Do you have to pay real money to upload mesh if you have enough $L to cover the upload costs?

[Myk Mode]

I am pretty sure you do not have to pay real money to upload Mesh, but someone in the sim always insists that I am wrong about this.  So I'm asking here.  I know you need payment info on file (which I feel is crap, but I've heard some good arguments for it so I'm letting it go (meaning I will not debate this), but the upload cost is in $L and less than an equivalent amount of even one cent in most cases.  This is why I am certain that they would not be charging real money.  However, I've gotten enough people saying both yes and no to this question that I would prefer to ask here.

[Rolig Loon]

Yes, of course you have to pay real money.  The same is true whether you are uploading mesh, textures, sounds, or animations.  As you noted, the cost is very small. L$10 to upload a texture, a sound,.or an animation is about 4 cents US, but it is a real cost.  The cost for uploading a mesh object is usually more than that, but rarely more than L$50 -- about 20 cents -- for most mesh objects.  L$ do not fall out of trees (well, they do actually fall out of Money Trees if you are less than 30 days old, but that's an exception).  You have to buy L$ with real money, or with profits from things that you have sold in world.

ETA:  It occurs to me that you may be thinking about the process of uploading mesh to the Aditi (beta) grid, for testing.  The Aditi grid is Linden Lab's experimental area, which they let us use for practice uploads.  You can upload mesh there for free -- LL actually gives you play money to use -- but your objects have to stay on Aditi.  You can't bring them to the man grid (Agni).  To upload to the main grid, you need to pay.

[Myk Mode]

I understand that you can buy $L. This is not necessarily what I mean.

Let's say the upload costs for a mesh model are $L10 and I have that much $L. Will it charge me anything other than the $10L to upload the model?

[Rolig Loon]

Nope. Your L$ are good.

[Innula Zenovka]

If you have enough $L to cover the upload costs, then the charge for uploading the mesh is taken from your $L account.   You're not billed separately.

But that's "real money" in the sense that it's gone and cannot then be used to make in-world purchases or sold for US$ to pay tier or whatever.

Though,, as Rolig says, if you log into Aditi, the beta grid, and do your test uploads there, that's done with Aditi L$, which are nothing to with your actual account, can only be used on Aditi, and can't be cashed out.

 

[Myk Mode]

Thank you, this is as I expected. :3 However, seeing how $L are a type of "real" currency (due to having actual monetary value), I see where the confusion of this question happens. Personally, I earn my $L in game, thus, I do not have to pay for it myself. ^^

[Rolig Loon]

Yes. It can be confusing. LL is quite clear in the TOS that L$ are in-world "tokens" with no monetary value. However, they may be exchanged between SL residents for goods and services. Well, that sounds like real money to most people, especially since we can exchange them with each other through the Lindex for real money. Like you, I earn all my L$ in world, so I never have to worry about all of this.