Ilyra Chardin Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 A bunch of us were talking in the Second Life Commerce Merchants Group about the idea of requiring merchants to pay either a one time or annual fee for the right to be a merchant. Seems like a great idea to: a) stop the theft and fly-by-night merchants and b) to finance the changes that we would like to see done on MP.Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Valentine Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I second that motion....I also think LL should supply all merchants with donuts on mondays :matte-motes-tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilyra Chardin Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 YAY for donuts! Sweet Valentine wrote: I second that motion....I also think LL should supply all merchants with donuts on mondays :matte-motes-tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muireann Galli Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I would support this, as long as we see something for our money. I would want to see a clear policy that protects merchants from infringement. If this is just another charge we pay and nothing changes, I would be against it. But if it pays for the Lindens to staff some people to monitor things more closely, I'd happily pay a fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monti Messmer Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Hi, why would that stop theft ? They make quick big money and rush off, pay a few bucks in advance wouldn´t stop them. Finance changes ? We´r still paying for every item sold all the years and nothing happened. Pay a monthly fee would stop all hobby creators that do not earn more than the upload costs. A pure "no" from me for pay and pay ..... Monti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muireann Galli Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Monti, I think that the idea is twofold. One, that a lot of the scammers who make alts and sell stolen or imitated things wouldn't do it if they had to pay a fee first. It wouldn't stop them all, but it would cut the numbers down. Two, the hope is that the added funds generated by a fee system would pay for staffing needed to better monitor and prevent/remove these scammers in a much more timely manner. The question for me is, what would the Lindens give us in exchange for this fee? You make a very good point on the hobby creators. Perhaps a fee scale, where each person pays a fee based on the size of their store or annual sales or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilyra Chardin Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 I was thinking that when you pay the annual fee you get the first 100? 250? 500? some number of your first product sales at full price, no MP commission. Would that work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenbro Utu Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Muireann Galli wrote: The question for me is, what would the Lindens give us in exchange for this fee? At the very least a Marketplace that works correctly. Charging a use fee for the current incarnation would be laughable... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monti Messmer Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 To stop quick in/outs maybe or 2nd 3rd avatars only copy a shops inventory to multiple search results, but i think LL make more profit from the sales. All premium members pay real money each month to get free house... and live support but even that´s not this grrreat. Don´t get me wrong i like people thinking about solving the MP problems, but it´s only working when LL want it and that .... Monti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chic Aeon Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I think I am with Monti on this. I don't see that a fee -- unless it was a really big one which most folks might not want to pay or could afford to pay would make a dent in the fake accounts with stolen goods. Really? Pay a 1000 linden from your main account via the newly made alt so that you could (in theory I don't actually know anyone that does this thank goodness) make much more with the stolen items? It's a no brainer. I have seen skins reported on this board that were in theory stolen and sold for 900 linden. So one sale almost covers the cost. And I doubt seriously that the money would go to anything useful to make the Marketplace run better. Look as the long Marketplace history (although I do admit that direct delivery IS better after everyone got moved over -- THAT was a nightmare). Lots of small time folks that sell low cost items or indeed actually put out some nice things for free would no longer be part of the system. I vote "no" on the idea -- not that we are voting . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilyra Chardin Posted November 17, 2013 Author Share Posted November 17, 2013 When we spoke about it in the group, we thought 40 or 100 dollars US as a one-time fee. That might stop the bulk of the scammers. And it would certainly reduce the volume of stores on MP, hopefully keeping the legitimate ones. Anyway, it was a thought. That's my two cents (L$5) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Kenbro Utu wrote: Muireann Galli wrote: The question for me is, what would the Lindens give us in exchange for this fee? At the very least a Marketplace that works correctly. Charging a use fee for the current incarnation would be laughable... Especially since I still have mixed listings in my MP store. :matte-motes-sour: Edit: Typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Muireann Galli wrote: I would support this, as long as we see something for our money. I would want to see a clear policy that protects merchants from infringement. If this is just another charge we pay and nothing changes, I would be against it. But if it pays for the Lindens to staff some people to monitor things more closely, I'd happily pay a fee. (Bolding mine) I would like to think this isn't so, but I'm very doubtful that LL will do any more than it is currently doing re: monitoring the MP. Heck, it won't even put in a simple captcha system to stop the forum spamming. (Post 16 onwards) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Hancroft Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Ilyra Chardin wrote: When we spoke about it in the group, we thought 40 or 100 dollars US as a one-time fee. That might stop the bulk of the scammers. And it would certainly reduce the volume of stores on MP, hopefully keeping the legitimate ones. Anyway, it was a thought. That's my two cents (L$5) There is no way in H.E.doublehockeysticks I would give Linden Lab ANY more than I do now in upload costs and transaction fees. $40 to $100US?? That's a colossal joke! Because of the current TOS, I am not doing any uploads, but, when and if it gets changed, I have over L$15,000 in texture uploads to do currently (and I'm still creating so there will be more than that). If some sort of fee like you suggest were actually installed, it would force me out of business because there is no way I could pay it. I make enough in sales to cover my home parcel tiers and have a little spending money inworld, but, that's all. No...I say absolutely not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Jetaime Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Absolutely not. A lot of legitimate hard working creators can't afford that and it would drive them out of business unfairly. It would discourage new creators from having a shop if you lose 40-100 US right off the top before making any profit. Nothing would change. I don't trust LL to use the money to improve MP or do anything you suggest they would. They already make enough on the MP it should motivate them to do more and thus increase their take, but it doesn't Requiring PIOF with registering RL information would do more to prevent thieves from using MP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowl Paine Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 It is my opinion, that exchanging money in SL, is too easy. This discussion continues to return, because it has not been resolved. If I was LL, I would build a registry of "known" accounts. Then pursue the known unkowns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sassy Romano Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Ilyra Chardin wrote: When we spoke about it in the group, we thought 40 or 100 dollars US as a one-time fee. That might stop the bulk of the scammers. And it would certainly reduce the volume of stores on MP, hopefully keeping the legitimate ones. Anyway, it was a thought. That's my two cents (L$5) For the sake of posting, I like the idea and wished that it would work and the fee of $40 to $100 is certainly something that I could afford without an issue... today. However, when I started my business in SL, I was in between jobs and had my last L$1000 and took a punt on buying a script, some textures and rented a mall location and hoped. I would not have been able to afford even the $40 or even justify $10 USD back then and as such would not support such a barrier to entry to new merchants, I was that merchant once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Machess Lemton Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 I had a second thought about user fees too because it only makes new merchants more difficult to start their business. As long as there is profit content theft would continue. The only way to stop them is make stealing more difficult and there may be something can be done on viewer/server code to improve how textures or mesh vertices are processed and stored locally, maybe via some kind of lossy compression algorithms, I don't know. However, I do hope that whatever new policy LL is thinking to implement they can do a user or merchant survey first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexi Zelin Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoebe Avro Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 The scammers are the ones that make big bucks so it would not stop them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake1 Nightfire Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Ilyra Chardin wrote: When we spoke about it in the group, we thought 40 or 100 dollars US as a one-time fee. That might stop the bulk of the scammers. And it would certainly reduce the volume of stores on MP, hopefully keeping the legitimate ones. Anyway, it was a thought. That's my two cents (L$5) $40 or $100 USD?!?!? To sell things in a virtual world? That would certainly stop all scammers and copybots. It would put most of the small merchants out of business as well. LL would never institute a fee to sell on the MP. They would lose more in lost commission fees than they got in the merchant fee. Bad idea, it would just hurt the small legitimate merchants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilyra Chardin Posted November 18, 2013 Author Share Posted November 18, 2013 I would love to see anything that would stop the theft. And yes, I would pay for it. But I do understand others' perspective that requiring fees could potentially pose a hardship to new legitimate merchants. I thought that requiring PIOF was a great rule until we learned that if you buy something on MP (even for 0 lindens) you're given the PIOF designation. (not sure if that's been fixed yet.) I like Machess' idea of altering the viewer code to stop the content theft, but I'm not sure that it's even possible. If I recall an earlier thread on the topic of copy-botting, copy-botters utilize the same means that delivers SL to the desktop to copy any item that they wish. And lately, apparently there have been instances where people created a storefront and sold empty boxes, using other (legitimate merchants) product pics and descriptions. If requiring a one-time license fee is that abhorrent, and I can understand why, we still need a mechanism to classify, register, sort (whatever we want to call it) merchants to limit the potential for someone to defraud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Hexem Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Bad idea is bad and you should feel bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilyra Chardin Posted November 20, 2013 Author Share Posted November 20, 2013 Gadget Portal wrote: Bad idea is bad and you should feel bad. I just have to laugh sometimes. when we spoke about this in group, I said I was going to start this thread. People were in favor of it. A couple of people warned that I'd be "bashed," but I figured, the forums should be a place to express an idea and have a discussion. I don't feel bad for bringing up the topic. I wonder if anyone feels badly if they're reply stops just shy of, "wow that's incredibly stupid." LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motoko Oanomochi Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Hello, It is very easy, just add a rule that only premium avatar can have a shop on MP. But we can dream a lot about this, ... The best way it to stop MP, if my memory is good, SL is made for 3D ? not to sell 3D stuffs with 2D pictures Of course, without MP, it will less easy to LL to play with success/failure of shop, so it is urgent to change nothing ... Best Regards, Motoko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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