “group” to which the land is deeded. Many users own no land or accommodation at all – it is not required for object ownership, although object creation can be another matter.
Land, once purchased, may be traded between users at market rates. Large contiguous plots of land (or even relatively small plots of land in a busy place) can often sell at a hefty premium. Linden’s tier remains the same whatever the selling price.
Referrals
Each user who joins Second Life gets an unique referral link. Giving this link to people who have yet to sign up, and getting them to do so used to credit the user with a certain amount of Linden Dollars — the in-world currency. Since late January 2006, only premium account signups will result in a bonus, of L$2500, staggered over a three month period, where you get L$500 on the spot, another L$500 after one month, another L$500 after two months, and the final L$1000 after three months, to prevent gaming of the premium account referral bonus.
Currency
Users can buy or sell their Linden Dollars (L$) from within the game using the Lindex money market run by Linden Research. There are also third-party exchange services.
Exchanges can be performed with any number of Linden Dollars. The Lindex calculator will give you an idea of what you’ll be receiving as a result of your sale. The amount that you receive as a result of your sale gets placed into your account, where you may have it applied to anything you owe for your account if you are a premium user, or may have it sent to you via PayPal for a US$1 charge. For larger amounts, you may also have a check mailed to you for a fee – US$5 if you’re inside the United States, or US$15 for locations outside of the United States.
There are some furs who extract do this with the earnings from their businesses (custom avatar creation, generic avatar vending, etc.), turning it into profit that allows them to do whatever they want to pay for, up to, and including starting their own islands. Historically-speaking, the L$ is a relatively volatile currency prone to bouts of inflation. It can therefore be a good idea to remove any significant sums from the game, unless they are to be spent quickly in-game.