CasperTech Acquisition Discussion

[AlexiosPanos]

Is CasperVend going to be subscription based?

most of the answers has been not in the foreseeable future which does not give a definitive negative nor positive, but as someone that had spent money to get the system in full knowing that I'm going to be able and use it  without additional charges.

it's one of the biggest reason why I started using CasperVend, but if there's going to be a subscription in the future i can't imagine myself using it at all and it'll discourage a lot of startups as myself to use it as well.

Edited September 14, 2022 by AlexiosPanos

[Cornelius Collazo]

I'm curious about the wording of the announcement...

Did Linden Labs / Linden Research acquire CasperTech... or just a portion of CasperTech?

I ask because the announcement says "the Second Life portion of CasperTech is being acquired by Linden Research, Inc" (emphasis added).

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Bren Kenin said:

If I'm not mistaken, CasperTech also includes Casperlet, CasperSafe, CasperUpdate, etc. Will these be included in the purchase of CasperTech? I'm all for less scripts and less setup time but also concerned about the data analytics not being available nor the ability to search specific purchasers, verify purchases, have a ban list, etc. Just the first things that came to mind. I do, however, think, overall, it's a great move.

I can see putting the ones that are similar in the same package. But not selling the whole shebang, caspervend and casperlet are two totaly different things. One has to do with sales of goods and services, the other has to do with rentals and land security. 

[Crim Mip]

It's undeniable that the server reliability of Casper has gotten progressively worse the last couple years. This has been a major headache for residents, but I assume for LL as well. Given that they are by far the most used vendor and rental systems in SL, it can only be a good thing having the system on more reliable servers.

This brings up what probably is a more important reason for LL buying them out. The amount of financial data that could be inferred from the transaction information from Casper is statistically very significant. LL might well have wanted to move that under their control. This is totally legitimate.

That does bring up something. If LL owns Casper, what happens with the other rental and vendor systems? If LL started giving away the systems for free, that would kill the market (and preclude having to make Casper the only officially allowed systems). If they charge, they are competing against the others but with a major insider advantage in adding features and hooks into SL.

[RuRu Macbain]

I'm not sure where this will lead, but I remember when Casper first rolled his system out, and how helpful he has always been. I can only applaud him on his hard work and what his initial idea has grown into.  I commend Linden Labs for recognizing that.

Congratulations Casper! 🎉

[TimKoul]

@Patch Linden I don't see this as a good thing. In order to make money off this, it would have to be subscription based as Caspertech was a one time charge. Would this system be integrated into premium and would free accounts have access? Forgive me if these questions were already asked. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by TimKoul

[Gwin LeShelle]

So LL not doing something about certain beloved regions and keeping them alive people moan, now LL aquires an important thing for many residents instead of letting it die and the residents...moan! I don't understand you people lol I think its awesome you guys save it, and keeping it stable. It's awesome LL sees the things ...the awesome things their residents invent and use, and are treasuring our inventions enough to save them for eternity instead of leaving it to die when the creator of it can't handle it anymore and would otherwise probably just give it up.

Redeliveries forever ♾️ x3 ❤️

[Solar Legion]

6 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

No, they're not, there are still and will always be third-party vendors. That is separate from Caspervend. What is with this whole the sky is falling kinda post? They have already stated, that third party vending systems will still be a thing. And this is totally not a monopoly, this is just LL being smart and realizing that if a vendor system like this, were to ever fail. Then it would be catastrophic for the SL economy. 

Par for the course for some - there will always be the domsayers.

[Sandy Schnook]

If it prevents what happened when Hippovend pulled out then I'm good with this.   That was a nightmare.  There are other systems still available, but few offer the amenities Caspervend does.  But if someone is really set against Caspervend or any other system, there is always the old way of putting out a box, pay it to give another box and eliminate all middlemen vendors.

[SavannahRaye]

As another content creator that is using CasperVend, will there be managers brought back into the system?  I know there is alot of stores that has a management team that could help us with setup, etc. I personally miss that part of the system

[Sphynx Soleil]

4 minutes ago, Crim Mip said:

It's undeniable that the server reliability of Casper has gotten progressively worse the last couple years...

How so?

Just now, Sandy Schnook said:

If it prevents what happened when Hippovend pulled out then I'm good with this.   That was a nightmare.  There are other systems still available, but few offer the amenities Caspervend does.  But if someone is really set against Caspervend or any other system, there is always the old way of putting out a box, pay it to give another box and eliminate all middlemen vendors.

Hippovend, at the time they announcing leaving the grid, had already lost a substantial number of their customers.

[Norsk Himmel]

9 minutes ago, Cornelius Collazo said:

I'm curious about the wording of the announcement...

Did Linden Labs / Linden Research acquire CasperTech... or just a portion of CasperTech?

I ask because the announcement says "the Second Life portion of CasperTech is being acquired by Linden Research, Inc" (emphasis added).

CasperTech is a fully-fleged company both within, and ouside of SL. LL bought the SL part.

[Casper Warden]

9 minutes ago, Cornelius Collazo said:

I'm curious about the wording of the announcement...

Did Linden Labs / Linden Research acquire CasperTech... or just a portion of CasperTech?

I ask because the announcement says "the Second Life portion of CasperTech is being acquired by Linden Research, Inc" (emphasis added).

LL acquired the second life portion of CasperTech.  We still exist as an independent business, but anything in Second Life is under LL's remit.

[Certified Lunasea]

1 minute ago, Cornelius Collazo said:

I'm curious about the wording of the announcement...

Did Linden Labs / Linden Research acquire CasperTech... or just a portion of CasperTech?

I ask because the announcement says "the Second Life portion of CasperTech is being acquired by Linden Research, Inc" (emphasis added).

This would be exactly what I would be concerned about to be honest. I am not a fan of LL purchasing resident businesses in order to compete with residents in any way, shape, manner, fashion, or form. Any time Linden Lab acquires a resident run business or portion of such it can create instability in both the in-world economy and the established user-base of Second Life as it can be seen to create a sort of preference in the market. Given the possible harm such actions can have I do hope that they looked into such potentialities before making this acquisition.

[Sandy Schnook]

1 minute ago, Sphynx Soleil said:

How so?

Hippovend, at the time they announcing leaving the grid, had already lost a substantial number of their customers.

I was not one of those customers as a vendor.  But rushing around to make sure we had copies of all our purchases was a pain, since redelivery from them was also disappearing.

 

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I can see putting the ones that are similar in the same package. But not selling the whole shebang, caspervend and casperlet are two totaly different things. One has to do with sales of goods and services, the other has to do with rentals and land security. 

First, do we know if all the systems were part of the acquisition, or only CasperVend?

Second, just a note that both -Vend and -Let offer tremendous opportunities for improving commercial experiences in Second Life, by leveraging more integration with other parts of the platform. Notably, Search for rental land is currently miserable for all concerned, but needn't be, and this could be one key to streamlining it.

Third, there is a potential for vertical integration with platform features to effectively freeze-out competition that can't do the same. We've seen this story before, and there's an easy resolution: open APIs. No lawyers necessary, if everybody plays nice.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Just now, Sandy Schnook said:

I was not one of those customers as a vendor.  But rushing around to make sure we had copies of all our purchases was a pain, since redelivery from them was also disappearing.

 

I was a hippo user and I 100% tell you, it was a mass omg what do we do,  andy sold the company, the guy that bought it left it to basically run without support or help and then blamed rackspace for letting his server die, he had zero backups for anything, so yeah it was a mess.

[Sphynx Soleil]

1 minute ago, Sandy Schnook said:

I was not one of those customers as a vendor.  But rushing around to make sure we had copies of all our purchases was a pain, since redelivery from them was also disappearing.

 

When I migrated from Hippo to CasperVend back in the day, I imported all the purchases that had already happened, just so none of my customers would have that nightmare. Likely many others did as well.

[Kitsune Shan]

It's fine to buy Caspervend system now or should people who does not own it yet wait untill things are changed/settled?

[Bren Kenin]

5 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I can see putting the ones that are similar in the same package. But not selling the whole shebang, caspervend and casperlet are two totaly different things. One has to do with sales of goods and services, the other has to do with rentals and land security. 

Well, that's true. I use both, in fact. But if we are to understand that CasperTech is being purchased and not just CasperVend, that is a legit question / concern. Just curious and trying to get the actual parameters of the purchase. I see a lot of talk about CasperVend but not about the other products under the CasperTech umbrella. Being a user of both CasperLet, CasperVend, plus CasperSafe & CasperUpdate, which, btw, CasperUpdate is a related product of CasperVend, then the questions is relevant to me in more ways than someone who only uses CasperVend.

[Sandy Schnook]

1 minute ago, Sphynx Soleil said:

When I migrated from Hippo to CasperVend back in the day, I imported all the purchases that had already happened, just so none of my customers would have that nightmare. Likely many others did as well.

Not everyone did or had any plans to do that, you were a good person for it.  But I was getting lots of notices from stores advising customers to get redeliveries while they could.

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Bren Kenin said:

Well, that's true. I use both, in fact. But if we are to understand that CasperTech is being purchased and not just CasperVend, that is a legit question / concern. Just curious and trying to get the actual parameters of the purchase. I see a lot of talk about CasperVend but not about the other products under the CasperTech umbrella. Being a user of both CasperLet, CasperVend, plus CasperSafe & CasperUpdate, which, btw, CasperUpdate is a related product of CasperVend, then the questions is relevant to me in more ways than someone who only uses CasperVend.

That is what I meant, When I made that comment. I was referring to casperupdate and caspervend both being for sales of goods and services. And Caspersafe and Casperlet, has to do with land rental and land security. That being said I was just saying, yeah it will be great for integration on both ends. But if they do sell it, I think that casperupdate and caspervend will be one thing, and casperlet and caspersafe will be another thing. 

[Norsk Himmel]

5 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

First, do we know if all the systems were part of the acquisition, or only CasperVend?

 

All aspects of CasperTech within SL are included in the sale.

[Bren Kenin]

3 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

That is what I meant, When I made that comment. I was referring to casperupdate and caspervend both being for sales of goods and services. And Caspersafe and Casperlet, has to do with land rental and land security. That being said I was just saying, yeah it will be great for integration on both ends. But if they do sell it, I think that casperupdate and caspervend will be one thing, and casperlet and caspersafe will be another thing. 

The part that is confusing to me, however, is Casper saying, and I quote "LL acquired the second life portion of CasperTech.  We still exist as an independent business, but anything in Second Life is under LL's remit." CasperLet & CasperSafe are inworld as well and would be considered a 'LL portion' in my eyes. I could be totally wrong though. I feel like this is more of a wait and see game at this point.

[Patch Linden]

24 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

@Patch Linden Will the CasperLet rental system (part of CasperTech) also be somehow integrated into the grid system, in conjunction with the land buy/maintenance system?

Ultimately yes, that's one of the goals.  What exactly that looks like, we're not sure yet, but we have plenty of ideas that include integration with Second Life but will be later down the road.