There’s been an awful lot of controversy lately centered around the change in fee structure at XStreet. By and large, low priced items, demos and freebies are taking a hit – particularly those who rely in some large part on the service for $L in world, but also with those who provide quality free content, such as skins, scripts, unique gadgets, etc.
With that said, while I do hold sympathy for these individuals, I can understand where Linden Lab is coming from with their changes (though the presentation of the changes really wasn’t all that well thought out in the initial blog post).
To me, listing on XStreet is pretty much like setting up a satellite store or listing in a web catalogue, through which potential customers can browse and access my store, either through a purchase or by hitting up one of the SLurls located in my listings. The cost, even with the new changes, is less than the commission fee at some malls (occasionally edging up in to the 15-20% range). It will cost me about $860L a month – less than $4USD – to keep my listings active. This is far far less than I have spent on advertising with various third party sites in the past – and with Xstreet i have a relatively good indicator of sales from the website leading to sales in world.
I see a lot of people upset that their mostly Xstreet inventory will soon be crushed and they have no other source of L$ income… to that I say Xstreet isn’t a good replacement for an in-world business. It doesn’t offer the user the opportunity to intuitively shop around and compare pricing, or seek immediate input from shopping friends. It doesn’t offer the ability to see products ‘in the round’, and it offers absolutely no opportunity for the user to customize or effectively brand their set of products for an active marketplace beyond a very visually limiting set of vendor graphics.There are probably a bulk of other issues i could harp on as far as usability is concerned, but those can be reserved for an entirely separate article.
What Xstreet DOES do effectively is offer the ability to make impulse purchases in situations where they might not be able to access SL immediately. As with most services, there is a cost for that convenience, and this is where Xstreet *must* consider itself a business (or at least a part of one) in order to function and operate profitably. Let’s not forget – a system based purely on commission fees nets far less where a large percentage of merchants list free or low priced items. I will guarantee that you will never find a commission-based mall that allows its tenants to sell only freebies – it simply won’t support tier and does nothing to promote the visibility or quality of items being sold.
I understand the drive to provide free items to the community. I even offer a few freebies in-world myself. I would however also be more than willing to pay for quality work and wish that the same held true for a larger populace . The problem is that freebie culture is pervasive and almost becoming expected when the costs in time and money are not factored in. When it comes to freebies in SL, there’s an implication that the item costs nothing to anyone.
But in the end, is that really true? It costs time to make it. It costs the user time to find it. If hosted in world, it might be hosted on some sort of free land arrangement, but someone has to pay for the tier. If hosted on SLX, why should this be any different? While it’s cool that the creator will ultimately wish for a freebie to cost the recipient nothing, someone will nonetheless have to pay for the venue in which the item appears, be it in SL or on the web.