LindeX "Market Sell" is a Rip Off

The Lindex is perfectly honest and transparent. All the information is there. And right now, even if you did a market sell, you'd get $346, which is still a lot better than $357. You don't have to use market sell, just use limit sell, it's what you've always been doing, and you can carry on as if this never happened. You made an unfortunate error, and I'm sorry about that, but now you know.

Thats maybe the funniest quote in this thread so far. Selling those 5000L$ at 13.95$ when the market price is 14.75$? If that's not undercutting? ROTFL

The combination of limited buy orders with the basic interface and so called "Market Sell" (horrible misnomer) seems to be a surefire way to drive the L$ down and make daytraders happy. I honestly wonder if that was LLs intention when introducing the changes.

Spending the whole day setting up limited buys at 6% above market, waiting for "the suckers" and reselling for market again, than turning the same money over again and again, might be a day traders dream - but I fail to see how that improves the SL economy ...

Well, not only do I not understand all this stuff, I really don't want to spend a few hours studying it so that I don't get ripped off when I go to sell.

It's just crazy complex.

NOW IS THE TIME FOR GOM TO COME BACK. Hear that, Ricky?

When I sell some Lindens, which might be soon, I think I will try SLExchange or Anshe, which looks a lot easier, and at least I can be sure of what is happening.

coco

Hiya Pham. Was wondering when the smart people would start speaking up.

Right on the button. I too had to wonder why one would sell at $13.95 to avoid "undercutting" at $14.75. Not to mention the fact that this is only L5000. Let's mutliply that by 20 or 40 and see if the difference is worth it.

I have to agree with you; I wonder what LL had in mind when they instituted this system, who they're trying to benefit and as you said, how this is supposed to imrpove the economy. To me, it seems like a pretty predictable way to gain a lot of customer ill-will from people who unexpectedly lose money on the system.

Fade, hate to directly disagree with you... there is nothing at all "honest and transparent" about that system. It is ill-documented and misleading both in title and decription. All I can say about it is two things:

1. I'm glad I only dropped 50,000 on it and
2. It's caused me to be very wary of anything I see come out of LL from here on out.

So I can't say that it's all that spiffy. It seems custom-designed to profit a self-serving few who take advantage of the ignorance of others, without a thought about the consequenses of ticking off those who get snookered by the system. Most companies would pay cash money to keep from generating customer ill-will.

I find it hard to believe that this was implemented to benefit a certain group of residents - those that are playing clever daytraders for some measly profits for example.

The problem with many new features LL is introducing often seems to be a lack of testing. When developing complex software systems - especially systems intended for groups of people who interact with one another - it is hard to predict, how the system will actually be used. There is only one way to find out: testing, testing with real users in real usage settings.

I am not sure if this is done. But - no offense intended - I doubt this is being done by LL. What they do is to test if some new functionality is working as planned and that there are no bugs in the code. What never seems to be tested - especially with the web based tools - is, how people actually will use them, how they interact with them or if - and how - they understand what is presented to them on the screen. This lack of testing was fairly obvious when the land buying process was combined with buying L$ a few months ago. And it is obvious in this case again.

So, I bet that the developers of the LindeX were surprised themselves, when after introducing the changes, the L$ dropped like a rock. "All" they did was to introduce a feature that was asked for by many residents - or so they thought. That a handful of clever guys immediately would see a (perfectly legal!) oppprtunity to "milk the suckers" and make a quick buck was not expected by those software engineers. Most software engineers don't think this way.

<I heavily re-edited this message right after posting-and before anyone responded-becuase it's 2am in the morning and the first version just did not say what I meant to say. Brain cells dying... >

I do agree that a lot of problems are just a matter of not testing-- or too many variables involved to test thoroughly. But as you mentioned, I also see a lot of (pardon me for being blunt) boneheaded errors that could have and should have been avoided with a little foresight.

Programmers often do not make good business managers. Why? Because they tend to think on a linear, analytical level and fail to see the big picture. They're so busy thinking about how to make tree bark more real they fail to notice the forest is on fire.

So LL gets this really nifty idea and goes all gaga over it and dives in with both feet... and leaves great big gaping holes that any sensible businessman would have filled the first day. They put low priorities ahead of high priorities. They add things that are guaranteed to lag an already laggy system rather than fixing the flaky foundation. That's not smart business; that's programmers playing games, and it's a common pox with companies such as LL. It has put many companies out of business.

I hate to bring this up again, but it's such a good example: how long has it taken LL to figure out that officers need the ability to communicate with their groups. How many years? That should have been obvious from day one. I'm really glad they're getting around to it finally... but I have to wonder how anyone could have overlooked that very real need. Adequate communcations are the core of every organization. And any competent business manager could have told them that from the beginning.

That said... I've seen do too many irresponsible and unethical things happen to trust motives and intentions any more. I'm sorry, but when a company does things that damages their customers (intentional or not) and refuses to make good on it, they are going to lose the trust of those customers. In most businesses, that means loss of the customers themselves. But currrently LL kind of has a stranglehold on the market. That stranglehold won't last indefinitely.

The thing is... why couldn't Linden Lab forsee these things? I could see them easily. So could many others that posted such on these boards. We warned LL about what would happen if they took these steps and presented them with scenarios of cause and effect. It's like they were just oblivious to something that should have been very obvious. There are historical precedents. There are forseeable domino effect paths.

I'm afraid at this point I would have a great deal of difficulty believing that a company such as LL doesn't have a clue as to what it's doing. Whatever it is, it's likely to be better for their corporate bottom line than for the good of their customers. At least, that is the consistent trend that I've seen in LL activities.

Going to bed. Screen's getting fuzzy.

I understand, Wayfinder.

But if there is one thing a learned while getting older ... its much easier to get along with people when you don't assume malice as long as lazyness, naïvety or "a different view of the world" offer a plausible explanation, too. Yes, I know, that this attitude might be called naive by some.

As someone involved in the development of such systems in RL I know that you can not predict, how people will use them. "I told you so" is no argument against that. The "I told you so's" are wrong at least as often as not (they just don't remember that so well as those cases where they weren't wrong). Surprises in these cases are not the fault of software engineers (or the experts in the applications field). Experts can't predict for sure how users will use a new system, they simply can't.

Thats why there is testing; testing for functionality and testing for usability. Most software engineers believe in testing for functionality. Most don't believe in testing for usability (because the software is "well designed" already, ain't it?). But thats not their fault. It's a mindset. It is managements responsibility to see that the testing is done anyway.

It not, glitches happen. And people get angry - or loose money - or both.

I'd have to agree with the "some". LOL

I really like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I do so every day. One has to. But there also comes a point when one has to look a guy straight in the eye and say, "You're not doing the job I'm paying you to do."

I agree 100% that there are many things that cannot be foreseen without proper testing. Other things however, can. When I used to program major systems, one of my jobs was to figure out how to secure the programs and data from day one. I was very good at my job. No, we can't predict everything, but we can at least get it to the point that it's functional before sending it out the door. Sometimes that involves testing, even extensive testing. Othertimes, it requires simply thinking about an issue and realizing, "Hey, that's just plain goofy." ;D

That's fine Wayfinder. I agree that there could be more information available. It is however, accurate in "title and description'. This is not a crazy, wacky plan that LL dreamt up... it's a normal thing to have on an exchange... it was very wierd not to have it. There is no problem with the system, though I do agree that a paragraph or so's extra information would be very helpful, and is necessary to prevent problems such as you encountered. Once again, I'm sorry you got tripped up by it.

What LL needs is a paragraph which says

"If you market sell, you'll probably sell to someone who is not buying from a CC (so no transaction cost to us) and will repost your L$ at a higher rate (lower L$ number) and we will double bill that L$ another 3.5%, which we will take as profit."

you're right and everyone else that disagree's is wrong. The description is very vague. How could the average noobsies know that when it matched you with a buyer, it meant to match you with the buyer that wants the most for cheapeast. All it says is

"Just tell us how many Linden Dollars you'd like to sell, and LindeX will automatically match you with buyers. ".

Then again, when's the last time you ever trusted linden to do anything right? After reading that they would automatically match with a buyer, i saw a couple red warning lights.

Hi Coco

If you're comfortable with SL Exchange, you should be comfortable with this, it's the same system. Let me save you a few hours and add some clarity for you though

If you want to sell the same way you did before, use Limit Sell, set your price and wait. That's what you were doing previously.

If you want to sell right now, then you have the option to do a Market Sell, in which case your order will be matched with the best of the Limit Buy orders. You can see what orders are currently open, to see what you would be getting should you take this option.

If you want to buy the same way as before the change, right now, without waiting at whatever the market price is, do a Market Buy.

If you want to buy at a particular price, use Limit Buy. Set your price, wait, and if people do a market sell, and it hits your price, you will buy at that price.

Used bold so people can easily see the 'carry on as before option' clearly.

Hope that helps some.

don't encourage her to sell here, we have enough on our market. go sell else where pls.

She can sell whereever she damn well pleases. She doesn't have to take into consideration your wishes for the market, Coco only need consider what is good for Coco.

pipe down pls, keep ur cool if u kno how

Whatever.

Well you know what ? I didn't think it was weird before and I suspect neither did the majority of residents for whom it functioned quite satisfactorily. Just because a small and vocal minority are happy that it now functions more like their real life experience doesn't make it right or better.

I notice you've been VERY patient in your explanations of how it works but as justification for the change it does nothing. As an architect I could repeatedly and patiently explain the benefits, and convoluted beaurocratic process of gaining planning permission for every damn thing you build in SL but it would be no more appropiate than your real life currency trading system, and there is no reason anyone should be interested in or necessarily able to function in that environment, however the ordinary majority need to exchange currency on a regular basis - this is already a departure from what happens in real life.

This fixation on the idea that the SL economy is identical to the RL economy from the vocal minority of economists is making us all PLAY this silly economic simulation game when just like the Goreans and the fighting fixated you should all be packed off to a sim of your own to shuffle fake money back and forth in the interests of seeing how much wealth money alone can really create (here's a hint: none).

Hi CJ. It was wierd in that exchanges are usually set up this way, even SL related ones. GOM was, and everyone seems to speak of that fondly, and SL Exchange is. I'm trying to point out, that the system everyone is still familiar with, still exists. You can carry on exactly as you were before. There's just some new options.

I think the new market sell could be a great option for those who don't want to play 'the economic game'. You now have the option to sell straight away, without having to figure out where to price it, or worry about competing with others, and when you're going to sell. Also, in the past, some inexperienced people posted limit sells at crazy prices, short changing themselves... this could actually get those people a much fairer price, as it will be matched to the best limit buy offers, which could be better than the price they would have sold at.

You would see the best limit buy offers much closer to the best limit sell offers, if it wasn't for the 3.5% fee LL charges to sell on the Lindex. Take that into account, and the gap between the two prices isn't very large at all. It's getting pretty competitive too, you're seeing people outbid each other trying to get a slice of the action, so the potential profit is getting slimmer all the time.

It's probably important to note that this is probably adding some extra liquidity to the market. Without the limit buys, you wouldn't see this demand. The limit buys are the price at which people are prepared to offer liquidity. It might take some heat of the limit sells too. People who were 'undercutting' in order to shift their Lindens now, can skip that altogether, and do a market sell. Those prepared to wait may not be placed in a situation as often where they have to offer a better price to compete with someone who wants instant liquidity.

I said, and I wuote, "I can sell $5000L right now. As in at that specific point in time. I checked by typing those numbers into the sell boxes on Lindex, which instantly give you the exact ammount you would be getting. Which is also the ammount that the guy who lost $30 should've been paying attenton to.

Thanks, Fade, I've copied this into my computer for future reference. However, I haven't sold any Lindens yet.

coco

What is confusing is that they buy orders are listed BELOW the sell orders. In most market systems they are in parallel columns, so you can see both at once.

Anyhow, if you want to control the price at which you sell, you MUST use a limit sell.

The "best buy" price is the best buy price for the buyer, not for the seller!

I'm not crazy about the layout either, and it would be easy never to see those buy orders all the way down under the huge list of sell orders.

Yeah Fade, and that's something I've found continually strange. People who complain about LindeX (and their complaints are quite valid) sometimes look "fondly" back on GOM. Which just floors me, because it's the same method.

LindeX took their cues almost point by point from GOM. They both are an unregulated currencty exchange market with the buyers/sellers setting the prices. As a result, GOM went up and down like a skyrocket. It was showing the same devaluation trend that LindeX is showing weeks before it closed down. Had GOM stayed open, it would have been the same mess that LindeX is now. The only thing that kept it from doing so quickly is that it wasn't as easily accessible and fast to use as LindeX is; ie, newbies couldn't figure it out.

All LindeX has done is take the GOM model and made it easier to access. So the trend that was showing up already in GOM continued with LindeX... and became magnified. But while I liked the folks at GOM because of their on-the-spot responsiveness and genuine care about client needs... I had no more fond feelings for the system itself than I have for LindeX. They're both unregulated markets open to extreme manipulation and ultimately damaging to the economy in general.

Just my humble opinon, o'course.

In all of this, here are two things I've come to believe:

1. The LindeX "Market Sell" system isn't really put together well. It is as open to direct manipulation as LindeX itself. Now, I imagine there are some Day Traders who take advantage of that fact to make a killing... so naturally they're going to support the system to the gills. But I have to consider the system ethically wrong. Why?

2. Because the system is neither clearly/honestly presented or defined. It shouldn't be there in the first place, but if it is going to be there it should carry a strong disclaimer displayed right above the entry boxes:

CAUTION! This method is for the purpose of making an immediate sale. The seller will most likely receive a significantly lower price for L$ than using the regular method. Please examine the presented L$/US$ ratio before agreeing to sell.

That would be sufficient. That would have stopped me from using the system and would at least insure that those who do use the system will do so with eyes wide open.

That's all we request in such things-- a little watching out for the good of the customer. That way customers don't get ripped off, get upset and wind up posting in the forums.

NOTE: I did finally receive response from Linden Lab. Their stance was basically (I paraphrase of course): "We checked the system and it is working just fine. If getting the most value out of your L$ is important to you, use the other system."

Now there's a concerned company for ya. I can fully understand maybe overlooking this need initially, but continuing to do so when it's brought to their attention? I would hope they pay more attention to this problem and correct it so that additional customers don't get ripped.

A couple of things Wayfinder. I've been trading, and with the fees as they are, you don't make a killing, more like a modest little return. I don't consider it ethically wrong to trade at all, it's a normal thing, you're offering a service (sell your Lindens right now), at a price where it is worth your while to do so.

That being said, if people were selling using market sell, without being aware of what that means, it wouldn't be unethical for the trader, I have no way of telling if the person sells knows what they're getting into. It would however, be unfortunate for the person, and totally undesirable, and I agree with you: in SL, you are going to have many people who would never otherwise encounter an exchange, using one. I agree, there should be a clear and strong disclaimer, like you've suggested, to directly draw people's attention to this. I've never used an exchange before SL, and I expect very few would have. I for one would not like to have my little profit come at the expense of someone's unfamiliarity with the system.

An announcement in the Linden forums isn't really enough for a change like this. It is perfectly forseeable that people wouldn't know about the change, recieve enough information about what it means... so the implementation should have acknowledged that. Plain, obvious, information in big-ass letters. Right next to that box.