CasperTech Acquisition Discussion

[JJValero Writer]

Although I am aware that many users distrust this solution, I think it is the best possible one. My argument is that network vendors are not a product, they are a service.

When you buy a networked vendor, be it from Casper or from any other creator, it is providing you with a free service. This free service is the maintenance of servers, backup, technical support, ...

This service is not free for the creators who provide it, and I gather that a service that handles over a million transactions in a single day consumes a lot of bandwidth. Hosting is not exactly cheap.

This is a fixed cost that must be paid month by month. At first, when there are few users, there are more benefits than costs that are covered by vendor sales.

But if the number of users continues to grow and especially if the number of new buyers decreases, there may come a time when the benefits are significantly reduced and may even be lower than the costs.

That is why in a short time the creators are forced to create new products and addons.

HippoTech "got its fingers caught" and had to close down. But it is not the only one since there are other less well-known systems such as AeonVox or E2V that also "got their fingers caught".

I don't know if CasperTech is above or below the line where it still makes a profit. But in the long term it is inevitable that this business model will be unviable.

There are only two solutions, either a subscription system or the purchase of the system by LL.

If the subscription system is adopted, many users will switch to other systems and the sword of damocles will continue to threaten to fall just as HippoTech did.

That is why I say that the solution that has been adopted is better.

[Sammy Huntsman]

3 minutes ago, JJValero Writer said:

Although I am aware that many users distrust this solution, I think it is the best possible one. My argument is that network vendors are not a product, they are a service.

When you buy a networked vendor, be it from Casper or from any other creator, it is providing you with a free service. This free service is the maintenance of servers, backup, technical support, ...

This service is not free for the creators who provide it, and I gather that a service that handles over a million transactions in a single day consumes a lot of bandwidth. Hosting is not exactly cheap.

This is a fixed cost that must be paid month by month. At first, when there are few users, there are more benefits than costs that are covered by vendor sales.

But if the number of users continues to grow and especially if the number of new buyers decreases, there may come a time when the benefits are significantly reduced and may even be lower than the costs.

That is why in a short time the creators are forced to create new products and addons.

HippoTech "got its fingers caught" and had to close down. But it is not the only one since there are other less well-known systems such as AeonVox or E2V that also "got their fingers caught".

I don't know if CasperTech is above or below the line where it still makes a profit. But in the long term it is inevitable that this business model will be unviable.

There are only two solutions, either a subscription system or the purchase of the system by LL.

If the subscription system is adopted, many users will switch to other systems and the sword of damocles will continue to threaten to fall just as HippoTech did.

That is why I say that the solution that has been adopted is better.

MDLabs runs on a subscription service. So I mean there is one vendor company that will be very viable. 

[Qinelenlea Watanabe]

I have a question on the gift cards offered through Caspervend....are these going to be added/altered/changed so they can be used in the MP also?

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Qinelenlea Watanabe said:

I have a question on the gift cards offered through Caspervend....are these going to be added/altered/changed so they can be used in the MP also?

I had asked that question and was told it was a great idea. So I think that is probably in the pipeline in the future. 

[Qinelenlea Watanabe]

Awesome!  Thanks Sammy  😊

[Purr Waifu]

On 9/22/2022 at 8:36 PM, JJValero Writer said:

Although I am aware that many users distrust this solution, I think it is the best possible one. My argument is that network vendors are not a product, they are a service.

When you buy a networked vendor, be it from Casper or from any other creator, it is providing you with a free service. This free service is the maintenance of servers, backup, technical support, ...

This service is not free for the creators who provide it, and I gather that a service that handles over a million transactions in a single day consumes a lot of bandwidth. Hosting is not exactly cheap.

This is a fixed cost that must be paid month by month. At first, when there are few users, there are more benefits than costs that are covered by vendor sales.

But if the number of users continues to grow and especially if the number of new buyers decreases, there may come a time when the benefits are significantly reduced and may even be lower than the costs.

That is why in a short time the creators are forced to create new products and addons.

HippoTech "got its fingers caught" and had to close down. But it is not the only one since there are other less well-known systems such as AeonVox or E2V that also "got their fingers caught".

I don't know if CasperTech is above or below the line where it still makes a profit. But in the long term it is inevitable that this business model will be unviable.

There are only two solutions, either a subscription system or the purchase of the system by LL.

If the subscription system is adopted, many users will switch to other systems and the sword of damocles will continue to threaten to fall just as HippoTech did.

That is why I say that the solution that has been adopted is better.

 

 

This is true most of the time but I think in caspertech's case it's not an issue since there's always new stores opening up. Creators wants the systems on their "store avatars" rather than their main one which means buying the systems again. This is what covers the costs

[Rya Nitely]

I don't use Caspervend.

As someone described earlier, I hope they will incorporate redelivery into the object Edit For Sale tab.

My 1000s of landscaping items (both me and Reid Parkin) are all click and buy contents - every plant,  rock or piece of grass etc. is set to click and buy. It's easy and convenient for me and customers. But no redelivery option. Now this would be useful.

A bit of trivia -This whole idea was discussed in a beta group meeting with LL back in 2015, and Casper Warden was there. But the idea came to nothing. Although the idea wasn't to buy the system from Casper, at least that wasn't how it was presented. We were asked what we would like to see in such a system, and would we be prepared to pay for it.

 

 

[Casper Warden]

On 9/22/2022 at 7:36 PM, JJValero Writer said:

I don't know if CasperTech is above or below the line where it still makes a profit. But in the long term it is inevitable that this business model will be unviable.

Hi JJValero!

Although this information is largely moot due to the acquisition, I thought I'd chime in to answer this pragmatically.

As I've mentioned before, CasperTech has always been profitable since day one, and there are no signs that this would change in the future.  This is accomplished in a few ways:

• By maintaining reasonable pricing and a "free tier" to help new users get started
• By constantly making improvements to the back-end architecture to ensure it's as efficient as possible
• By carefully monitoring the most common support queries and responding to those by tweaking the user interface to reduce the need to contact support
• By strictly limiting support to the avatar that purchased the system (to prevent runaway support load from our customers' affiliates, staff and partners)
• By maintaining a wiki which is constantly updated with new information based on user experiences

The result of which is:

• Due to heavy optimisations made in 2017, I was able to cut server costs in half
• We have the capacity available to more than double our current load without adding more servers (and that's even without taking the redundant failovers into account)
• The vast majority of our users rarely need to contact support
• Users are onboarded quickly, easily and regularly, maintaining the flow that we depend on, as Misa alludes to

If I needed to, at any point, I could have switched to a subscription model to cover costs -  and frankly, i'm sure I could have made a lot more money this way - but this was never my driving ambition. I love having people use my products, I love making a difference.

And that's probably why we are still going after 13 years.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Casper Warden

[Sammy Huntsman]

@Casper Warden & @Patch Linden the caspervend redelivery website, needs a search function on it please 

[Norsk Himmel]

5 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

@Casper Warden & @Patch Linden the caspervend redelivery website, needs a search function on it please 

Just use CTRL F
☺️

[Qinelenlea Watanabe]

Actually Norsk I have had the feature turned off in preferences to send chat etc to my email account. 

[Qinelenlea Watanabe]

On 9/22/2022 at 11:36 AM, JJValero Writer said:

Although I am aware that many users distrust this solution, I think it is the best possible one. My argument is that network vendors are not a product, they are a service.

When you buy a networked vendor, be it from Casper or from any other creator, it is providing you with a free service. This free service is the maintenance of servers, backup, technical support, ...

This service is not free for the creators who provide it, and I gather that a service that handles over a million transactions in a single day consumes a lot of bandwidth. Hosting is not exactly cheap.

This is a fixed cost that must be paid month by month. At first, when there are few users, there are more benefits than costs that are covered by vendor sales.

But if the number of users continues to grow and especially if the number of new buyers decreases, there may come a time when the benefits are significantly reduced and may even be lower than the costs.

That is why in a short time the creators are forced to create new products and addons.

HippoTech "got its fingers caught" and had to close down. But it is not the only one since there are other less well-known systems such as AeonVox or E2V that also "got their fingers caught".

I don't know if CasperTech is above or below the line where it still makes a profit. But in the long term it is inevitable that this business model will be unviable.

There are only two solutions, either a subscription system or the purchase of the system by LL.

If the subscription system is adopted, many users will switch to other systems and the sword of damocles will continue to threaten to fall just as HippoTech did.

That is why I say that the solution that has been adopted is better.

Although Hippovend failed for whatever reason.....it is not the standard for other vendors such as Casper's.  His has proven reliable as well as he has stated it has been profitable in the model he created in both the vendor and the support system. 

As for "Subscription vendors"......they are an odd out because of the amount of people willing to pay a subscription versus a flat rate of percentage per sale.

Also I've checked on one of these "Subby services and they charge a purchase fee of 1kL's on top of either a large subscription fee or a fee based on sales for the vendor per month.   Sometimes the grass is really greener over a neighbor's grass when it is over a septic tank.  Not to speak ill will against the vendor selling this system but to suggest checking into the details before thinking a subby is better than a reputable system.

[SeattleChris]

Because I didn't catch the GDPR cutoff in the five days given, I opened a support ticket with LL to clear that data. They referred me to the letter sent by Casper to find out more information about how to do that. I said I read it, and it says after 9/19 to contact LL. The other information provided by the support Linden also seemed different than what I was seeing here, but of course, LL closed the support ticket immediately upon answering my questions (by simply ignoring half of them and answering different questions I hadn't asked). Ultimately, I was told that Casper was still handling GDPR requests and that the Linden hadn't answered the rest of my questions because the answers were unknown. "We don't know yet. We'll have to see." would have been a perfectly acceptable thing to say in the first place. While I'm sure this will end up being a positive thing, I'm still seeing a lot of conflicting information coming from various, yet authoritative, sources.

I have two major questions: As of today, to whom do I send a GDPR request? (And if it is still Casper, when will that actually change, since the cutoff date was some days ago.)

Will Casper and his staff still be handling support via the CasperTech group, or will that be run by LL?

Some of this seems to have been touched on, but again, since I'm seeing conflicting information about both, is there a definitive answer for either? (And I'm still happy to accept "we aren't sure yet.)

[bigmoe Whitfield]

53 minutes ago, SeattleChris said:

Because I didn't catch the GDPR cutoff in the five days given, I opened a support ticket with LL to clear that data. They referred me to the letter sent by Casper to find out more information about how to do that. I said I read it, and it says after 9/19 to contact LL. The other information provided by the support Linden also seemed different than what I was seeing here, but of course, LL closed the support ticket immediately upon answering my questions (by simply ignoring half of them and answering different questions I hadn't asked). Ultimately, I was told that Casper was still handling GDPR requests and that the Linden hadn't answered the rest of my questions because the answers were unknown. "We don't know yet. We'll have to see." would have been a perfectly acceptable thing to say in the first place. While I'm sure this will end up being a positive thing, I'm still seeing a lot of conflicting information coming from various, yet authoritative, sources.

I have two major questions: As of today, to whom do I send a GDPR request? (And if it is still Casper, when will that actually change, since the cutoff date was some days ago.)

Will Casper and his staff still be handling support via the CasperTech group, or will that be run by LL?

Some of this seems to have been touched on, but again, since I'm seeing conflicting information about both, is there a definitive answer for either? (And I'm still happy to accept "we aren't sure yet.)

once you do this, you can no longer use the systems, you are aware of this too right?

[Prokofy Neva]

So, I have a number of thoughts about this development as you can imagine and you can discuss them at length on my blog if you like.

1) I trust the Lindens will remove my name as the "sample griefer" in the teleporter list, should they also be adding the Casper teleporter products to their acquisitions. In general, global and shared bans are a bad idea in Second Life because they are generally put in for the wrong reason and there's no recourse.

2) The Lindens should consider removing the function that enables a merchant to block another resident from making purchases from them. I think this is a very pernicious feature for the Metaverse that will reach the point that some day, if you criticize some official or Silicon Valley engineer, you will not be able to buy bread and you will starve.

In SL, if someone is a griefer, or annoys you, you ban them from your land or LL bans them completely from the world. But what are the reasons you'd ban someone from buying something and lose a sale?! They are never good reasons. If someone has copied you, again, ban them, publicize them, file a DMCA but placing obstacles in the open marketplace is a terrible idea.

And silly, because they can always send an alt to buy something, and if you ban their alts, they will get a friend to buy your prefab house that you don't want to be seen in their rentals. It's kind of hard to stop the Internet in that way. 

3) How about refunds? So many of the Casper rental venders in particular are set so that you can't get a refund. I realize that with a product, you can't expect a refund when it's on copy/no transfer and certainly when it's a single copy. If it's defective, the merchant can re-issue it or deal with your concerns. But on rentals? You need refunds. I have them.

4) Of course the Lindens will use this as a means to tax more purchases and rentals inworld. That's the whole point. It's just a question of when. I still distribute an open-source rental script if anyone would like one.

I have never used Casper in any form and won't even if the Lindens mandate that this will be the only way that commerce can function in SL. 

But this notion that they will succeed in getting away from the land model of the Metaverse and exist totally on taxation, currency selling, and content selling -- and a software package and "the hook-up" perhaps -- it's folly. Pure fantasy! LL makes the lion's share of its profits from LAND. Look at the map. 27,000 islands, 9000 Mainland. You think the tier from all those sims is LESS than the percentages from the 50,000 concurrency buying items for $250-$500 on the MP? (That's their range, watch it over time and you will realize that's the norm).Than the percentages on the LindEx transactions? Do the math.  

Not even in a Metaverse of millions. The real world is based on land and sea; so will the Metaverse. 

And there's a limit to taxation.

Why can't you find the Mongolian Horde any more? Except in ruins. Because their subjects got tired of being taxed every which way and fought back.

The Lindens should take the opportunity to put all our inventory online where it will lag us out less and be easier to see and sort. If it can be on Casper online, it can all be online, period.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

In SL, if someone is a griefer, or annoys you, you ban them from your land or LL bans them completely from the world. But what are the reasons you'd ban someone from buying something and lose a sale?!

Because they leave fake / invalid reviews.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Because they leave fake / invalid reviews.

So? Good content drives out bad. If a review is fake, others will leave real ones and if it's good, good ones. The Lindens nerfed the MP because of the fragility of some divas, so that you can't comment on items as you could before. It removes accountability from business people. Not a valid reason. 

[Casper Warden]

5 hours ago, SeattleChris said:

As of today, to whom do I send a GDPR request? (And if it is still Casper, when will that actually change, since the cutoff date was some days ago.)

Hi Chris!

Even though the cut-off date to object to the data transfer has passed, you can still request deletion of your data in the same way - please use the tool at https://gdpr.casperdns.com/

CasperTech continues to operate in the same way as before, which includes all of our tools and support resources. They're just now owned by LL.

If you have any issues just give me a shout.

[Casper Warden]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

1) I trust the Lindens will remove my name as the "sample griefer" in the teleporter list

Prokofy, as you are well aware, your name was removed from the example notecard many years ago, as soon as you drew my attention to it.

As was explained at the time, I randomly (and in extremely bad judgement) used your avatar name to test name2key resolving during testing of that particular version, and I neglected to remove it before release. Again, I am very sorry for this. It was removed from the packs the very same day you informed me about it.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Casper Warden

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So? Good content drives out bad. If a review is fake, others will leave real ones and if it's good, good ones. The Lindens nerfed the MP because of the fragility of some divas, so that you can't comment on items as you could before. It removes accountability from business people. Not a valid reason. 

This appears to be an opinion.

[Jules Catlyn]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

This appears to be an opinion.

And one that never works in the real world

[Norsk Himmel]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

) The Lindens should consider removing the function that enables a merchant to block another resident from making purchases from them

No they shouldn't. 

Much like RL, a store can refuse certain people who have given them reason(s) to ban them. 

MP eventually brought in the option as well (although it would be better to have a list, as opposed to working from your blocked list, IMHO).

 

Stores will only ban folk (and lose any potential income from them) for their own very good reason(s).

Be it harassment, griefing, or any other multitude of "bad interactions" they have had.

[SeattleChris]

6 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

once you do this, you can no longer use the systems, you are aware of this too right?

I stopped using them quite some time ago. Well, I still currently use CasperSafe, I suppose. But that's a much easier switch than -Vend or -Let

But also, this isn't entirely true. Which is something I haven't seen mentioned in this discussion. The GDPR tool  allows a user to select what data to be removed by category (CasperSafe vistors, for instance). One can tick any or all categories, so the GDPR tool can be used to selectively remove categories belonging to products one doesn't use any more, even some categories for a product one does still use (like CasperSafe) or to request the removal of all data. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Edited October 1, 2022 by SeattleChris
clarity and typos

[SeattleChris]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

In SL, if someone is a griefer, or annoys you, you ban them from your land or LL bans them completely from the world. But what are the reasons you'd ban someone from buying something and lose a sale?!

 

The best reason I can think of is support. If someone's behavior is bad enough to warrant a ban/block, I can't imagine content creators wanting to support said grief using their products.

[Jules Catlyn]

7 minutes ago, SeattleChris said:

The best reason I can think of is support. If someone's behavior is bad enough to warrant a ban/block, I can't imagine content creators wanting to support said grief using their products.

That is a reason as well. But i think the main reason is more personal. A person should have the ability to secure their own peaceful and happy SL. So they should have the choice to block anyone from it. In any way shape or form.