virtual goods Selling virtual goods on CREDIT (interest free)

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

So as others have said be careful and get a very good lawyer if you intend to proceed....

He's already doing it with his own stuff ..

On 3/23/2021 at 9:12 AM, Wili Clip said:

About half a year ago I started selling my virtual products on credit. At 1st I was setting credits manually in database for each customer upon their initial pre-payment of 30% and it was lots of unneccesary work. ............ 

I have been very happy with my credit sales little experiment. Since I've started offering my products on credit there is now a total for about 15 000 usd of customer/players debt on my books (database) for which its questionable of what % of it will be ever repaid but what is not repaid will be mainly because the SL users are no longer in SL.

.. to the tune of $15,000 USD

I wonder how much of that is interest ... or does anyone think he's actually been running a free credit scheme for a year (with "lots of unneccesary[sic] work") from the goodness of his heart?

[Charlotte Bartlett]

5 hours ago, Mollymews said:

pay-as-you-go methods can work

is a number of avatar makers who do/did this (mostly from Japan and Korea)

buy the avatar from them for some small amount like 10L (or even 0L in some cases)

the avatar comes fully costumed with a basic pack of functionality

then for  another small amount like 10L or about, can buy a time-limited 'energy' pack which enables added/extended functionality. When the time runs out then the avatar reverts to the basic functions.  I used to see people on these quite a lot on Linden Realms. Run round and earn the 10L. Buy the pack on MP, wear it, get the extended functionality and off they go til the energy runs out, then come back to the Realms and do it again

That's another great idea for concepts in SL for creators to do themselves. 

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

What you are describing is not credit as far as what you think it is but instead a 'buy now, pay later' scheme of which has different regulatory systems. BNPL is a method of which a person pays an initial payment and then the rest is placed on interest-free credit of which payment instalments are them made as defined under specific terms by the seller or agent on behalf of the seller.

In your example of what you are now doing is the same - BNPL. They pay 30% of the total and then go into an interest-free credit contract with you by which regular payments are then made by the buyer to reduce their debt to eventually own the product outright of which, not doing so can in cases effect credit rating of which you are also implying to create within SL.

Whilst the actual market is new, you are in essence creating a system within Second Life similar to After-Pay (After-Pay has loan licencing in all countries). As such regulations do apply.

The FCA in England are currently planning to regulate this area Buy-now-pay-later products to be regulated - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), California Financing Law states that you need a credit license to conduct a BNPL business US targets illegal buy now, pay later schemes (afr.com) (Sezzle has now obtained that license) and the Australian Finance Industry Association  currently has in place code of practices that need to be adhered to AFIA Buy Now Pay Later Code of Practice - New. As to the EU I am unsure.

All of these regulations are to protect the consumer and define a BNPL scheme under the same financial regulations of providing credit. Just because you are doing it in a virtual world does not remove your responsibility to adhere to those regulations.

As far as I am aware this would fall under the banking rules defined in the ToS of Second Life.

So as others have said be careful and get a very good lawyer if you intend to proceed and make sure you have discussions with Linden Lab as to whether you can even go about such a scheme when it is covered in most countries under Financial provider laws (i.e. banking regulation).

I was too tired to point it out but I suspect an argument not based on legal merit over definition of money versus token to ensue which underpins the loan definition.

Can't wait to see the user case for this once the UK’s Regulated Activities Order is updated and this "credit" product accidentally extends it to a 14 year old who is allowed to be on the platform.  

Joking (or perhaps not) aside - if Will just made this a simple subscription service to his own product (as in reality its license purchasing in SL, versus ownership)  and left it at that - it would not have been a terrible idea.  Blogotex do very well at it.

 

Edited March 25, 2021 by Charlotte Bartlett

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

He's already doing it with his own stuff ..

.. to the tune of $15,000 USD

Oh - I missed that. If that is the case then he just opened himself to a world of lawsuits

Quote

I wonder how much of that is interest ... or does anyone think he's actually been running a free credit scheme for a year (with "lots of unneccesary[sic] work") from the goodness of his heart?

If he charges interest then that instantly is recognised as banking and automatically falls under all banking regulation. If he is not and is conducting a interest free credit system then it is BNPL and therefore still subject to regulation and possibly (more than likely) the banking ToS of Second Life. No matter what regulations apply and licenses need to be obtained.

Since he has not dont this then, well... good luck to him. 

2 hours ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

I was too tired to point it out but I suspect an argument not based on legal merit over definition of money versus token to ensue which underpins the loan definition.

It does not matter as such definitions are not subject to USA Law only. For instance, Australian law defines specifically Linden Dollars as real money as far as tax goes so even if you dont cash out Linden Dollar tokens, you are still liable to report your earnings based on the equivalent worth of those tokens exchange rate wise.

Given this, the argument still stands in that he is providing a credit BNPL scheme and under Australian law that is illegal without adhering to consumer laws and codes of practices. So if he does this credit system to an Australian user he will be liable should something happen.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[RunawayBunny]

Fish hunt have a system you can buy a "pro fishing rod" with credits and pay credits with fishing.

This system going on for a long time and so far not shutdown by LL or faced any lawsuit.

I think OP trying to apply same system on products belongs to others, most likely with a commission (aka trust).

[Dragon Mommy]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

Oh - I missed that. If that is the case then he just opened himself to a world of lawsuits

Maybe, maybe not. Linden sits in a strange place in a world fast catching up to regulating crypto and other forms of virtual currencies. What that will or wont mean for Linden currencies is TBD, I think. It's absolutely a dangerous place to be in, especially if we are talking sums greater than 10k USD (which by OPs accounts, we are.) 

I think the most untested angle from a legal standpoint would be the data collection. No matter how you spin it keeping 'credit scores' and other data on users enters into interesting territory. I'm not a lawyer though.

Chances are though this is unlikely to run headfirst into legal trouble if it remains within the singular system as part of the way you can enter the game. Pay the full amount upfront and keep 100% of winnings, or pay the partial amount and keep 50% until the full amount is remitted. You could easily spin that as two price points for the same item with just one working a little different for awhile, no actual 'loaned' funds.  That doesn't seem to be the actual intention though, this seems to be an ill-advised attempt to become the SL version of Afterpay or Sezzle. 

A little primer on how those companies work: Most pay their merchants up front, and handle payments afterwards. That is why merchants are willing to use them. Say I sell makeup and a customer checks out using Sezzle. In most agreements, Sezzle pays me the full amount right away (minus their cut, a few % points, which is how they make money), and my part of the transaction is done. I'm not at risk for late payments, or non-payments. Sezzle takes care of that because the customer doesn't owe me anything. They owe Sezzle.

Unless OP is willing to put up their own linden to cover creator butts and handle ALL late payments, lost payments, etc, in a virtual world is 0 way to enforce any of this, I cannot see this being something that gets off the ground. I also cannot see it in that state being okay by LL, because then they ARE offering loans. Directly. 

 

[Qie Niangao]

 

5 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

He's already doing it with his own stuff ..

.. to the tune of $15,000 USD

I wonder how much of that is interest ... or does anyone think he's actually been running a free credit scheme for a year (with "lots of unneccesary[sic] work") from the goodness of his heart?

Not the goodness of his heart, but I can see "paying over time" as a way to attract buyers who wouldn't spring for the whole cost upfront. On the other hand, that kinda screws the poor sap who does pay up-front. Which is why I like Charlotte's suggestion:

5 hours ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

Joking (or perhaps not) aside - if Will just made this a simple subscription service to his own product (as in reality its license purchasing in SL, versus ownership)  and left it at that - it would not have been a terrible idea.  Blogotex do very well at it.

All SL "products" are really licenses, so it's no great leap to offer them as services instead of (or in addition to) a one-time upfront purchase. The problems seem to arise when the service reverts to free when that upfront cost is recouped—the "credit" thing. It certainly adds to the bookkeeping burden compared to just charging a recurring fee to keep the service running.

I'll mention one sector that's ripe for this kind of disruption: Club equipment, particularly "sploders" and their associated "security" systems, which really make more sense as services than as upfront purchases given the typical business prospects of a club. (As with some of the OP's businesses, I think* sploders may skim a cut of the take on an ongoing basis, though, which is already kinda similar to the whole "charge for service" model.) Club equipment is a notoriously scummy industry with at least one pathologically vindictive participant, but if someone were prepared for the ensuing battle, there's fat margin to be had.

________________
*I'd check this, but Marketplace is throwing "504 Getway Time-out" at the moment.

 

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

Why bother to log into Second Life any more since it just like real life now.

Thank you for wasting the past 16 years of my life.

[Selene Gregoire]

22 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

How do transient visitors differ from transient users? I've been here for 13 years, but probably spend less time in-world in a month than most newcomers. Though I'd never make the argument, you know someone will say "I hardly ever use the thing, why should I pay full price?" Do you think that new users, faced with a debt burden should they decide to stay, might be more inclined to leave? Might they just rejoin under a different ID to shed the debt?

Let's say I purchase this $10K home for $1K and decide not to pay the credit. LL won't have anything on their books stating that $9K is owed. There is no concept of debt in the L$ ecosystem. Does Wili file an abuse report with LL to recover the $9K? That'll be a resident-to-resident dispute over US$36. They won't get involved and without that, Wili has zero leverage other than block/ban. What do I care? I've got the house. If Wili does file abuse reports, I imagine LL quickly concluding "he asked for it".

I think you are giving LL a little too much credibility in that last paragraph. 

I do have my suspicions that some accounts are being suspended days and weeks after the "event", leaving the person completely baffled as to what they did wrong because the only explanation given is a link to the guidelines. ALL of the guidelines, not the one (or ones) that were supposedly broken. ALL of them, which is completely useless in determining what was done wrong and fixing it. People can't improve things if they don't know what went wrong.

[Wili Clip]

14 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

The FCA in England are currently planning to regulate this area Buy-now-pay-later products to be regulated - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), California Financing Law states that you need a credit license to conduct a BNPL business US targets illegal buy now, pay later schemes (afr.com) (Sezzle has now obtained that license) and the Australian Finance Industry Association  currently has in place code of practices that need to be adhered to AFIA Buy Now Pay Later Code of Practice - New. As to the EU I am unsure.

Sezzle that you are mentioning is problematic because it seems it actually gives out loans for the remaining payments owed and product sellers get 100% of money. They are effectively trying to replace credit cards.

Quote

Under such systems, an online shopper chooses Sezzle or one of its competitors instead of a credit card at checkout. The customer pays 25% of the purchase, with the payments firm paying the other 75% to the merchant. The payments firm then sets up a no-interest, six-week repayment plan with the shopper. The payments firm is paid a percentage of the value of the transaction from the merchant, similar to how credit card firms make revenue. The payments firms charge additional fees to the shoppers if they miss payments.

Source:
https://www.startribune.com/sezzle-shares-plunge-after-california-moves-to-regulate-online-installment-payments/566694521/

What I offer to my customers through Second Life for my virtual goods is different. There are no banking services, no loans, no interests and there are no payment schedules and no penalties and no missed payments and no terms on how and until when their remaining payment needs to be paid. It is not a financial credit. It is just a very simple delayed payment for end product.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Wili Clip

[FairreLilette]

42 minutes ago, Wili Clip said:

It is just a very simple delayed payment for end product.

If you mean a trial period, that is not bad for some items such as Qie is suggesting regarding club items for example.  

However, just me as me...I have a very full RL and SL, I could not keep track of what I owe for things nor would I want too, and I'd never buy a 10,000 linden house anyways, so I'm not your audience.  Not that you mentioned 10K linden homes but someone in this thread did.  I far prefer Scarlet's, Dust Bunnies, Trompe L'oeil's houses for some examples and don't have enough time to enjoy all of those I love as it is.  There is a thing in business, know your audience.  I just know, it doesn't fit me.  I would not like it nor need it.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

1 hour ago, Wili Clip said:

It is not a financial credit. It is just a very simple delayed payment for end product.

Preceded by (my emphasis) his OP on "credit".   

"Credit" the ability of a customer to obtain goods or services before payment, based on the trust that payment will be made in the future.

Anyway back to RL.  

On 3/23/2021 at 8:12 AM, Wili Clip said:

I am currently running an experiment that I might decide in future to develop into a full scale system that other content creators in SL can benefit from.

About half a year ago I started selling my virtual products on credit. At 1st I was setting credits manually in database for each customer upon their initial pre-payment of 30% and it was lots of unneccesary work. But recently I programmed what I call a credit vendor and now when customers pay 30% of full price of the product the remaining 70% is set as debt automatically. These remaining 70% then they pay off with 50% of their earnings from all of my systems when they withdraw them.

From the 1st look it might seem that this is a bad idea and that it doesn't make sense and that as a content creator I am loosing money. But it is really not a bad idea and I ❤ the concept. And here is why:

Drop rate of new signups in Second Life or Residents who stay in SL for only a month or few months is very high (like for any other free social platform - people try it out some stay lots drop out). 

If as a content creator I can sell my products for at least 10 - 30% of full price through credit vendor (as in case of many SL drop outs who will never pay off their debt because they stop using SL) I am still getting sales that otherwise would not happen.

*The virtual goods I sell are no transfer so they can not transfer to another avatar and abandon their obligation to pay.

Unlike with RL physical goods there is no material production cost and with virtual goods we can sell unlimited copies of it.

Because above reasons to me selling virtual goods on credit makes a perfect sense.

Another amazing reason worth pointing out is that i n this way I can get my product and brands in the hands of many more people and that makes for great marketing effect. If your product is not worn or used by anyone and for others to see it and talk about it then that is almost the same as if it doesn't even exist. 

(There is a scifi book author Cory Doctorow who issues his books with public copyright permissions, so books can be copied basically for free and his argument is that this way more people find out for his work and he also gets more sales). I learned great deal from reading about his rationale from a preface of one of his book.

Selling something on credit is known concept already from ancient times. While for the selling of virtual goods on credit I kind of hope I am the 1st one or one of the 1st ones doing it in history. \O.. O/

Now 1 main disadvantage or risk is that a customer doesn't fulfill their obligation to pay off their debt (but at least they paid pre-payment). So if I ever build full scale credit system for other content creators to use the customers will have a credit rating / credit score that will be based on their past repayment of debts. Customers with bad or low credit rating won't be able to make any aditional credit purchases and content creators using credit vendors will be able to set minimum credit rating needed to buy on credit.

I have been very happy with my credit sales little experiment. Since I've started offering my products on credit there is now a total for about 15 000 usd of customer/players debt on my books (database) for which its questionable of what % of it will be ever repaid but what is not repaid will be mainly because the SL users are no longer in SL.

It has not hurt my product sales purchased paying full price. I think its actually boosting it.

I've established trust with hundreds of customers. By giving them my trust first that they will respect their obligation.

My goal is for the debt to grow to 21 000 000 L$ by the end of 2021 for a better proof on concept and if its recepted well by content creators community I might expand the credit system for others to be able to sell on credit through it too.

We'll see \O.. O/

Some general advantages and disadvantages of selling on credit from the web:

Advantages:

An increase in sales may happen when you start selling on credit. Your customers are likely to buy from you as their cash flow is not disrupted and it is not necessary to pay upfront to competitors. Better customer loyalty. Offering credit to customers demonstrates trust.

 

Disadvantages:

• It can lead to bad debts.There is no guarantee that the customers will pay back. 
• Loss of income/capital. Bad debt is a loss of income as well as loss of capital you have invested in buying the goods.  (Does not apply for virtual / digital goods of which there can be unlimited copies and copying has 0 cost).
• Strained relationship. 

[Paul Hexem]

If someone named "Irs" shows up on your caller ID any time soon, I wouldn't answer it. 

[Drayke Newall]

7 hours ago, Wili Clip said:

Sezzle that you are mentioning is problematic because it seems it actually gives out loans for the remaining payments owed and product sellers get 100% of money. They are effectively trying to replace credit cards.

That is what you are doing. By you allowing them to pay back a debt it is exactly the same as you offering a credit service. They have paid for some of the product and cant return that product and still have a technical debt with you even if they never pay it off. Despite that it is not only Sezzle that need the licence it is every BNPL service. Even if I was to set up a BNPL business and allowed a person to owe me the debt it is still credit.

Rent to buy is also different as they can if they want return the product and forgo further payments and it is from this specific clause, being able to return the product if they dont want to continue to buy it, that most places consider it leasing. Remove that 'returning the product' clause and it would be considered credit. Additionally whilst 47 states in America have stated that Rent to Buy is simply leasing, 3 of them have declared it a credit service and therefore subject to credit financial law.

You do not offer a person the ability to return the product without continuing payment and therefore it is not rent to buy either. Even if it was, how are you going to go about trying to do what you are doing when 3 States in America state that it is credit and subject to finance regulation which is against the ToS to operate in SL?

What you are describing and thinking your service is, is the old layby method we had here in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa whereby a person puts a deposit down and then as you pay it off you then own it. The difference is with layby you dont take the product home, you only get that product when you pay the full amount.

Quote

What I offer to my customers through Second Life for my virtual goods is different. There are no banking services, no loans, no interests and there are no payment schedules and no penalties and no missed payments and no terms on how and until when their remaining payment needs to be paid. It is not a financial credit. It is just a very simple delayed payment for end product.

That is exactly what the word 'terms' mean.

Your 'terms' for offering them an interest free credit on a product is that they pay 30% now and then gradually pay it back when they withdraw rewards from your system. That is a payment schedule. The fact that there are no penalties for missed payments or no penalties for the length of time is also part of your 'terms'.

Interest also does not need to be taken into consideration as I can buy a fridge interest free for 60 months and not pay anything until that time runs out if I wanted to but that is still subject to banking regulation as it is a credit service.

Furthermore, you even go as far as stating you want to set up a credit rating system meaning there would be a technical 'forcing' of a person to pay back that debt as fast as possible as, if they dont they will have a low credit rating in Second Life that could affect them buying further products.

Despite all this, the very fact that you set such a system up without specifically talking to Linden Lab to see if it complies is just silly on your part.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Lindal Kidd]

Hmmm.

You have $15,000 USD of outstanding payments on the books!? I'm not sure whether to congratulate you on your volume of sales, or shake my head at anyone who'd put this on the "asset" side of their business books.

Given human nature, I don't think this scheme could ever pay off, unless you implemented some sort of disabling timer on your products. If the buyer doesn't pay the next installment by, say, 30 days after purchase, the item stops working until the installment is paid.

[SiouxsieSpider]

I am very unhappy to be writing this, and am using an alt to protect from harassment by the OP and associates. This is the only post I am making here.

I have been using goldhunt and fish products for many many many years.

These forum threads are very disturbing to me as a customer, for the following reasons.

1. The lack of insight into his own product and how people use it. Nobody has cared about the land traffic rating for more then a decade. The primary motive is no longer the land number count but exposure for our products and altruism to the hunters(who are often new, or have trouble with other ways to get lindens). The land owners that buy Wili's sales pitch generally do not last long on the system, because the feature is claims to emphasize is obsolete for SL search.

2. The rudeness displayed to people on these threads when folks are not going along with it. We who use his products already have to deal with people thinking its trying to game the system, due to the use of old adds emphasizing traffic gains(that no longer matter, as per the previous point). The rudeness does not reflect only on him, it reflects on his whole product and his whole company. It reflects everyone who is associated with him, and permanently damages the reputation of ALL of the land owners who use his products.

3. The sketchiness. Recently, a woman on my land started bragging about how lucky she was to have a "Fish master". I seen the new fishing card system and asked her about it. What I got was a long, strange paragraph that someone owned her and she was lucky to be owned. I assumed it was some sex thing and just shrugged, but no, it wasn't a sex thing. She kept selling her cards for lots of L up front, but people are "owning" more and more percentages of everything she fishes, and now she earns very little for herself. She also admitted to me that she has a mental disability in RL, I do not think it is a troll, I think she has fallen for the worst combination of multi level marketing and ponzi scheme I have ever seen.

To add this system of of owning fishers profits to his ideas about adding more "Credit systems", and the possibility that she is not the only one who isn't financially literate doing this, and is impacted by her disability, I am shocked and disturbed. To have a real credit system, a good financial system has background checks on those borrowing. He has none, and it again negatively impacts the health of his community and the reputation of the owners lands. How can "owning" 75% of a disabled woman's fishing pennies be at all satisfying? For the land owner, or for the company owner? It is uncomfortable, to say the least.

4. He is not who he is presenting himself as, and this is again shocking and disturbing to me as a land owner and host of his games. He is creating an image of the under dog up and coming entrepreneur. He is not though, as he is previously associated with "SL Capital Exchange", who have a bad reputation that precedes them, as well as past shady dealing involving bitcoins. There is a long long thread  here about it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1346981.0 , with a lot of unhappy past customers and investors. Some of it must be taken with a grain of salt as some are clearly people who got banned from the game, but I can read Slovenian and the Slovene associated accusations don't look good for Wili. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and this is a California fire season air quality hazard.

I am very upset and dismayed by all this, and have made the decision to pull all these games off of my land slowly of the course of the next few months, to give the community of players time to adjust. I will be strongly encouraging all layers to try out alternatives. This looks VERY BAD, and I am in doubt as to how this could possibly last and be sustainable, especially with a recent "Hacking incident" that has left residents wondering where there money is, and a recent "price run" on farm plots with over a thousand lindens per tiny plot being an " Emergency Discount", somehow.

Tl;dr: Wili, your customers can use google and read forum threads. Think critically,

 

[Coffee Pancake]

WTH IS A FISH MASTER

[Rowan Amore]

18 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

WTH IS A FISH MASTER

Is that anything like a master baiter?

[Polenth Yue]

4 hours ago, SiouxsieSpider said:

I am very upset and dismayed by all this, and have made the decision to pull all these games off of my land slowly of the course of the next few months, to give the community of players time to adjust. I will be strongly encouraging all layers to try out alternatives. This looks VERY BAD, and I am in doubt as to how this could possibly last and be sustainable, especially with a recent "Hacking incident" that has left residents wondering where there money is, and a recent "price run" on farm plots with over a thousand lindens per tiny plot being an " Emergency Discount", somehow.

This is why people here are pushing back on these ideas (rather than everyone being mean vultures who can't take new ideas). Not because the original poster will ever listen, but because it can sound good to someone who wants to earn a bit of money and doesn't know where to start. Maybe they could join the business group and someone who has succeeded will share the secret, or take part in that franchise that's guaranteed to make money, and so on and so forth. But it's not going to work like that. These schemes are designed to make money for the one running it at the expense of people in the system.

Fish hunt seems to have done well because some of the people within it created a good community environment, but the community needs to realise that they did that work. It's clear the person running it doesn't understand the community side of the success and doesn't really care about those aspects outside of the money it brings in.

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, SiouxsieSpider said:

I am very upset and dismayed by all this, and have made the decision to pull all these games off of my land slowly of the course of the next few months, to give the community of players time to adjust. I will be strongly encouraging all layers to try out alternatives.

This whole post is intriguing; I wish I knew the underlying facts (including what a "fish master" is!).

The particular excerpt above is forward-looking, and I'm interested in whether the slow withdrawal approach is really the best for that local community of players, as opposed to an overnight swap-out of one system with another, with a carefully worded notice explaining the switch. There's a natural inclination to be gentle, I understand, but might that cause the community to slowly dissipate to other spots still offering the old system? Probably there'd be some attrition either way (and perhaps some infusion of new players, too, attracted by the replacement system), and presumably the objective is to retain as much of that community spirit as possible, either on this land or wherever the participants choose to go. I really can't advise which way is better (nor how to word a notice if/when one is to be posted); maybe somebody has a reasoned intuition about this.

In passing, I'm really not so sure the average fish-camping venue is so innocent about traffic. That metric certainly doesn't have the same Search mojo it once had, but it still does matter—more for some searches (and searchers) than others. There's at least that perception problem of "people thinking it's trying to game the system" when folks (ncluding me) see one of these fish-camping setups at a venue.

[Finite]

8 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Is that anything like a master baiter?

Thank you for this.. *Proceeds to wipe coffee from monitor and keyboard*

Edited March 26, 2021 by Finite

[Wili Clip]

On 3/25/2021 at 5:54 AM, Charlotte Bartlett said:

CIP, KYC, through to definitions that come from such a complex landscape that you will and I repeat this struggle with.

As a SL virtual goods creator and merchant I don't need to know my customers RL identity KYC and don't need to collect their personal identifiable information because I don't run or provide any financial services. If I ever start collecting and storing any RL identity data for any other reason needed I will follow all the regulations around that and will be in full compliance with the new personal data protection laws.

For SL customers buying products with delayed repayment all I store is their avatar name and universally unique identifier (uuid), product bought, amount of full price paid and amount that still needs to be paid.

*(I learned that I should probably not use words selling on credit for it confuses so many people in thinking it uses the conventional bank loans or credit cards like debt or that someone is collecting interests).

No the debt from my delayed product payments is not being financed by anyone (there is no loan behind it). The debt is not legaly enforcable because there is no loan or credit contract that would be legaly binding the customer to any terms of re-payment. For those reasons I think that the customer protection laws that are being created to protect customers from getting into debt they can't handle don't apply here. 

Customers / players are paying off their debt in a systematic way as part of the game (50% when they cash out their earnings from game system) as long as they participate in the system and they can opt out any time (no strings attached). So in practice like some mentioned is like a paid service or a subscription.

I am not running any banking services or products nor I have any intention to develop any banking products or financial services.

Banking is against TOS of SL. I am aware of that.

But this does not mean that as a content creator in SL I am not allowed to create products and services in SL that are sold for L$. Second Life TOS defines L$ to be exactly for that to be exchanged for user created products and services and with that TOS encourages creators to create new things in SL.

I am an innovator and I look to create fringe products and services that noone has thought of before. My most successful systems are being copied by many. I don't copy from others I have my own ideas and I pride myself on inventing.

This is what I do and I am thankful for Second Life being an environment that is supportive of innovations. Its known that innovating is not considered safe because you are creating something that was not yet regulated by law or rules.

I wish Second Life was on overall even more innovative. There are so many different laws created about everything that we are even becoming afraid to breath.

Rest assured that I can read the laws and I can know if I am breaking or not breaking any laws or rules.

Maybe that is why most people find it easier to copy from others because its safe and sure and seen to be working. To create something new is an intense learning process that takes many attempts to get it right. And there is a high rate of failure and you just need to be strong and confident to learn from failed attempts.

People who copy work from others are weak and just followers.

As for why I like to write about these things on public forum... Its because I find it intelectually stimulating talking about such things with other people. And often other people share things here that I haven't thought of or learned about and it motivates me to do research on such things and get acquainted  with them.

For that I am thankful to everyone even if some people like to comment everything from a rather negative and pesimistic angle / view.  

[Wili Clip]

On 3/25/2021 at 6:04 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

He's already doing it with his own stuff ..

.. to the tune of $15,000 USD

Read my opening post again (you severely missread) that 15k is the amount remaining by players that still need to be paid off and there are no interest. Lots of players I get quit SL or no longer play the game after some time so most of those 15 000 usd will not be repaid and that is ok with me. 

[Selene Gregoire]

[Rowan Amore]

11 minutes ago, Wili Clip said:

As for why I like to write about these things on public forum... Its because I find it intelectually stimulating talking about such things with other people.

Here's the thing, at least for me.  Never heard of you before your numerous posts here in the last couple months.  Now that I've read them?  I would never purchase anything from you.  My impression of you is of someone trying to make a ton of money with whatever scheme you can think up.  You say your fishing isn't about traffic yet you still have your signature stating just that.  

I've also googled you and the couple things I found were not complimentary and seem to reinforce my impression of you.  

We have the obvious pyramid scheme with your silver mines and now this?  You think it's legal?  You've read some things about it?  As someone mentioned, unless you're a lawyer, what you think isn't relevant.  I'm sure I'm not alone in my thought about you and your schemes.

[Rat Luv]

10 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

WTH IS A FISH MASTER