Linden Buy Fees Reduced to One Cent Until Friday

 

 Just a few hours ago today, Linden Lab announced they are reducing the fee for purchasing Linden dollars to one US cent in their "One Penny Buy Fees" limited time offer.

 

Times are tough for a lot of people, so we've come up with one way to make things a little easier: Second Life is launching a special LindeX limited-time offer – a chance to make Linden Dollar (L$) Buy fees nearly disappear for a limited time! 

While the global economy wrestles with rising tariffs and tense trade talks, we’re responding with a bold, Resident-first promotion: we're charging just a penny for your LindeX buy fees for the next 2 days. We’re committed to you - our Residents - through these challenging times, and we will continue to stand by you as we have over the past 22 years. 

 

 

This limited time offer started at 12:30 PM SL time today, Wednesday April 16. It is scheduled to continue for fifty hours to 2:30 PM Sl time Friday April 18, at which time the one cent deal expires, "Compare that to the standard buy fee of 10%, with a minimum of $1.49 and a max of $14.99—this is an unprecedented cut designed to empower Residents, stimulate activity, and boost in-world trade. This is a one-time only opportunity that won’t come around again, so you’ll need to act fast if you want to stock up on Linden Dollars and save."

 

In theory, someone could buy up to $1999 worth of Linden dollars during the deal. If a Market Rate transaction takes longer than 2:30PM Friday, then the normal rate applies, not the deal.

 

Linden Lab has never done a one cent sale on it's transaction fees before.

 

For the blog post in full, Click Here. 

 

EOTB: Lab Announces Upcoming Changes "To The Financial And Billing Systems of Second Life"

 

 

A few days ago on Friday January 17, Linden Lab announced they would be making some minor changes to how residents buy and sell Linden dollars. 

 

We are introducing improvements to the financial and billing systems in Second Life in partnership with Tilia, our trusted billing provider. These upgrades aim to streamline and modernize transaction processes, ensuring a more secure and reliable platform for our community. While you may notice some visual updates when interacting with payments and payouts, the overall experience will remain familiar and seamless.

The announcement promised wallet integration, better cashier and account dashboards, faster payouts and more options for them, The updates will be released "on a rolling basis with everyone" near the end of January. This includes a different look for the screen appearance. 

There are currently no changes to the fees, but there is one less option for transactions, unless you already have it. Starting in January 30, people will no longer be able to add Skrill as a payout method, though if you already have it you can still use it. 

Also, five countries will no longer be able to have new payout connections: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Bosnia. That Russia and Belarus can't is no surprise due to Russia being under sanctions and Belarus having close ties to it. 

For the blog post in detail, Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of The Day: In The Money

 

 

 Taken at Scorn during one of it's events. At around 250 to 1, Second Life prices don't seem like so much when compared to real-life ones. But a thousand here, and a thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking some serious cash.

 

 By Bixyl Shuftans

Petition To Linden Lab on Change.Org About Cashout Fee Hikes

On Wednesday May 29, Linden Lab would announce significant hikes to both the price of Premium accounts and the cashout fees for Linden dollars. The move has triggered quite a bit of discussion among the residents. While some are reacting by canceling Premium accounts, one person calling himself or herself "Second Life Residents" started a petition on change.org, "An Open Letter to Linden Lab."

While the person thanked Linden Lab for retracting their decision to cut back basic account group limits, "We are, however, disheartened by the other changes that you have announced that are scheduled to be implemented this month, specifically the doubling of the processing fee from 2.5% to 5%. While we understand that Linden Lab is a business that needs to profit in order to thrive, we feel it is necessary to remind you that we are running businesses, too. As you know, many of us are more than just hobbyists, we rely on the money we earn in Second Life to pay our bills, feed our children, and survive. Rather than simply protest the changes you have made, we come to you hoping for an open dialogue to both understand your needs to implement such a drastic and high percentage and possibly come up with alternative solutions for Linden Lab to generate profits without punishing those you depend on the most to keep Second Life going."

"if your creators and other earners in Second Life are not kept happy and confident in your decisions, you risk a great loss that would eventually render Second Life obsolete. We believe that the decisions you make should not be done in a vacuum. The voices of residents have given you guidance in some of the best choices you've made in the last several years. Bento, Linden Homes, new default avatars, animesh... all of this was achieved with input from resident creators. We feel there is a place for resident consultations beyond content creation. Second Life residents understand this platform on a level that Linden Lab employees cannot achieve without becoming immersive residents who shop, live, and love. We are the ones immersed. We are the community. We are the culture. We have a keen insight into our own needs and many of us are competent, intelligent, and capable enough to advocate skillfully on behalf of the residents."

The writer would go on to suggest Linden Lab hire consultants, "residents who can demonstrate competence and expertise in various Second Life areas ... and real life practical areas ..." and "discuss the possibility of negotiating the 5% processing fee. We understand that Linden Lab does have a final say, but we have a long list of innovative and insightful ideas of how Linden Lab might increase profits without relying on land and without creators having to bear such a severe financial burden."

The petition had already reached over 1600 signatures as of the writing of this article.

To read the petition in full, Click Here.

Addition, as of 2PM SL time, the petition had reached 1900 signatures.

Hat tip: Lia, Braelove

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Cutting Land Prices And Setup Fees, Increasing Linden Dollar Purchase Fees, No New Openspace Sims After June

Some big news from Linden Lab, especially if you own a lot of land. Yesterday on Wednesday June 20, it was announced on the official blog , as well as by Ebbe Linden during his "Meet the Lindens" interview yesterday at the SL15B, that starting on July 2, the tier for private sims was being cut 15%. It was also announced that the fees to set up a private sim were being reduced "by as much as 41%." But, there's some "fine print." And to help offset these reduced land charges, the fee to buy Linden dollars is going up.

Effective July 2, monthly maintenance fees on Private Estates are dropping by up to 15%! In addition, one-time land set-up fees are also reduced by as much as 41%.  And remember, the setup fee includes your first month’s payment. Discounts will vary based on the type of land ...


The catch? First, Skill Games areas are not eligible for the tier cut. Grandfathered sims, which the Lab also called "bought down," are not eligible either, "since those are still below the newly-reduced rates." And if you were thinking of getting an Openspace sim, you don't have much time. The Lab announced after June, no more new ones will be available. For those who need a reminder, Openspace sims, also known as "void sims," are "intended for very low-impact scenic use such as ocean, forest, or countryside," and have a capacity of 1000 prims and ten avatars. They cost $150 US to set up and have a $75 US tier each.

The other part of the catch will affect many more residents. The Lab announced that starting July 2, to "help us offset the revenues lost on land," the charge for buying Linden dollars is going up from $.99 US per transaction to $1.49, an increase of slightly fifty percent. This is the second increase in the purchase fee in less than a year, the previous increase in November being from 60 to 99 cents. So in several months, the fee to buy Linden dollars has been raised by almost 150% .

So what's going on? The general feeling is that Linden Lab is trying to transfer the money paid by the residents, so less is made by landowners, and more is made by shoppers, in order to bring a halt to the long slow decline over time in the number of privately owned sims, which while having slowed down in recent months hasn't really stopped.

While some landowners are no doubt looking forward to lower tiers, there has been one critic so far. MarkTwain White posted in the comments under the article in Modem World, "The newly announced 15% tier-rate reduction is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That reduction Does NOT apply to us that have paid incredibly higher fees (200% on average) to have our lands reduced to grandfather rates in the past (thus in one big Catch-22 causing us to pay fees only to be excluded from the new fee reduction. The subtle Second Life 'screw you' here is that we now have to pay 50% higher transaction fees' to cover the our (SL’s) increase in costs for reducing your tie.' ...Experienced land rental companies get none of these discounts that LL is offering to the new companies they hope to attract due to reduced fees designed to increase their income while at the same time building a new tax basis made up of future rental companies that will become the target of new usurious fee increases. LL had done it more than once. This is classic LL policy: squeeze blood from current content providers (developers of properties to sell or lease) but go after new blood to bring new fees (taxes) to LL...."

So will the Lab see more people buying sims? Or will the long slow decline continue while shoppers buy less Linden dollars and merchants end up making less money? Time will tell.

For more information, check the announcement by Linden Lab here.
Additional sources: SL Grid Survey, Modem World

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Raising Fees to Buy Lindens, Maximum Fee to Sell

Second Life is about to get a little more expensive.

In the official Second Life blog on Tuesday, Linden Lab announced there would be an "update" to the fees for Second Life users to use the LindeX to purchase Linden dollars and the "credit processing" fees to sell Linden dollars for real money.

Underlying SL’s successful user-to-user L$ economy and the ability to buy and sell L$’s for real currency is a significant amount of ongoing work to ensure that everything remains compliant with applicable laws and regulations, while also preventing fraud and money laundering.

Investing in improvements to these processes and the ongoing compliance work required comes at a cost to Linden Lab, and we will be making some LindeX fee adjustments in order to share a portion of those costs with Residents active in the SL economy.

To buy Linden dollars, the fee on the LindeX is going from 40 cents per transaction to 60 cents.

To sell Linden dollars for real world currency, the current "fee structure" remains the same at one and a half percent with a minimum fee of $3 USD. But the maximum fee is going up from $15 USD to $25.

There was some debate about the issue on a thread in the official forums, some outright opposing it, others conceding the Lab probably had justifiable reasons to raise prices. One woman commented packing up and taking things to Opensim might not be a good ideas as on the Kitely grid "there is a 20% fee to sell on Kitely market and a 45 day wait to get your money to Paypal." and "there are many less BUYERS on Opensim so your chances of selling are possibly less."

If one takes the Lab's explanation at face value, their costs of making sure the transactions go smoothly while taking steps against "fraud and money laundering" are going up, either having to replace equipment, or get new equipment and employees as a result of new regulations or perhaps as a result of complaints about their service.  Hamlet Au of New World Notes suspected the latter might be a partial reason as he'd been hearing reports of some content creators suffering "financial crippling delays" in getting their real-world money from the Lab after selling them Linden dollars. So perhaps this is a case of the Lab responding to the complaints, but felt the users had to help pay for the costs. Hamlet also had another, sobering, explanation, "The Second Life economy is slowly but surely shrinking, so those who are still in the economy will have to pay more to keep participating in it."

In any event, the changes go into effect June 19.

Source: Hamlet Au

Bixyl Shuftan

Fluctuations in Linden Dollar Value, And a Theory as to Why

By Bixyl Shuftan

In recent days, there's been some concerns about the Linden dollar due to fluctuations in it's value. While there have been swings in both directions, it's become generally much cheaper to buy Lindens from the Lab than to cash them out.

According to Tyche Shepherd's gridsurvey.com, the minimum rate on the Lindex on February 10 was 248 to the dollar, and the maximum 259. Last week on May 16, the minimum was 252 and the maximum 265. While not much for the typical Second Life resident, for content creators whom make a real-life living with their income from the grid, these increasing sell rates mean a dent in their income.

There's no shortage of opinions as to what's causing the price swings, as evidenced by the comments in the initial New World Notes article, the thread on the subject in the SL Universe forums, and a thread on Plurk. A common thought among residents discussing the matter is that Linden Lab is playing with the value of the Lindens themselves to encourage people to buy them. New World Notes tried contacting Linden Lab on the matter, but got no response. But talking with someone who used to work with the Lab, who preferred to remain anonymous, the man doubted that theory, "We were super-transparent about this years ago, and I doubt it's changed significantly in the time since I left. Linden Lab doesn't control the rates, the market does. If a number of larger businesses that have been holding significant L$ decide to liquidate and are willing to push the rate temporarily less financially favorably for sellers in exchange for more rapid exchange, then short-term small fluctuations like this happen."

So what businesses would be most likely to liquidate their assets? One sound theory, supposedly first came up with by Plurk user T-Kesserex, is that that the increase in people cashing out Lindens is coming from land barons selling theirs to help pay the one-time fees to lower sim rates which has been in effect since early April.  Tyche Shepherd reportedly estimated the total number of grandfathered full sims has gone up from 11 percent to close to 21 percent, a near-doubling. He calculated with the tier fees brought Linden Lab slightly over a million US dollars. With the top 20 landowners controlling about half the private estate regions, just a few moving to buy-down their sims to lower rates would involve a lot of Linden dollars.

But Inara Pey noted people were noticing fluctuations as far back as late 2015, well before the buy-down offer was announced in April, hinting while this might have accelerated the swings in rates it didn't explain them completely. Her suggestion was for those with a need or desire for more Linden dollars to take advantage of the lower rates while they last.

Sources: Gridsurvey.com, SL Universe, New World Notes, Modem World 

Bixyl Shuftan

New Guidelines on Virtual Currency by US Government Mean Complications For Linden Lab

By Bixyl Shuftan

Last month, the US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an "interpretive guidance" (pdf link) or guidelines for the regulation of virtual currencies. Alex Kadochnikov of the "Modern Payment Systems" blog had a few things to say about the matter and what it means for Linden Lab. For the average Second Life resident, these guidelines don't directly affect him/her. But for Linden Lab, "FinCEN now considers Linden Dollar as a convertible centralized virtual currency," and it means regulations and paperwork.

To begin with, Linden Lab's terms of service doesn't refer to Linden dollars as virtual currency but each being a "virtual token" or a "limited license" that could be traded, "Linden dollars are not real currency or any type of financial instrument …" But these words haven't meant much to residents who've treated it as money within Second Life, the only risk being if they ever lost their connection to the Grid. As Kadochnikov wrote, "FinCEN goes by the approach 'If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.' And Linden Dollar sure does 'quack' like one. Linden dollar is a virtual currency because it has value in real currency (a buck will buy you about 270 linden bucks); and people buy good and services with it."

As "an administrator and an exchanger of virtual currency" they were a "Money Service Business" or MSB under US Treasury guidelines. As a result they, "must register with the Treasury Department and make Anti-Money Laundering and periodic reports." This means more expenses for Linden Lab as, "these reports are not little one page chores a trained monkey can do. There is a reason corporate compliance departments are stacked with lawyers and accountants. As you can imagine both of these items cost a lot of money."

Hamlet Au thought that this would mean Linden Lab will have to hire two or three additional lawyers just to deal with this matter, costing them about a half million dollars a year. The only other option it seems would be to abandon the Linden dollar and deal just with real world currencies. While it would save them these bureaucratic headaches, it would be "like turning off a printing press that prints money. And who in their right mind wants to do that?"

Hamlet Au thought there was one additional complication. If the Lab was thinking of selling Second Life, it just became more difficult as any buyer would have to deal with these regulations and expenses. One result of the Treasury Department's new guidelines may be that Linden Lab can pretty much forget about someone buying the virtual world from them.

Second Life Newser did briefly discuss the matter with Jacek Shuftan, the head of it's sponsor Podex Exchange. He expressed suspicion of the US Government's motives, but "every coin has two sides, if (Linden dollars) were virtual currency, it would be more trustworthy, and (Second Life) will have more investors." So perhaps the move has some benefits.

Sources: New World Notes, Modern Payment Systems

Bixyl Shuftan