Why is the land the only thing I can pay Linden Lab for?

I pay 15 buck a month on my land tier on this account. I don't do much with my land.

Why can't I pay my 15 bucks and not get any land and have the money spent on, say, buying PPUs for to use with the Novadex physics API and not have to pay for land I don't do much on?

Hmmm... Im sorry I dont have an answer to that.

What??!! If you're not using your land - SELL IT and tier down. See how simple that was?

A better question to ask: Is Linden Stock available?

I'd buy Linden Stock with L$.

But can you be a private company and still be listed on stock?

I'd like to pay for my own personal Linden.

I don't understand many of the words in your original post Sue.

You can own stock in a private company, but for company stock to be tradable by the public, listed on an exchange, the company has to "go public," which entails making their book keeping more transparent, disclosing things to potential shareholders, and plenty of other interesting things.

I see.

I kinda don't like the idea of LL having stock though, because then some moron could buy a lot of stock and demand them to do stupid crap that really isn't that smart (like me).

Juro, your response doesn't answer the question I asked. I did not ask how to to not pay any money. Were you trying to be funny?

That's not necessarily true. Often, once a company has been underwritten and is ready for its IPO, they'll create two classes of stock. Sometimes you'll see a ticker symbol with an a or a b on the end of it -- that means there's two classes of stock for that company. Often, the class of stock a company sells on an exchange has less votes than the class that they give to their main shareholders, executives, investors, etc. This provides protection from outside meddling. There are certainly benefits and disadvantages to public vs. private finances for a company, but there are means to protect against unwelcome interference from competitors or weirdos.

He did partially answer the question,
The part that was missing was that you then need to send a $15 monthly check to LL with a note saying "For use in buying PPUs for to use with the Novadex physics API", or come up with some kind of arrangement with them on how you can send the monthly gift.

T

LL already has stock. The shares are owned by those who have provided cash to finance the operation, and very possibly by the employees if base or incentive pay is provided in stock rather than cash. The $8M in VC money LL received from Benchmark back in the fall was basically the new investors buying stock in the company (and thereby having some say in the operation). Now, in all likelihood Philip has retained a controlling interest in the company he founded, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have to make policy decisions that keep the other shareholders happy.

You could pay that to Phillip for sex but I don't think he will give you an ROI until it hits the 10 month mark and only if you go to him.
If he has to go to you figure a few years to cover air fare.

You can pay them for sex.

One example of something one might want to pay for would be to have a group forum started with less than fifteen members.

Send them a monthly check for a monthly employee dinner.

LF

Donate tier or money to the greenspaces we all need so much -- parks, forests. That makes SL more attractive so players stay. Donate a sum of your choosing to LL - maybe they should name bridges after donors, to encourage people. Maybe not. Awww... what do I know

Well, the long & short of it is if your tier is higher than the amount of land you actually own, then you ARE spending the money on other things. LL's income comes from tier fees. The amount of money they have to work with equals the amount we all give them, minus operating costs. If you have less land than you are paying for, there are less operating costs associated with you, so a larger portion of the money you spend with them is available for other things. Pretty elementary.

As far as dictating that the money be spent on something specific like Novadex or anything else, there is a way to do that too. The most powerful way would be to raise a few million dollars and danate it under condition that you'd like a seat on the board and that you get to say what they use it for. If they accept, you're all set. The more realistic way is to use the voting system. To hear Phillip tell it, that thing really does affect their plans.

Or if you really, really, really want to make sure your money is spent on what you want, open up a trust fund for LL. Then you can set conditions on what the money is for and LL would only be able to withdraw from the fund in accordance with the money's intended purpose, all nice & legal. Whether or not they'd actually want the money under those conditions then would depend on whether or not their plans are the same as your plans. If not, you get to keep your money. If yes, you get to know you paid for what you wanted.