No more play money

I know this is premature, but based on the long-term goals of Linden Labs, it seems inevitable that at some point the Lindendollar will be discarded altogether and exchange will happen in official currency, probably the US dollar or the Euro. This would have to happen before the Second Life platform becomes open-source in a few years. And it seems logical that with the march towards getting rid of dwell and stipends, the L$ will just be superfluous and so such a change could happen sooner rather than later. What do you think would be the effects in the following areas:
Attracting new residents
Maintaining the interest of current residents
People's purchasing decisions - is it easier to spend one US dollar, or L$350 psychologically?
New legal issues
New opportunities

Just interested to hear your thoughts on this issue.

Linden exist not to take place of money but instead to make it easier to make money in very small amount.

It primary function is to prevent need to pay bank fee for every minor transaction, instead making that fee for larger amounts at a time. Meaning smallest of business has hope of "break even".

(a) the in-world casino industry would be instantly destroyed

(b) LL would have to register as a "money transfer service" much like PayPal

(c) improved land sales would need to be implemented and enforced by LL, as refunding a land purchase will no longer be as painless as it is when dealing with a "valueless funny money"

This makes me think of the potential TRUE revenue stream for LL - a miniscule transfer fee (say fractions of a cent on a dollar). With the money going back and forth, that would more than pay for their costs and it would be the only way to really make much dough when people can own "land" on their own servers without paying land tier costs.
Say more about how it makes it possible for small businesses to save money.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Casinos cause more lag than anything else.


Also not a bad thing IMHO.


Could be a bit tricky to implement, but also not a bad idea - better control over land saleswould also help reduce fraud.

As long as in game direct exchanges of US$ were possible, and not much more difficult than in game exchanges of L$, than I am all for this.

I think generally the benefits would outweigh the various legal issues that LL would have to deal with. A more stable currency (the dollar) would attract more professional developers and programmers and business people. From what I can tell, there are not too many professionals trying to make serious money via producing very sophisticated products. (I am one of them hehe.) When a person with a lot of programming experience is looking for ways to make some extra money on the side... there are quite a few options to pick from. The recent instability in the L$ makes SL a less viable platform for serious developers. You will still have the land barons, and now the day traders leaching off of the community no matter what, but few will be attracted to work hard at making quality items for the community to enjoy while making a reasonable profit if SL does not eventually begin to stabilize its economy. I know a RL friend of mine who had a lot of computer skills who left the game already back when LL declared they were going to sell their own L$. The poorly implemented market sales system seems like an even more serious blunder.

Though switching over to real dollars would not be without its headaches and I don't see it happening any time soon. The legal issues would obviously be the most daunting... but those would have to be sorted out by SL lawyers. I'm not sure about the contractual details of L$ stipends on existing accounts. On a personal scale, I don't particularly care too much about stipends because of the volume of my sales, but I realize to many casual players that the stipends are an important source of game income and thus changing them could have serious consequences to the economy. I can't see them being replaced by US dollar stipends so they would have to be phased out. Hopefully this would be done slowly and carefully.

Perhaps a more ethereal issue is the psychological impact of spending real dollars instead of L$ to buy items in the game. I would guess that at first people would be more reluctant to buy items but that they would eventually get used to it. This is hard to predict.

Going with the USD (being they are based in the USA) would probably not work. Many things in SL are less than $1USD. The cost of transferring $1USD would not be practical. Unless SL acted as a bank of their own with all of us having our own accounts. The only transfer cost would be from our main account to our SL account.

However this would cause a backlash of problems. The IRS would be involved as with every other federal, state and world wide law enforcement.

Right now hardly anyone is paying taxes on anything they buy or sell. That would all have to end with the USD. Using a fake currency is the only way around it until you convert it into USD.

Also personal information would HAVE to be required to buy and sell. Those pesky state taxes.... If you buy a product from someone in your own state you usually have to pay state taxes that apply. Then a whole new storm of crap would be caused as they would have to classify what is being sold to the right tax can be applied.

I think this would destroy SL in legal battles and other costs and problems.

Last info I read SL is not even profitable yet under current way of doing things.

Even using the $L is not going to keep the IRS and other law enforcement agencies out forever.


Also I just read another point in another thread about minumum wages....

Sooner or later this will all catch up to SL.

Jodina... while the legal issues are nothing to scoff at, I would think that keeping the current L$ system as a means of warding off federal scrutiny is only delaying the inevitable. As virtual worlds and virtual economies continue to grow, SL and like companies are sure to eventually catch the eye of more bureaucrats. I’m no lawyer but I would think the argument that L$ have no real value would have trouble standing up in court, especially now that Linden Labs itself is in the exchange market of L$ for US$.

Your point about the state taxes is an interesting one that I had not considered. That would certainly be a complex issue to manage. As an interesting side note… I saw a news report a few weeks back that claims people ordering items on the Internet from another state actually DO owe state sales tax on the item if the state they live in has a sales tax. Apparently most people don't know this (nor did I) and thus no one ever pays it. In those cases the selling company does not have to report the sale to the state the person making the purchase is in which is further disincentive to pay the taxes due on these items. Just because that company didn’t charge you your states sales tax does in no way mean you don’t owe those taxes.

As far as worrying about transaction fees on such small purchases... certainly the only feasible way to do that would be to keep a US$ credit account with LL with which to purchase online items. Besides the legal differences... that really isn't much different than people buying L$ credit from the exchange. The benefit would be you wouldn't have to worry about your account credits losing 10% of their value every month. That is exactly why I no longer hold an account balance in Lindens. I used to keep several hundred thousand handy for convenience, but doing so is now simply too expensive because of rapid out of control devaluation. If I need to make in game purchases I simply wait for my store sales to cover the cost.

Whatever makes you think LL, and more importantly, their investors, will ever relinquish control of SL?

I used to think this micromoney was a mistake; but I was wrong. It is necessary to afford us bulk transaction fees when we purchase or cash out. It also facilitates people playing the game without having to invest any more than their initial $9.95.

So I have to admit that I was they were right to implement it and I was wrong. The only other thing I was wrong about was 4m terraforming limits. That was a huge mistake on both mine and LL's part.

The simple fact is I can't sell creations for real money in game as that would require using PayPal or some other interface, and there is no such thing as a secure online transaction. That leaves postal money orders and snail mail and I really doubt anyone is gona want to pay that way for content then wait four to six weeks until everything clears. This move on Linden's part is merely spelling the beginning of the end to the SL economy.

you look at this as a job and not a game dont you?

sigh i'm soo sorry i paid a year subscription when i read stuff like this I dont play a game in order to pay everyones paycheque i play a game to have fun i thought i bought a subscription with a built in money providing system called a stripend seeing as there are no other real LL ways to make money in this game without taking my credit card out yet again

as for buying items i guess i won't be because i can't afford to buy more lindens on top of what i paid for my membership so i guess i will just be standing around using my own content

as for attracting serious developers people who want to make money off of this should be putting in a job application to linden labs to draw a salary and not expecting unsuspecting players to whip out their credit card 10 times a day to purchase lindens

also i thought i read linden labs categorically stating that they are not in the business of selling their monies

ah well i wish they would make up their minds

one thing for sure my little plot of land will be the first thing i dump i can play in sandboxes and script and crap from there and make my own damned hair and airplanes..

The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life#Open_Standards) states:
"Cory Ondrejka, Vice President of Product Development, has stated that a while after everything has been standardized, both the client and the server will be released as open source."

I remember reading somewhere that the original goal was for this to happen in 2008, I think.