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Cashout Fees To Rise to 5%


Alexxis DeCuir
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4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

You aren't in a position to determine Da5id's business plan

and you are in a position to tell me to shut up?.... you really make it absurd now. He publishes that himself, and he did that earlier this week also about his costs already in another thread.

Edited by Fox Wijaya
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2 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

position

What's your position Fox?  I think if anyone cares to know why you enjoy berating creators & musicians  (what you like to call "getting real" or something) it's easy to scroll up and find out.

My suggestion is to go work on your mesh skills.

Edited by Luna Bliss
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4 hours ago, Naiman Broome said:

I do not understand why LL is so focused in Killing SL by attacking the ones that create content ingame!

Without Merchants what would be SL?

Without Creators what would be SL?

Increasing 5% to a no limit feee , it passed from 1,5 to 5% in a two years!!!

I mean then you have to account that even paypal cuts another 3,5% on conversion fees.

Then there are VAT , that in my country at least takes another 25% !

So whats resulting in the end ?

I am really pissed to this habit of milking the cows instead of improving popularity and quality of the platform they point to milk the content creators that are keeping the platform on!

And what's worst you have no way to communicate your disappointment to LL as they just blindly take their decisions without care of inquire on the Merchants!

 

"Killing SL..." - let us put this into some perspective. After all we are talking only about the surcharge to cash-out, right?

MOST merchants never cash-out; they simply fund their SL costs, so SL will always have merchants.

99% of all merchants are CREATORS, so this is a redundant statement and many create for themselves and never sell, much less cash-out,

Increasing the fee to 10% is still a lot less than credit card fees in RL and cashing out has no direct connection the economy in SL.

Pay Pal has nothing to do with the economy of SL whatsoever.

VAT is your problem, call your political representative you voted-in and deal with them.

So what's the rsult in the end? Status quo. SL will live and remain all by its little lonesome self the way it does now.

Cash-out fees and other business overhead (a.k.a. "cost of doing business") affect far less people that you think. Linden Lab could remove cash-outs ntirely and sell Linden Dollars directly and make a crap-tom of RL money, so much they could probably do away with Premium meberships entirely.

Just because your "pissed" doesn't mean your stories of doom-and-gloom are anything other than self-important wishful thinking. Sure, we'd lose the big game-players like Blueberyy and such, but SL will easily survive without them.

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I just don't know why non-merchants get their backs up about this, when it really has no impact on them? I just don't get it.... why?

If land owners were told tier was going up, and that they may have to charge more in rent and they said they won't because they may lose tenants, I would see that as being totally their discussion and would feel absolutely no need to butt in with my views by contradicting and belittling their concerns. I would just feel it has nothing to do with me, and stay out of it, and maybe sympathise even though it isn't me.

Why, why is it so important for some non merchants to get their backs up about this? Maybe they are entertained by just annoying others who are feeling a bit down.

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2 hours ago, Rya Nitely said:

Why, why is it so important for some non merchants to get their backs up about this? Maybe they are entertained by just annoying others who are feeling a bit down.

shows your, and many others short sighted view again. Its only about your club
There are so many more people who cash out. Its this what makes this discussion impossible time after time.

hosts, dj's, live performers, traders, commisionairs, resellers, adult workers, advisors, decorators, ... and many more

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19 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:
3 hours ago, Rya Nitely said:

Why, why is it so important for some non merchants to get their backs up about this? Maybe they are entertained by just annoying others who are feeling a bit down.

shows your, and many others short sighted view again. Its only about your club
There are so many more people who cash out. Its this what makes this discussion impossible time after time.

hosts, dj's, live performers, traders, commisionairs, resellers, adult workers, advisors, decorators, ... and many more

You think you're a master derailer but you are not.

I have frequently said "merchants and service providers" in the discussion.   And just because Rya did not include service providers in his comment does not verify he is leaving them out.  Your logic needs work.

And, stop trying to divide people.  Merchants and all those who provide services are in this together.

Edited by Luna Bliss
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and my question wasn't answered.

Why is it soo important to them that they can carry on pages and pages of debating, even following the thread daily, when it probably has no or very little impact on them. They probably don't cash out regularly; they probably don't depend on SL as a source of income; and they probably don't work hard in SL to get a product out; or prepare for a gig; or provide tenants with support, resolve conflicts etc. on a daily basis; provide customer support and patiently educate them on how to edit and use products and on the latest advances in SL - example of this 'you need to set it to alpha masking' 'oh, what is that?' ' you need to select edit link' 'How do I do that?'. Don't underestimate the role we play in SL.

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Everyone is also forgetting that this Marketplace is VASTLY unmanaged. I'm a Merchant @ a few other 3D sites where 2d and 3d Products are sold. Each and every product is thoroughly tested prior to release at these sites. Think tanks exist where each product is scrutinized and combed over for approval. It can be done. But LL doesn't want any part of it. Because that would require hiring testers and managers to manage it all. And that simply isn't free. Overall the marketplace becomes more and more squashed with millions of ageing and now defunct products that no one buys or are competitive. Also, their ad features really leave a lot to be desired. To simply say no more new Talent exists and no one else is going to come is a bogus viewpoint and really is a slap to the thousands of existing Merchants who are here and can and are competing. Not everyone who has the Talent and skill has to have the desire for such fame and want of a huge store. Nor is it required. 

There are literally thousands of Vastly skilled artists here and you know what.. If Blueberry packed up tomorrow and Truth packed up and left, Guess what? The world would go on. End of story. And yes new and even more brilliant artist will emerge and they will become the next big thing.  Btw, also take into account Blueberry is not some little girl sitting on her boat popping out 27 products a day. This is a robust company in place that has many employees. And they do amazing work. But that shouldn't make people blind to how much other talent is out there in SL land.

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1 hour ago, Marx Alvord said:

To simply say no more new Talent exists and no one else is going to come is a bogus viewpoint and really is a slap to the thousands of existing Merchants who are here and can and are competing. Not everyone who has the Talent and skill has to have the desire for such fame and want of a huge store. Nor is it required. 

There are literally thousands of Vastly skilled artists here and you know what.. If Blueberry packed up tomorrow and Truth packed up and left, Guess what? The world would go on. End of story. And yes new and even more brilliant artist will emerge and they will become the next big thing. 

of course you're right. New talent exists and will take anyone's place over time and with increasing experience and exposure, reputation etc., but the point is would they want to, if you changed the conditions? Would they feel the drive to strive for that if it was not longer financially worthwhile, that's the question. Money makes SL go round. And yes, although this increase in fees, and the others we have experienced over the past couple of years will not kill anything off, but it can reach the point where people will say why bother. Is it worth the time effort, stress, customer service. It's not easy - remember that. And it's not always fun or rewarding.

Edited by Rya Nitely
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@Luna Bliss It's ok, don't worry about it. You get these guys. Back in the days before "the internet" became synonymous with "the web" (heck there wasn't even AN "internet", there were several "internetwork arrangements" and they only sometimes overlapped) and before the word "troll" entered regular usage we called them "knockers" - they'll knock any idea any position, often twisting themselves into pretzels to somehow manage to take a contrarian position to both sides of a well-defined discussion. They are actually useful at the start of a discussion, acting as the voice of pessimism and cynicism, but once the pretzeling starts you tune them out. Or, when they go off the rails, plonk 'em.

I used to be an active seller of "virtual things" - on the old forums, if you remember, you couldn't even see this board unless you were - but after I switched to being pretty much exclusively a performer I still didn't meet a single serious SL merchant who didn't regard me as being as much a "supplier" within the SL economy as they were and thus a part of their community. When you come down to it we're ALL artists of one type or another trying to make our art pay so that we can do more of it, right?

And "art as a business model" only gets to NOT be "on the edge of failing" for a tiny few, whatever the platform or venue. Virtual or physical, that's just the way it is, but we keep on making it and accept that risk because we love what we do. "Business" comes into it when you have to say "I can't afford to do this here no more" before you spend too much time, cost and effort trying to turn it around when it won't. And, let's face it, that's the concern some of us are raising here.  If LL believe our concerns are baseless or they believe that there's enough of us with larger margins to weather the changes and not detract from SL as a whole or that there are enough "budding talents" waiting to replace us that it won't matter, then they will not see our concerns as anything to stand in the way of the changes. They may even recognize our concerns and share them but the calculations of their own business model leave them no choice. Nonetheless we owe it to our colleagues in the creative community and to LL who are running the platform on which we want to continue expressing that creativity to raise those concerns, to make them part of the discussion. And in doing so, we can still tune out the "knockers".

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On 6/8/2019 at 10:19 AM, Naiman Broome said:

I mean then you have to account that even paypal cuts another 3,5% on conversion fees.

 

On 6/8/2019 at 10:45 AM, Fox Wijaya said:

no not at all, that's not in control of LL...

oh but it is. You all forget (or maybe you were not there yet), that in truth one of the very first steps in the line of events that caused the decrease in the net amounts of money that can be taken out of SL, was LL eliminating all third party exchanges. Prior to that, people elsewhere in the world could cash out their L$ in their own currency, and have them go straight to their bank accounts. It was LL who made us all switch to PP. Absolutely unnecessary and highly costly. If it wasn't for LL i would have never ever dealt with PayPal.

So, the least LL could do for us people who cash out from SL in return for this 100% increase in the cashout fees is to offer us a good option to cashout to, like bank transfer, or card withdrawal. Not to mention all those poor souls from the countries where PP or Skril is not available at all. They cannot even start a business in SL at all, and i am sure those countries have enough talented people SL could use, too.

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21 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

 

oh but it is. You all forget (or maybe you were not there yet), that in truth one of the very first steps in the line of events that caused the decrease in the net amounts of money that can be taken out of SL, was LL eliminating all third party exchanges. Prior to that, people elsewhere in the world could cash out their L$ in their own currency, and have them go straight to their bank accounts. It was LL who made us all switch to PP. Absolutely unnecessary and highly costly. If it wasn't for LL i would have never ever dealt with PayPal.

So, the least LL could do for us people who cash out from SL in return for this 100% increase in the cashout fees is to offer us a good option to cashout to, like bank transfer, or card withdrawal. Not to mention all those poor souls from the countries where PP or Skril is not available at all. They cannot even start a business in SL at all, and i am sure those countries have enough talented people SL could use, too.

its quite a bit more involved than LL just doing it. LL does have to now comply with the US FinCEN requirements which are quite detailed in who, and how LL can transmit currency. Its the FinCEN requirements that blocked the 3rd party L$ exchanges, not LL per se. There is a fairly comprehensive FinCEN Guide here on L$/US$ exchange and transmission. L$ is a CVC. CVC is Convertible Virtual Currency.  https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/FinCEN Guidance CVC FINAL 508.pdf 

on top of this the foreign entity also has requirements of their own

say I wanted to give LL access to my NZ bank account. My bank is going to make LL (a US company not directly subject to NZ law, subject only thru international banking treaty) jump through a lot of hoops to enable this even when I request my bank to allow LL to do a direct debit on my account. Even with a direct credit (where LL gives me money) then LL will need to sign a contract agreement with my bank to do this. My bank does not allow me to receive money from a foreign entity without first knowing (thru a banking treaty conformant contract) who that foreign entity is

for companies like Paypal, Skrill, etc money transmitting is their business, is all they do. So they do jump thru all the various hoops around the world. Merchants (which LL is from the transmitter's pov ) use these money transmitter companies, rather than have to do all the legal fulfillment themselves on a case by case basis for their individual customers

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44 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

for companies like Paypal, Skrill, etc money transmitting is their business, is all they do. So they do jump thru all the various hoops around the world. Merchants (which LL is from the transmitter's pov ) use these money transmitter companies, rather than have to do all the legal fulfillment themselves on a case by case basis for their individual customers 

Are you saying that PayPal and Skrill are the only options possible out there?? It's hard to believe there isn't anything better, and more modern. How about an option to transfer to a US bank account directly?

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Just now, Elvina Ewing said:

Are you saying that PayPal and Skrill are the only options possible out there?? It's hard to believe there isn't anything better, and more modern. How about an option to transfer to a US bank account directly?

on the first no they aren't, there are other companies also that do what PayPal and Skrill do, PayPal and Skrill are the market leaders in the international money transmitting business. Am not sure that adding another international provider would make a lot of difference, unless was something like Weibo maybe for the Chinese market

direct US banking could be an option for US users yes. Is lots of banks in the US tho. So not sure what the reaction would be if LL chose only some banks

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13 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

direct US banking could be an option for US users yes. Is lots of banks in the US tho. So not sure what the reaction would be if LL chose only some banks

TransferWise Borderless Account provides you with US bank account details. It is shown as Community Federal Savings bank. If LL chose this bank as an option to cashout to, people all over the world could sign up for a TransferWise Borderless account and have that one linked to their SL account, and could transfer their US$ without having to pay draconian fees to Paypal/Skrill.

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1 minute ago, Elvina Ewing said:

TransferWise Borderless Account provides you with US bank account details. It is shown as Community Federal Savings bank. If LL chose this bank as an option to cashout to, people all over the world could sign up for a TransferWise Borderless account and have that one linked to their SL account, and could transfer their US$ without having to pay draconian fees to Paypal/Skrill.

you could create a JIRA request for this. LL might do it

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16 hours ago, Rya Nitely said:

and my question wasn't answered.

I suppose that I'm one of those you consider a non-merchant sticking her nose into things that aren't any of her business. I actually am a merchant, though, in strictest of terms in that I do sell items on the MP and have provided services inworld in exchange for lindens. 

Secondly, though, disgruntled merchants do affect me as an avid consumer. All these lindens and profits that you are discussing come out of my (as a generic consumer, not me personally) pockets. Just as it's real cash money you're earning as a merchant, it's real cash money that I'm putting into SL to pay you so you can cash that money out. I love merchants. I love shopping. If merchants close up shop, that leaves me with less places to spend lindens and less choices.

And in my personal opinion, and I can throw in there 'as a merchant' if it makes my opinion more valid for whatever reason, I don't think the fee increase is unreasonable. People are free to disagree with me on that. That's cool. Debate is good. Some of the things that have been said to me, though... no. 

My entire point in dipping my toe into this fracas was to say that, hey, as a consumer, I'm totally good with you raising your prices to cover the increased fee. For saying that, and attempting to defend my willingness to give creators more money, I was literally told to shut up. I don't know about anyone else, but when someone says that to me, that's absolutely the last thing I'm going to do. I was also basically told that I don't know what I'm talking about by someone with literally no knowledge of my knowledge of running a business.

I was absolutely stunned that not one single merchant spoke up and said, "Hey, that's great that you're willing to pay more, thank you, we appreciate hearing that someone values what we do enough to cover our fees so we can keep doing it" and yes, that got my back up. Now there is someone alluding to us (me) as a troll or someone who just loves to be contrary and will argue about anything just to argue. 

Bottom line, and I'm really, really done here, the fee increase won't stop me from shopping at anyone's store if prices are raised. What will stop me is being told to shut up and I sure as hell won't go to a venue and tip a musician who labels me as a knocker or whatever it was. 

The. End.

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What makes you think I was referring to you, @Beth Macbain ? I'll go on record as saying I wasn't and that I haven't seen that kind of behavior from you in this discussion.

I guess it's one of the downsides of avoiding calling out specific people that folks who are not in the frame might get the impression that they are. You have my apologies for that.

Edited by Da5id Weatherwax
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On 6/8/2019 at 7:41 PM, Marx Alvord said:

To simply say no more new Talent exists and no one else is going to come is a bogus viewpoint and really is a slap to the thousands of existing Merchants who are here and can and are competing. Not everyone who has the Talent and skill has to have the desire for such fame and want of a huge store. Nor is it required.

I don't see anybody saying that, but....

Somebody else could have said what you just said.
Your words are replaceable.
I just wanted to let you know.

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