LL acquisition of XStreetSL - good thing?

only if you equate describing how I do not welcome it - when asked, I would like to add - with "railing against" it.

Yes, customers do choose where to spend their money, which is why having fewer options is less than optimal, as I thought I was saying. I in no way addressed the pocketbook/boardroom power issue.

Now let me describe the color of the sky as "blue" and you can come back to parse that statement in some skew fashion.

They do that already. If you put your stuff for sale in boxes on some land, LL are providing the vitual world and virtual currency system for you to do that. When they own Xstreet, they'll just be letting you do exactly the same thing, except off-grid and in 2D instead of 3D.

So, somebody start a new, free exchange service. It's been done before - more than once - it shouldn't take too long to build another one.

More "gray" in these parts.

Linden Lab made their buyouts in the right time. Sure, someone else could pop up to offer competition. But making a competitive business always requires an initial investment and start-up period.

In the current global economy, there is not much credit or investment capital available for anyone to start a new business.

Somehow, I dont see that happening..
Well it might for a while, but the timing of aquiring both Xstreet and Onrez make me think that LL simply said.. sell to us or we will take away certain things like inworld delivery, the wallet, the vendors ..

One selling and then the other yes, maybe. but simultanious takeover smells like LL had the upper hand to make selling an offer they couldnt refuse.

Monopoly is not a good thing.. but more than anything, we should be asking why all this sudden change? LL has some agenda thats coming up fast, and we will find out when it arrives with a clunk!, smack in our laps.

I'm skeptical too, but for different reasons. The main one being the startup costs and the fact that, given XStreet exists, vendors have little reason to go with an unknown startup.
They can't take away any of these things without radically breaking things in SL that have nothing to do with XStreet. But no doubt they could have impacted them in some way.

when have they ever really worried about radically breaking things

lol. Well, they do worry about it; they're just not very good at preventing it. (Actually, it's a real tough job, and they made it tougher by never actually documenting what LSL functions are supposed to do.)

I would like to see it happen also.

I voted for Definitely Bad, though I must admit to liking the idea of having one account only and not having to transfer L$ between SL and XStreets. I can and did live with it the way it was though.
I must admit it tastes bad that LL will be charging me commision though, somehow I saw it as the price of doing business with an independent service but if LL are running the show then they already get enough cash from me for premium and tier without creaming commission off my sales too.

Anyone familiar with the O'Jays?

"Money, money, money, money. Mooooooooooney!"

That's all LL cares about!

Awhile ago, SL had a mandatory update. The minimum requirements were boosted in the update, leaving me SOL. I couldnt use SL anymore. A very withdrawling week of no SL goes by & then I learned about ONREZ because of the lower minimum requirements it had. So, I jumped & cheered & was all friggin happy...until today, when I heard of this. ONREZ should have competed against Linden, but instead, Linden bought them. Electric Sheep aint nothing but greedy no good cowards that hate competition.

I didn't vote in the poll cause it seems kind of early to really make a decision as to weather it could be good or bad. My main concern is the fees also....not so much in commission, but in the "Enhanced Features". I liked the fact that to get your product to cycle through the home page it was the same cost to everyone. I'm hoping it won't turn into a deal where whoever pays the most gets the top spot in visibility. I've found a lot of great products and creators just by chance of their item coming up on the homepage when it loads.

(and I haven't posted here in months, so "hi" to the few people I talked to on here)

In time, we may find out that Electric Sheep has a lot more business savvy than Linden Lab.

Electric Sheep may be looking toward the future, and see no sustained future in the Second Life "economy." The XStreetSL part of what Electric Sheep does depends heavily on Linden Lab's operation of Second Life. If they have no confidence in Second Life's ability to sustain or grow as a business platform, now might be the good time to cash out. They can take that money from Linden Lab's buyout and invest it in a project that has a real future. (Assuming that Electric Sheep got money from the buyout- if XStreetSL wasn't profitable, maybe what they got was unloading a debt burden.)

Seems like that's all people care about in world too.

Well, that and sex.

Didn't I see somewhere that CBS bought into Electric Sheep? I'm not saying they are calling the shots but maybe there is some backstory to that.

You may want to try one of the other 3rd party viewers: Nicholaz, Cool Viewer, Kirsten Lee. They work well for a lot of people with below minimum hardware.

I am not sure, and haven't voted. I get an ominous feeling about it, and yet there is something positive if it is built into the viewer. It means that the purpose of search all can be enhanced, or otherwise clarified and focused. Of course, getting that done right is the challenge.

As for land: The way it works now, you still need a small plot of land in order to set down your magic box. Granted, you could rent a spot from them if needed.

Further, I don't think that land will change. While it may become lots easier to shop offline, I think that the people who use it to see where something is inworld will likely increase.

I am concerned about the support. As it is now, the folks tending Xstreet have been very responsive. I can't imagine going to a Linden about a failed transaction. They have thin skins. Maybe this will prompt them to roll out a better delivery system, that will identify when a product has actually been delivered AND received.

However, if I were allowed multiple votes, I would also have voted for pie.

I don't necessarily like how Linden runs SL ... I can't imagine this going any better.

Oh well, I'll just stick with shopping inworld.

Once it's all set up, LL is going to reintroduce investment banking (Linko Bonds) and casinos.

I agree

That is SO true!