Request of Phillip Linden

Interseting points, but surely the whole idea is to BUY L$ to spend in-world? This is what has prompted Philip to speculate that it is too difficult for noobs.

Others have sugested that in reality there is either to much L$ in circulation or not enough content to buy with it, or both. Either way, replacing GOM with an identical system built into the SL GUI will not solve those problems (if they exist).


Granted, day traders have no interest in the actual value at any particular time. Only the difference in buy and sell price. But it is still the users who are filling the 'wanted' orders (selling off their L$) faster than they can be replaced, thus driving down the price. Why? and again, why would integating the market into the SL GUI stop this?

If this is true, that LL can not afford the cost of paying 70 checks a month, then I'm thinking they are awash with serious financial problems!

Thread is here.



How will they cope with thousands of noobs wanting to cash out $20 each as a cheque? I'm not saying this will happen, but if they can't cope with 80 cheques.....

Reads whole thread, thinks about past three years, Snickers and walks back out.

SOS different year...Shadow

its funny how capitalism is a holy grail untill you are on the recieving end of it. there is a reason free markets are not free.

Second Life is growing in population and in features.

It's been a slow start, but the speed is ever increasing.

Features that have been missing so far will be implemented eventually.

Residents that have banked on those missing features will be disappointed when those features are added to Second Life.

That disappointment won't stop Second Life from its growth, however.


The addition of L$ for US$ inter-player trading through Second Life itself was bound to happen. *I* thought this. I can't imagine that Jamie (or Tom when he was more a part of GOM) didn't think this either. That Linden Lab was gracious enough to offer SPECIAL compensation to GOM in the form of money, stock, and a say in Linden Lab's activities is, to my mind, amazing.

That GOM refused the offer saddens me, however. The services GOM provides WILL be reduced in stature by Second Life's growth as an environment. There is no doubt about that. It was a service that had a limited life. IGE will go on with the other games it services. Anshe's business is, as she says, diversified enough to survive the transition. I would have liked to see GOM come away with something from all this.

GOM imitates other financial markets in its basic design, and put a LOT of effort into the construction of their infrastructure to support that design. Second Life will likely also imitate the financial markets in their design, though they will have their own infrastructure in the form of their existing web site and Second Life itself. GOM really has nothing to SELL to Linden Lab, yet Linden Lab was still offering to pay them something.

Item listings and remote purchasing will eventually be added to the Second Life interface. Operators of sites providing that service now should keep that in mind. They too will not have code or intellectual property that Linden Lab could use or would want to buy. But if they make an offer of some sort anyway... It just shows that Linden Lab is nice bunch of folks.


Second Life is growing in population and in features.

Don't think it will stop.

Very well said, Tiger.

I have been following this discussion with interest. I am a new resident and can give you my perspective as a newbie of what I think of the one click solution. I think that it is a great idea and in the long term I think it will be beneficial for content makers in SL because it will be easier for the consumers to get Lindens to buy the products.

I am sure that GOM is a ok company but I could not figure out how to use them at first and then they want a verifyable Paypal account. Hoops. I didn't want to go through hoops I just wanted Lindens so I could buy some butterfly wings, that kajira outfit, that Freewoman outfit that piece of land, hair, skins...etc... So I went to IGE whom I have never had a problem with concerning buying of Lindens. Selling may be a different issue but I have not had any Lindens to sell yet.

So this idea of P. Linden sounds great to me and I would /only/ use that service because there is a certain amount of trust I give to the people who run the game. Most newbies don't know anything about anything in the SL world and that little bit of convience may make the difference to whether they stay long term or short term. In addition another plus to the idea is that Linden Lab(s) already have my credit card number and my personal information is all in one place. I think that it is a positive move.

Games or Virtual Worlds are not static. Things change especially when planning for the future. I think that this is Philip Linden's vision and as far as I am concerned he can do what he likes and if I like it and can work/play within the vision I will stay and if I don't like it, I will leave. I won't put myself in the position that Linden Labs owes me anything for what I do in the game . Unless I form a partnership with them, legally binding, it makes no sense to put my efforts into an arena where they can make or break my business just because they have to change for the market. I will put my efforts in because it pleases me and it is fun. Make profit NOW as Anshe Chung said in one of her posts. I know that for those who have invested a lot of blood sweat and tears, that the last sentence is lame. But to me it is so reality.

Whatever happens, I do hope that both parties can come to some agreement.

Agreed.


Excellent!

I have a gut feeling it's not gonna happen - I'd love to be proved wrong.

Welcome to SL Yejiba, I enjoyed reading your post!

Order in the Court! Knock! Knock!
Please present the Contract of the two parties agreement regarding a "no competition clause."

Where's the damned poll, Blake?

Because LL could shift it from an open market to a command economy.

There is one question that I've not seen asked. It is standard practice, if not LL policy, to say "not our job" when people suffer inventory losses (which are net L$ losses), will they adopt the same stance regarding purchased L$ that are not received?

Also still on the fence here. There are worthwhile points being made on both sides imo. But I'm just wondering, what happens in the future when SL (supposedly) goes open source? Lacking a side, I'm just trying to see a bigger picture.

You don't know me at all. Read up on some of the previous forum posts, then come back and ask me those questions.

So please take your illogical questions to another trolling page. You couldn't even remember the last question you asked me.

But I seriously hope that you never ever create something that you put your sweat, heart and passion into it -- and watch it removed from your eyes.

I'm not fighting business from change. You've not read one of my posts. I'm sick and tired of hearing... "Well we made a mistake, we're young at this, WE HAVE NO FREAKIN' EXPERIENCE in creating an economy, business, how to handle people and grievances, let alone a metauniverse" from the developers of SL. And because of this "innocence" another creater gets screwed. GOM isn't the first, and they sure as hell won't be the last. LL has lost it's virginity a long time ago, bluffing about innocence isn't going to help them any further.

And I'm sick and tired of seeing the little guy get the shaft because he had the audacity to put his time, money and effort behind something he created.

This is the way it always is foks, and while you don't have to like it, if you're going to keep playing the game, you'd better get used to it. I hope everyone has their earplugs for all the whining that will ensue, though, because there will be a ton of it.

Think about all the crying and screaming you have heard over the years every time Microsoft added a new feature to the operating system. Oh sure, there are alternatives for those features out there, and although they may even be better applications, they have to work orders of magnitude harder because it's *extremely* difficult to compete with built-in solutions.

The big problem with this of course is that you piss off developers every time you take a feature they worked hard on, did all the initial research, development and testing, and built a business out of it. They turn around and either sue you and/or vow never to develop for your platform again, or they just disappear off the face of the planet, gone as quickly as they appeared. Yeah, some of them keep fighting, but it's really sad to watch in the majority of the cases.

SLExchange, Gigas, Snapzilla, ROAM, Infonet and anyone else who provides a service for SL risks losing their business the same way GOM does today, but hopefully everyone is now aware that this is a real risk and plans accordingly. Hopefully, for SL's sake, it does not drive developers away because they're too afraid to be batted down by the Microsoft of 3D worlds.

I'm wondering that myself, and what happens when the website goes down. How much time will be spent insuring that the correct transactions have gone through and that duplicate transactions won't occur.

Then again, you can just sit back, watch and wait for the first fraud to be hacked on this site.

Who's responsibility will it be then if a fraud does occur and tens of thousands of Linden's are pulled out of the participating sellers. We know from the past that LL would not reimburse GOM for previous losses on their site; so will there be a new agreement/policy/dictatorship listed that will limit the amount of losses owed by LL if this does occur?

The asset server... we blame everything on the asset server.

More interesting though... will this change the part of the TOS that says that the currency is worthless?

I mean if the party line is that its worth nothing - then I think giving them a percentage of their own quoted worth of the L$ as a commission to be a fair price

Siggy.

This brings up another question for me... By LL billing our credit cards for the purchase of Lindens, they are most definitely assigning a real $ value to them. That being the case, will they begin reimbursing us for lost inventory due to bugs? They will no longer be able to say Linden Dollars have no real monetary value. Their bugs will be costing us real money.

Infact, I have been weiry using these 3rd party services for anything, mainly because I do not trust them with my credit cards etc.

And those of you that state I can use service X that uses paypal. Perhaps you should read up a little on paypal, I don't exactly trust them either.

I am supporting Lindenlabs because of this, also helps take out the 2nd middleman in the proccess of obtaining funds.

Additionally for those of you that worry about the economy and such, Lindenlabs could now have the possibility to act as a centeral bank, by imposing small additional fees when you buy Linden or such for the exchange. at least in theory anyway.

Yes. Just the place to get a totally unbiased, objective look at paypals service, that!

Actually my opinion about paypal came from using them intensively for a legitimate buisness.

Needless to say, I have expirenced what most people expirenced on that website. Because of this, I'm far more cautious with any kind of payment services now.

And to counter that, I'd like to say I've used Paypal for many years, had nothing but fantastic service, prompt support when needed and find them to be excellent. As such, I'd recommend them to anyone without hesitation.

I would like to warn you then, to make sure your balance never reaches 2500 USD or higher in your paypal account or for any paypal transfers.