CasperTech Acquisition Discussion

[Bren Kenin]

When migration starts I'll be  kneeling down and praying to the  glitches gods.

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Bren Kenin said:

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.

Yes LL owns the Second Life Portion and Casper owns the Caspertech portion, so his datacenters and stuff. 

[Patch Linden]

1 minute ago, Bren Kenin said:

When migration starts I'll be  kneeling down and praying to the  glitches gods.

Our mark of success is that you won't notice.  🤞

[Casper Warden]

7 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Yes LL owns the Second Life Portion and Casper owns the Caspertech portion, so his datacenters and stuff. 

Sorry for the confusion.

My business conducts other activities outside of the Second Life services. These are things unrelated to CasperVend, CasperLet, etc.

LL is acquiring everything related to Second Life, including the servers that run the services. This includes all in-world CasperTech properties and their related out of world servers.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Just now, Casper Warden said:

Sorry for the confusion.

My business conducts other activities outside of the Second Life services. These are things unrelated to CasperVend, CasperLet, etc.

LL is acquiring everything related to Second Life, including the servers that run the services. This includes all in-world CasperTech properties and their related out of world servers.

do you have a time frame for when LL would start using the open auth they use for login? or is that down the road?

[Sammy Huntsman]

10 minutes ago, Patch Linden said:

Our mark of success is that you won't notice.  🤞

This is just a joke, they might pull a big whoopsie with the server which in turn will lead them to rewind back a bit until they get it fixed. Like the time they did it with the netservers. Lol. Sorry Patch, that was a joke. But I mean fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly. 

[Mikal Brinner]

3 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

Not at the present, there are no plans to do anything like this for the foreseeable future.  

To say "Not at the present" or "for now" remains concerning.  Many of us remember XLStreet too.  Will LL, in the future, begin or considering transaction or usage fees for CasperVend operators?  You anwered with words which give LL the option to do something else in the future.

I don't begrudge CasperVend from selling their service to LL and honestly, it makes some sense that LL would support the CasperVend system. The cost of a full blown CV system is what it is but I always wondered about RL financial sustainability for the server and web fees.  

While I follow the rules, I know other do not with regards to inworld use of brands.  LL has policed MarketPlace listings rightfully so.  Is LL now going to police CV listing for illegal use of RL brands?  

Secondly, will LL be adding features and/or improving analytics and sales/customer data for vendors?  I would appreciate more granularity by day rather than by month (sorted with a slider).  

[Casper Warden]

Just now, bigmoe Whitfield said:

do you have a time frame for when LL would start using the open auth they use for login? or is that down the road?

Great question!

You may have noticed that CasperTech has already migrated all of its websites to use our own OAuth login.  There's no timeframe for changing this to the Second Life login, but doing that does make sense to me, and should be super easy!

[Holger Gilruth]

@Patch Linden Does that mean if Lindenlab takes over that I can use my paid product which was blocked due to Casper's hate again or is it still a purchase of a product I am not allowed to use?

[TimKoul]

@Patch Linden Will creators still be able to use Casper to send residents the equivalent of subscription spam? That is so annoying especially when most don't even sign up for it. Since LL now owns it, please please put a stop to that.

[Norsk Himmel]

2 minutes ago, TimKoul said:

@Patch Linden Will creators still be able to use Casper to send residents the equivalent of subscription spam? That is so annoying especially when most don't even sign up for it. Since LL now owns it, please please put a stop to that.

The "send to all" option has been removed already on the Updates tab.

[Studcrusher]

So when will the transition occur?

Will casper be gone?

Edited September 14, 2022 by Studcrusher
last thought

[Kantbe Thursday]

I’m hopeful this will be an overall positive move. 
Will the inworld CasperTech support group remain? If so, can I please have my van removed since my only “offense” was to include a link to the online documentation after a support person misunderstood a question and gave an incorrect response?

[Sid Nagy]

So LL pays money for Casper Vend.
Okay. Cool.
But they must have plans to recoup that money somewhere down the pipeline.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
So what will be the catch?

Edited September 14, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Studcrusher]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

So LL pays money for Casper Vend.
Okay. Cool.
But they must have plans to recoup that money somewhere up there sleeve. Otherwise it is only a bad business decision IMHO.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
So where will be the catch?

Wait for it

[Buck Dallas]

I think this might be the first time in years I've posted to the forum. I just come to say I am pumped! 

Some suggested features (which I am sure you are already thinking of) 

Seamless MP/Casper listings. 

Please change the way assigning vendors works (once you have 2000+ products, assigning a headless vendor using that single dropdown menu can be a bit cumbersome when you are assigning 70 new vendors and all your products start with [Store Name] - XXX)

Better yet... integrate that thing so hard that we dont even need vendors and can just go back to using "Buy Contents" inworld. 

Redelivery directly from SL website/MP without needing to find an inworld terminal. 

Promo/Discount codes!

Managing Land rentals without having to mess with in-world boxes. 

So many possibilities! 

[Sid Nagy]

10 minutes ago, Studcrusher said:

Wait for it

That is exactly what I will do.
Wait and see.

I bought the vendor package. Never used it though because I found out I had to grand a no modify script permission to access my L$. Not in a million years to a script from another user.
Even if he has blue eyes.
When LL becomes the responsible owner, that hesitation of mine may no longer be needed about authorizing that said script.
But still I wait, to see what comes out of LL's high hat over the next months.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Studcrusher]

4 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

That is exactly what I will do.
Wait and see.

But don't hold your breath!

[JieJie Emerald]

Is there anyway, down the line to let an alt or a manager to access the vendors?  I had issues with my main account and couldnt log in but if my alt could access my vendors, that would have put my mind at ease. 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

@Patch Linden can we get this topic pinned?

[Casper Warden]

1 hour ago, Studcrusher said:

Will casper be gone?

I'm not going anywhere :)

[Asadora Summers]

4 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Bingo, this right here.

LL doesn't do anything out of kindness, they're a business trying to make money, and chances are they see a way to make money with this buyout.

The only question is how, and how much? 

Don't forget, we may not see the bad end of this this year; however, maybe later next year... we'll be hit with having to pay for this in some way or another.
 

 

[Asadora Summers]

2 hours ago, Studcrusher said:

Wait for it

'....later in the year' comment I fear is coming at some point... maybe in the next ten years - who knows!

But yes, eventually we'll be paying for it - we pay for everything.

[Lucifera Morningstar]

People are forgetting this was something they've been talking about forever...transitioning away from the "supported by land tier" model, making land more affordable. But to do this they have to get their revenue from somewhere else.

People also forget that unlike most businesses, who implement their income-diversity plan and (not always) reduce prices in promised areas ("trickle down economics," anyone?) LL implemented the reduction of land tier FIRST, by a full 15%, and only THEN did they add the other fees to balance that.

Honestly, the increase in premium didn't even phase me. I was amazed they held off on that for over a decade. Cost of doing business goes up with all other costs, so not being on top of how revenue is handled would mean SL would fail sooner than later.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Lucifera Morningstar

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Asadora Summers said:

LL would also be out of business if prices kept increasing too.

Fewer users means less money those that stay end up paying the most.

Economics 101 demonstrates that there is a price point at which an increase in prices leads to diminishing returns. LL may not always seem like they know what they're doing -- and they've certainly made mistakes over the years -- but on the whole they've done a pretty impressive job of keeping an incredibly complicated economic model working. I'm sure they're aware of this.

I actually think of this a little as I would the paying of taxes for public infrastructure. Yes, I know that LL isn't really a "government," and certainly not a democratic one, and I also know that there are some for whom taxation is the Primal Sin.

But CasperVend has become absolutely vital infrastructure in SL -- analogous to highways and ports in RL. And if we all pay a slight cost to keep it running reliably and efficiently, I think that's preferable to the kind of economic disaster that we'd experience if the service went down or disappeared, as the case of Hippo demonstrated.