Phillip - will it be a true "exchange"?

Fair is always in the eye of the beholder, and cost is just as relative. They can claim the cost as anything they want. Do you include the payroll expense of the programmer who designed the code? Or the cost of the leased computer he/she used? Network bandwidth? etc...

I'd like to see them actually tackle the issues of having a full banking system, with deposits and withdrawals, but also loans and foreclosures. Not to mention the possibilities with the loop of eminent domain. Would a savings account gain interest? Where would those funds come from? Central reserve system? We need Alan Greenspan in here! *g*

Eminent Domain?!! Are you crazy?!

People should remember there is already a fee. Its called a membership/tier fee and we already pay it. If the lindens try to turn the market into a secondary revenue source they will only hurt themselves for a tiny amount of money. When I just checked GOM their own numbers indicate that there have been 72505 trades total. Even at 10c a trade that is only $7250.50 in.... how long?

Recently, Philip was quoted as saying they were bringing in over $400,000 a month in tier fees. Why not instead just open the trading to the entire playerbase for free to facilitate the flow of money between players? It would cost LL virtually nothing but grow the economy (and the number of people paying LL to participate) far more significantly than a few cents being leeched out of every transaction.

P.S. a) What does Eminent Domain have to do with banking? b) where do you think the interest comes from in a real bank? c) virtual loans... what could possibly go wrong with that?

Eminent Domain becomes relevant on foreclosure of property financed by the bank in order to transfer the property to LL. Interest comes from investments, which would also have to be created. And virtual loans would be a blast. The point I was aiming for is that while it would be nice to have the currency system in game be as advanced as the real world, that would come with its own new set of issues. Just a thought.

Spread is good. Spread is crucial to the accurate pricing of the commodity. A L$ market without spread is useless and will continue to lave SL as a 'toy' world.

- K/C A

Care to explain this statement?

Yes I am curious what exactly that means as well. I play on forex and they have a fixed spread of 3 cents for the EUR/USD pair, and you really can't play the spread per se, but I seemilngly make money (most of the time).

So I am curious.

Interesting that you have a fixed spread (Is that how the broker makes it cash?). As the Forex systems I've looked at don't seem to fix the spreads.
** EDIT: Ahh I'm getting confused we're talking Forex whereas I was still in a Stocks and Commodities mindsets. Makes sense now as the spread is the Forex broker makes its money.

Usually the spread is used as a sign of how liquid a commodity is. The wider the spread the less its being trade, the tighter the spread the more trade.

The spread can also be used within some kind of technical analysis framework (I think one is called Volume Spread Analysis which attempts to understand why a price shifts through an understanding of the volume and the spread).

Forex is forex.com, not forex as in foreign currency exchange (although that is the obvious intention).

And yes, the spread is fixed and they make money on the "built in" offset. The spread you see is always a few points up/down in reality, and its kinda like their own built in spread.

What I make money on is their (forex.com) day trading. I buy/sell against the stockpile of currency they have/are using to execute their orders on the world exchanges.

Even with a small account (250$ min buyin 200:1 margin) you can make some good money in very small moves (3-5 cents either way) with only an order or two. Its a good system, and the limit ordering makes it great to not have to sit around all day waiting for something to happen.

Exactly. Which is why on the current market EUR/USD is paired at a fixed 3 cent trade, most others are 3-5 and there are some as high as 9 cents (NZD/CHF) for example, since they are traded in a lot less.

People pay $9.95 to play or they play basic for free. Any exchange trading should be included as part of the interface like any other feature. It is needless to tack on a commission or spread.


No I do not forget. Those are not included because those are optional, and therefore not justifiable. Fees that are not optional are the cost of the check and postage. These are justifiable. They have no justification for a $2.00 fee.


We pay $9.95, and that is all the fees we need to be paying other than tier fees and uploads. That is fair. No eye of the beholder or anything. This is a feature of an interface just like any other. It is part of the interface, and therefore should not tack on any extra charges. LL needs to keep their dollar sources of revenue straight. Membership/tier and legitimate transaction fees according to the charges of the third party.

You forget that credit card companies and Paypal charge fees to LL. Should LL absorb those additional costs?



The cost of the labor to write the check and account for the money is not at all optional. Companies have employees so that the company may profit from the employee's time.