CasperTech Acquisition Discussion

[TimKoul]

4 minutes ago, Lucifera Morningstar said:

All of the sales are still tied to your account even if LL never bought CasperTech. Every transaction involving L$ has to be on record for LL or you wouldn't be able to spend the L$ once you got it. This idea that Caspervend hid or obfuscated anything from LL somehow is sadly ill-informed.

The only time LL takes any "tax" is if you cash out. This isn't a money grab. This is securing a part of the SL economic infrastructure. I don't know how many people remember the fall of HippoVend, but that isn't even the only vendor system that's shut down and left a LOT of people hanging. A mere 4 years ago the E2V system was closed down - a system that was being used by BIG names in SL, like Belleza, Maitreya, Catwa, Slink...a lot of scrambling had to be done to keep things running. More info here: https://strawberrysingh.com/2018/04/11/second-life-vendor-systems/

With two such events - HippoVend's fall and E2V's shutdown - already having happened, the opportunity to prevent it from ever happening a third time was one they couldn't afford to pass up. This is not a money grab. This is just smart future planning via an investment into infrastructure.

And the world didn't crash and burn the first two times. 

[Lucifera Morningstar]

1 minute ago, TimKoul said:

And the world didn't crash and burn the first two times. 

Because Casper had a Hippo data importer and the E2V creator worked with everyone to get set up on independent systems and exported their data, else it would have been a far bigger mess. If they had just decided "Aight, I'm out" and vanished, or if ill health or accident took them out beforehand, things would have been far worse, wouldn't they?

Just because people acting to prevent a disaster succeeded doesn't mean they shouldn't act to prevent future misfortunes.

[chrismignon McDonnell]

Hi

I don't understand , you bought slexchange and onrez , if you remember , you didn't continue the inworld vendor people lost their favorite services because all was closed , what is the diference with casperteck, ? And what about hippo and apez and meta . Why casperteck and not another services 

[Lucifera Morningstar]

1 minute ago, TimKoul said:

And that's how it should be. That's how SL is, isn't it? The way it was built? The way it runs? Resident dependent. The more LL buys, the more fees there are going to be, somewhere. No company buys something out of the goodness of their heart.

There's not going to be any fees, because LL is going to continue running CasperTech in the same (profitable) way it's always been run - selling the premium vendor kits and taking a commission of sales on the free version, like it ALWAYS has done. And to make sure that a vendor system doesn't just up and disappear a THIRD time. You talk about how it should be resident-dependent, but since the fall of HippoVend and the departure of E2V, I'm not aware any residents stepping up to fill the void with a new system with similar scalability in either case.

[kalliopi Ziplon]

I am not sure how to feel about it because a lot of the changes you have done to the viewer were not for the best of us it made our life hell. Therefore, I am very skeptical about it.

There are a few ideas I have all those years using casper to my shop here they are:

1.  You can add a future that when we add a new product, we will not have to look for it among hunters of items but to show it in a different window!

 2.When we need to fix an item price or picture to be able to search it by name!

3 Give points to good costumers to use in 30 days. (Like another system has it)

4.You can improve the gift card how it works make it easier to use it.  

5.If you can make the 1L give to gifts to stop existing so people won’t have to give 1L and get it back.

6. Make the vendors with pages less prims the flat ones please, make them 1 prim only like other systems have.

A question:

1.About the: (the “data controller”) will change from CasperTech Ltd, a United Kingdom based company,

Can our data be used against us or for taxis? Meaning can those data be used so we will be forced to pay taxis or anything like that?

2. About the affiliation’s vendors will you keep them? Will you take % from the sales like casper is doing and if yes will you increase it?

[Kavarek]

Capertech is great. I use casperlet to it potential for our sims, and some caspetvend. I hope the panels especially for casperlet will not change as it allows me to make changes to all units on the fly, add bonuses and such as we have a thing in place for residents of RP to earn free rental time. I wish there was an easier way to have them earn tickets to reimburse for time. 

The concern becomes is linden Labs is going to try and charge a fee for use? That would be unacceptable. I already pay direct for our sims, and pay a smartbot fee, unless LL is going to offer caspertech smartbots direct for casperlet to invite renters, and help maintain it. 

 

Costs in SL are already off the charts. 

Taxing for Virtual money is not a possibility as it is not real income unless people cash out Linden for real money at which point it is taxable. We are non profit and do not cash out. any linden received doesn't help pay our tiers which si direct with Linden labs for us. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Kavarek

[sparkie Hallard]

Casper tech has Been a huge project over the years and I can see it’s a great item. 
i have never used it though even when I have been tempted simply because I have a large customer turn over in my image photography items that I also give free updates to. What worried me was if the website with the data on with all the avatar sales suddenly closed I would lose that info to give out free updates. So I ended up using my own re delivery system instead in world. I may have got the wrong end of the stick but just didn’t want to risk losing the sales data we store.

im also wondering that Linden must of paid of Casper a sum to acquire it, and I’m thinking how are they going to re coupe that money…..!  again I maybe thinking out loud again on this!? 

[Sandis Jenkins]

14 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

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.  

The only thing that I am somewhat disliking is that, even though residents can still create their own rental/vendor systems and the competition is still allowed, by integrating Caspers systems into SL, it will more or less squish all the competition that exists or could exist in the future. Just look at the marketplace. It is advertised everywhere so why would anyone use anything ells. Same will happen with Casper tech systems.

Marketplace is already monopolized. Casper tech systems could most likely be next. Even Linden homes have taken a big chunk of residential rentals. Maybe lets make it so mesh bodies can only be worn by premium users

[Kavarek]

Linden make plenty of profit and costs are so high. For an average person to purchases sims for non-profit Roleplay and in our case buddhist center education, it is straight out of our pocket with loss, and never gain to offset it.

sims cost 229.00 and 259.00 / month + Tax That isn't exactly affordable for virtual space. That is why it isn't as big as it could be with more Meta worlds coming.

Casperlet was not cheap either. Then to use it right you need a smartbot or run one off your system. When you use casperlet to manage things non-profit it was a big investment. 

It seems more to do with those who do cash out large amnts of linden which is the only thing they can report for taxation and also add a fee for. So it is likely profits from casperlet that leave the game will be tracked differently due to tax laws on real profit earned. 

 

 

 

[Andred Darwin]

Congratulations to Casper, and great to see LL being proactive!
If I could wish anything out this news, is to see a "new and nice transaction history module" with in-world and marketplace transactions in one place, reports, one UI!
Redelivery, versioning, gift purchase, discounts, after all these years, is long overdue as a "standard" feature of the entire platform (not only marketplace), and not something that should be "charged extra" for or executed by a third party, but built-in.
The server team and viewer team, in my point of view are doing a great job recently, lots of improvements, could that be extended to the way transactions are managed and conducted within SL?
I know there is probably a boat load of data, and with this acquisition, probably another boat to be processed (and much of that data somewhat  duplicated using different systems / databases... Marketplace, In-world and now Casper's, the "snowball" will continue to grow? 3 UI's, 3 different storage/reporting systems, maintain all of it... then raise fees? ).

Wishes:
1) A "sales / shopping" module within the viewer, similar to the marketplace listings, with "versioning / demos" built-in (using the listing as a UUID, mapped to the latest "version" available, etc).

2) Script functions to access and perform optional tasks on a listing:

   -  Listing metadata (Name, category, maturity, etc...)
    - Delivery.
    - Redelivery.
    - Gift purchase.
    - Demos. 
    - Access main texture of a listing to be displayed in world.
    - Display the marketplace listing in a viewer dialog.

3) Eliminate fees on sales!(lol... wishful thinking!)

I think those would cover the basics! No more hassles with using different systems... one "source" for reporting... smooth sales transactions, peace of mind for buyers and sellers!

Edited September 15, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[Casper Warden]

Hi everyone

I've posted a clarification regarding the transfer of data to LL on our wiki

https://wiki.casperdns.com/index.php/Data_transfer_clarification

Please do let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

[Arielle Popstar]

40 minutes ago, Casper Warden said:

Hi everyone

I've posted a clarification regarding the transfer of data to LL on our wiki

https://wiki.casperdns.com/index.php/Data_transfer_clarification

Please do let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Other then picking up one of your Casper Vend Redelivery Huds, I am just simply a non creating consumer and yet received your notecard today about the changeover and and the link to https://gdpr.casperdns.com if I wished to look at the data you have on me, which I decided to do out of curiosity. When I click the sign in button on the web page, it shows a box with my Avatar name in it and asks for a password. I filled in my S/L account password as that is the only one that I know of that should be relevant and yet it comes back with a wrong password message. 

So is the gdpr stuff only for those content creators who use your apps and services or if not, what password is supposed to be used there for such as myself who are simply regular consumers?

Edited September 15, 2022 by Arielle Popstar
grammar

[Vanity Fair]

I think this is a good thing, a win-win-win for all three of Linden Lab, CasperTech, and the Second Life user base.

People forget the mess when the E2V vendor system shut down: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/04/11/second-life-the-e2v-vendor-system-is-shutting-down-and-how-that-affects-you/.

I'm sure that the people behind CasperTech are happy, too; I'm sure this acquisition will put more money in their pockets!

Honestly, the news coming out of Linden Lab lately is highly encouraging. Obviously, they are planning for a long, long life for Second Life! And that's what we all want, right?

[Honey Puddles]

@Casper Warden@Patch Lindenet al,

I have a relatively small snippet of code that I worked with Casper at one point, to generate CasperVend transaction records from my non-Caspervend inworld devices. (It did this by generating plausible Marketplace ANS style messages, making Caspervend believe I'd had those sales via the MP for bookkeeping/redelivery purposes).

In this example, I created a 'multi-color, single selected item vendor' that used my scripts, but generated Casper purchase records so customers could redeliver. This code has been working near flawlessly for many years at this point, and has definitely been a boon in my particular situation at my store.

I'd be very happy to hand over (back to Casper or to any Linden) some examples of the code we put together to generate these records, if it would be helpful to the process of exploring ways to implement, integrate, and develop CasperVend going forward.

 

[Casper Warden]

47 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I filled in my S/L account password as that is the only one that I know of that should be relevant and yet it comes back with a wrong password message. 

So is the gdpr stuff only for those content creators who use your apps and services or if not, what password is supposed to be used there for such as myself who are simply regular consumers?

No, if you got that message then you have an account with us - you can use the "I've forgotten my password" link on the login page to reset your password if you don't remember it.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Casper Warden

[Chike Nightingale]

21 minutes ago, Casper Warden said:

No, if you got that message then you have an account with us - you can use the "I've forgotten my password" link on the login page to reset your password if you don't remember it.

Yes Casper, so obvious. Thank you so much for your help. Maybe @Arielle Popstar got it now. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Anthony McGregor

[Chike Nightingale]

I don't understand the discussion on this topic.

LL have worked with Casper to provide a continuous and reliable, essential service, which we use, in SL.

Data protection legislation is strong in the UK and strong in the US. We have no need to be worried.

I thank Casper and LL, for all they have done, to guarantee this service to us all.

[xDancingStarx]

To me it's obvious that the biggest project within this acquisition is the rental system. The rental system offers huge opportunities in regards of viewer and site integration.

[Persephone Emerald]

13 hours ago, wonderfullife2012 said:

I'm all happy for Casper but I'm a bit confused as to what exactly LL is purchasing and how it is going to happen.

If they are taking over the CasperTech groups and his in-world pieces to complete this transaction well then how does that occur? There's no way for other business owners to transfer ownership of things like that in world other than selling the SL account itself which is against the TOS. Plus the in-world part of Casper technically already belongs to LL in a way. So what exactly are they purchasing and why is it a big deal?

Does this mean we can all sell our SL businesses?

It would seem to me it would just make more sense, and in line with the TOS, for them to create their own vendor system and talk residents into using it.

It's easy to transfer ownership of a group, which is one of the core parts of a SL business. You simply add the new person to the Owner role, then either leave the group or remove yourself from the owner role.

Casper Warden is not leaving SL, so there's no need for him to try to transfer his account.

LL can probably do things that regular residents can't do as well.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Love Zhaoying]

My stinkin' thinkin' - 

Before: In-world CasperTech Vendor => talked to => CasperTech servers / Web Services

After:  In-world CasperTech Vendor => talked to => Linden Lab servers / Web Services (hosted by AWS, presumably)

There's no reason a user would notice any difference.

But that's just me, thinkin'.

 

[Tanja Byron]

2 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Other then picking up one of your Casper Vend Redelivery Huds, I am just simply a non creating consumer and yet received your notecard today about the changeover and and the link to https://gdpr.casperdns.com if I wished to look at the data you have on me, which I decided to do out of curiosity. When I click the sign in button on the web page, it shows a box with my Avatar name in it and asks for a password. I filled in my S/L account password as that is the only one that I know of that should be relevant and yet it comes back with a wrong password message. 

So is the gdpr stuff only for those content creators who use your apps and services or if not, what password is supposed to be used there for such as myself who are simply regular consumers?

Never, really never use your account password on another website than LL´s website or in your viewer^^

[Casper Warden]

2 minutes ago, Tanja Byron said:

Never, really never use your account password on another website than LL´s website or in your viewer^^

Yes, very much this

And just in general, don't use the same password on multiple sites. If one of them gets compromised, all of your accounts do.

[diamond Marchant]

3 hours ago, Honey Puddles said:

I have a relatively small snippet of code that I worked with Casper at one point ... I'd be very happy to hand over (back to Casper or to any Linden) some examples of the code

YaY! but the real story is... your name is Honey Puddles    LOVE IT!

[RhythmC]

@Patch Linden I use Casper rent system --- Please consider to add Very important features for Land Renters On MAINLANDS to casper rent boxes or meters...

1- Quick Group Invite after the tenant Pays the rent.... means - who ever Pays Capser rent Box  on mainland's, gets group invite to land group or what ever group the lands set to at the second after he pays rent box which only he can see that invite and join just for him the one who paid the rent.....the rent box does not provide this service !  and its not easy to adjust group to the rent box...

2 - This drop box is old Please make it more user friendly....  

Many regards and tnx for great product and all :)) 

RhythmC 

[Jenny Ashland]

When is this changeover going to happen, Is there a date? Will it still be set up the same way (Like the Casper site)? Will we still have a customer tab? Or will we have to dig through Linden transactions? Will it work seamlessly with the holo venders like it does now? Will we still be able to use venders we create with it, like Casper? Will the Venders work with the rental system like they do now?