Merchants

[Toysoldier Thor Member]

I agree as well that no Merchant really has the means nor would it be of interest to most Merchants that they take the legal sword up.  Nor have I ever stated that they should.  In fact I already posted previously what I said just now.

But if there is an entrenchment belief in the community and moreso with Rodvik and the Commerce Team that $L are not real currency and have no value and we at LL have even covered our butts to officially tell you it has no value.... then it give the Commerce Team an easy out whenever their many changes directly impact a Merchants EARNED $L account to do what they clearly are doing now..... ^shrugs^ and state to the merchant community .... "well sorry about your loss from our boo boo" and then point their finger to the TOS that you really didnt lose anything of value nor are we responsible for what ever you did lose.

I have in no way threatened Rodvik in anyway because of this.  How can I or any Merchant honestly "threaten" Rodvik or LL?  If they and their lawyers truly beleive they are in the right and their position on the true valuation and governance of the $L currency is accurate, then why would he care if we are discussing if $L currency has value or not?

If he would rather it not be discussed and its generally ONLY being discussed now because Merchants want to point out that the failed / weak practices and management of the MP is causing RL losses to Merchants... one would think a CEO of a company would want to **bleep** this whole issue in the behind and do what any leader of a company should want to do -

Sit down and listen to and understand the frustrations and concerns from this segment of his customers regarding one of his departments and a critical aspect of what makes SL successful (i.e. the main distribution of content into the SL grid).

I dont even care if he would want to conduct this session as a BLOG he initiates on this SL Community that starts out with him saying

"Merchants of SL... I have been hearing you have some real concerns with the Marketplace and how it is managed and run.  I am aware of some of these issues but it is clear that maybe I am not aware of all the issues that truly are concerning you.  I have talked to my Commerce Team management to get their perspective on the situation and why this team's respective Merchants community is frustrated.  But now I would like to hear your concerns. 

As such, I invite any Merchants and even Customers of Marketplace to post your comments as to the list of your concerns.  I want to assure you that I will be reading all the comments and that I will also be asking a member of my staff to develop a list of the concerns that I am sure you all are more than willing to share with me.

After 1 week, I will ask my staff to post a followup to my Blog with the top 5 - 10 concerns (that was determined by the frequency and overall popularity of the concerns among all the comments from you).  I will ask you all if myself and LL captured your top concern accurately.   I will then promise the community that I will instruct my team to come up with an action plan for each of the concerns and come back to you within 60 days with how I and my management team will address your concerns.

In conclusion... I want to tell you that maybe LL has not paid enough attention on the concerns by this segment of the SL community but you have my attention now.  And I promise to come up with a plan to address your concerns because I do fully understand that without a healthy Merchant / Creator community - there is no SL.  And we cannot have that.

signed <Toy wishing it was Rodvik that blogged this>

[Toysoldier Thor Member]

---

Faye Feldragonne wrote:

This is from 08, but it's worth a read about virtual goods and the law.

If a player in a MMOG were to accumulate a large amount of in-game currency (or
special items) and then lose it through another player’s fraudulent actions, was anything
actually lost?

---

WOW... that was a VERY INTERESTING READ !

And SecondLife is even mentioned in the detailed discussion.

Thanks for sharing that.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Just finished that, it is a good read. Thanks as well.

[Prokofy Neva Member]

Some SL history for you young whippersnappers and those who don't remember history and may be doomed to repeat it -- as to what happens when you demand -- and get -- a meeting with Lindens and demand -- and get -- a list of your requests:

In 2005, the Lindens decided to deprecate the telehubs, because they wanted to introduce point-to-point teleportation. They didn't inform the public they were going to do this. They continued to sell scarce and valuable telehub land on the auction and accept payments from unwitting merchants. They continued to roll out new sims with telehubs, place the bid higher than for other land on the auction, and accept payments. Anshe Chung cornered the market on a lot of this land as she often did with higher bids, but instead of renting a lot of it, she began to sell it instead for a higher price. This was either because she, like other sharp-eyed power players spotted the implications from the Lindens new improved map features that showed buildings, and realized they would move to PPT, or else she had an inside tip, or both. Long story short, many merchants got caught with a lot of suddenly very worthless land they'd paid a huge amount for when the Lindens announced the removal of telehubs -- which were hated by an old guard of early adapter merchants with stores in remote places on old sims, because they enabled newer merchants to more democratically enter a free market just by paying highter telehub mall prices. Most transactions in Second Life were happening at telehub malls, and despite the horror stories of lag and blight, that's where most people shopped.

A group of land barons demanded a meeting with the Lindens over the telehub and other issues of the day -- everything from a demand to have a corporate ethics manual (people were tired of Linden staff endorsing some of their friends in business and throwing them more revenue that way) to an end to the practice of having invisible Lindens enter sims to spy on people.

The land barons got their meeting. Let me tell you that it was quite a sight when a dozens of land barons on a fully packed sim faced down Philip Linden and Robin Linden, and stood up and said they would take action if he didn't meet their demands.

The forums went wild with hatred of land barons and jealousy that they got a meeting. All they did was get organized and be public about what they did, which was normal in a democratic society. The scripters and oldbie designers who already got their meetings with Lindens in real life or inworld on their alts secretly were fuming.

The result? Well, not a real lot. A sort of half-hearted corporate ethics manual was made, but it didn't deal adequately with the issue of residents-turned-Linden who didn't abandon their conflicts of interest in huge businesses or influential social projects.

But on the telehubs, the Lindens -- after their minds were concentrated by getting a letter from some lawyers noting that they could face "bait and switch" charges under California law -- and ads from Anshe saying "Turn Your Back on Governor Linden" threatening to stop buying Mainland on the auctions, the Lindens decided to provide compensation. They agreed to buy back the now-useless telehub land at the reasonable price of $6/meter. Not great, when it sold for $20 at the time or more, but it was something.

The Lindens got back at the revolting landlords -- they then suddenly land-glutted with dozens of pretty white sand sims in a separate area off the mainland -- but still mainland -- called "bulk sims" -- so that Anshe was forced to buy this higher-priced land, even with her coffers filled with compensation from the telehub malls, and thus not get ahead as originally planned. Then later, the Lindens had to eat some of their profits again over the island pricing scandal (they were about to raise the price and were going to let developers inworld on their SL Dev list get an early whack at last-minute sales and grandfathering). Then the Lindens got their revenge back by changing the homestead pricing. There's much more to this story which I've blogged about in the past, but the moral is:

Yes, you can demand inworld meetings and maybe get them. And yes, it makes sense to go to the Lindens with demands, and even lawyers. They do respond. In part. Then they get revenge. Never forget: it's their game.

I think personally on the Marketplace issues, that there has been just too much hurry to ascribe ill will to Lindens at the helm here, and not willingness to see that their business interest requires a fast and furious move to the Marketplace to try to change their model of sole reliance on server leases to one in which move revenue comes in the form of digital content sales commissions.

It's sad, and short-sighted and all the rest, but it's their business, not ours, and they aren't required to help our businesses, and don't, and it's better to accept that and move to other grids, or adjust.

In a world where first voting on the JIRA was shut off, then the very view of the JIRA was shut off and limited to only a very select short list of scripter friends, you can hardly say that communications are two-way in other aspects of SL. They aren't, and this is indicative.

[Darrius Gothly Member]

Interesting post Prok .. thank you.

You've hit a nail on the head I've been trying to spotlight for a while. That being .. why do the Lindens see the SL Residents as enemies? And why do they feel the need to seek "Revenge"?

That seems to be at the core of all the ill-fated and ill-envisioned initiatives the Lab undertakes .. that somehow LL must either get back at the Residents for something, or take something away almost like a child punishing a wayward child.

Have you ever arrived at a reasonable cause for their adversarial perception of their customers?

[Rodvik Linden Linden]

Hey folks, just dropping a note to let you know I have read the thread.  The team reads the boards every day so they asked me to pop in to acknowledge that they read the boards and I have also read this thread. I appreciate the feature requests and bug notifications in particular.

For sure we can up the tempo of communiation in blog posts and notifcations to upcoming changes & fixes. We remain commited to our merchant community and I appreciate you taking the time to write down what you would like to see in the future for SL.

[Toysoldier Thor Member]

---

Rodvik Linden wrote:

Hey folks, just dropping a note to let you know I have read the thread.  The team reads the boards every day so they asked me to pop in to acknowledge that they read the boards and I have also read this thread. I appreciate the feature requests and bug notifications in particular.

For sure we can up the tempo of communiation in blog posts and notifcations to upcomig changes & fixes. We remain commited to our merchant community and I appreciate you taking the time to write down what you would like to see in the future for SL. 

---

Thank you Rodvik.  That is all we ask is to be heard by you and to help us improve the Marketplace that only benefits you, the Merchants, and both our customers.

How would you like to collect our concerns?

[Arwen Serpente Recognized Member]

---

Rodvik Linden wrote:

Hey folks, just dropping a note to let you know I have read the thread.  The team reads the boards every day so they asked me to pop in to acknowledge that they read the boards and I have also read this thread. I appreciate the feature requests and bug notifications in particular.

For sure we can up the tempo of communiation in blog posts and notifcations to upcoming changes & fixes. We remain commited to our merchant community and I appreciate you taking the time to write down what you would like to see in the future for SL.

---

Thank you, Rodvik.

Just having you pop in here and acknowledge the discussion sincerely lifted my spirits and gave me a second wind (in Second Life) to continue to create. It's my RL birthday and this was a totally unexpected "gift". Sincerely appreciated.

And thank you to the Commerce Team for reading the threads and letting Rodvik know what's going on with the Merchant Community.

I'm sure there will be lots of comments keeping this thread active for quite a while

[Rodvik Linden Linden]

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

---

Rodvik Linden wrote:

Hey folks, just dropping a note to let you know I have read the thread.  The team reads the boards every day so they asked me to pop in to acknowledge that they read the boards and I have also read this thread. I appreciate the feature requests and bug notifications in particular.

For sure we can up the tempo of communiation in blog posts and notifcations to upcomig changes & fixes. We remain commited to our merchant community and I appreciate you taking the time to write down what you would like to see in the future for SL. 

---

Thank you Rodvik.  That is all we ask is to be heard by you and to help us improve the Marketplace that only benefits you, the Merchants, and both our customers.

How would you like to collect our concerns?

---

Welcome. I think folks have already mentioned a lot. Maybe just adding to this thread would be good. We "dont mean the royal we, but either myself or someone form the team) will stop by and let folks know we have read the extra feedback sometime early next week.

All the best

Rod

[Rodvik Linden Linden]

---

Arwen Serpente wrote:

---

Rodvik Linden wrote:

Hey folks, just dropping a note to let you know I have read the thread.  The team reads the boards every day so they asked me to pop in to acknowledge that they read the boards and I have also read this thread. I appreciate the feature requests and bug notifications in particular.

For sure we can up the tempo of communiation in blog posts and notifcations to upcoming changes & fixes. We remain commited to our merchant community and I appreciate you taking the time to write down what you would like to see in the future for SL.

---

Thank you, Rodvik.

Just having you pop in here and acknowledge the discussion sincerely lifted my spirits and gave me a second wind (in Second Life) to continue to create. It's my RL birthday and this was a totally unexpected "gift". Sincerely appreciated.

And thank you to the Commerce Team for reading the threads and letting Rodvik know what's going on with the Merchant Community.

I'm sure there will be lots of comments keeping this thread active for quite a while

---

You are very welcome. I know we are fairly quiet a lot of the time, but we do read customer feedback. While we certainly can improve on our performance we do come to work every day to try and serve our customers better.

Happy birthday by the way!