J.P. Morgan investing in Tilia.

[Arielle Popstar]

31 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Coincidences do exist. 

Hmm yes but if you are making your income from creator sales, how willing are you to continue investing your time and talents into a world that the Owners themselves are not investing in?

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

48 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Coincidences do exist. 

Hmm yes but if you are making your income from creator sales, how willing are you to continue investing your time and talents into a world that the Owners themselves are not investing in?

That went over my head, sorry. 

Anyway, in your earlier post you gave a perfectly good reason why they (LL) would have stopped working on a mobile app:  there were efforts required to ensure Tillia could interact / interface with JPM systems. Any company only has so much resources. Can't pay development teams X and Y if there is only money for one of the two.  Can't hire / train a new development team to work on Y if team X is already familiar with Y. Shift resources by deciding where the money and people go.

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Cinos Field]

I don't personally see why they'd get rid of SL at all. It's a pure profit machine for them, and kind of a status symbol since metaverses are becoming popular again, of which SL is the oldest and biggest. It might be time to start shaking in our boots if development stops, but they're pushing for all kinds of new technology for SL even as we speak so the interest is still there.

Tilia is separate from all that.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

That went over my head, sorry. 

Anyway, in your earlier post you gave a perfectly good reason why they (LL) would have stopped working on a mobile app:  there were efforts required to ensure Tillia could interact with JPM systems. Any company only has so much resources. Can't pay development teams X and Y if there is only money for one of the two.  Can't hire / train a new development team to work on Y if team X is already familiar with Y. Shift resources by deciding where the money and people go.

 

So now you thinking it wasn't a coincidence. 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

That went over my head, sorry. 

Anyway, in your earlier post you gave a perfectly good reason why they (LL) would have stopped working on a mobile app:  there were efforts required to ensure Tillia could interact with JPM systems. Any company only has so much resources. Can't pay development teams X and Y if there is only money for one of the two.  Can't hire / train a new development team to work on Y if team X is already familiar with Y. Shift resources by deciding where the money and people go.

 

So now you thinking it wasn't a coincidence. 

Good point. Not exactly - I interpreted your post to mean, "they stopped working on a mobile viewer AND ARE NOT going to work on a mobile view, because of Tilia [sales/transaction with JPM]".  Implying something possibly nefarious!  For example: "We don't care about that mobile stuff anymore, so let's just focus on Tillia and make a quick buck. Screw Second Life!!!1!". 

I interpret it as merely something benign ("the coincidence" vs. "nefarious" aspect) such as: "We only have so many development teams and so much money.  So, we have to refocus on the Tillia changes for JPM in order to make sure that [sale/transaction] is successful.  We can always work on the mobile app later."

 

[EliseAnne85]

19 hours ago, animats said:

• More information at VentureBeat.
• Coverage in Forbes.

Tilia is being spun off from Linden Lab and is becoming a separate company.

“It's very important virtual worlds have the instantaneous settlement Tilia provides,” said Brad Oberwager, Executive Chairman of Tilia, and acting CEO of Linden Lab. “We can handle very high transaction volume at very low dollar amount that even with USDC, the systems aren't built for that kind of stuff. We move one 250th of a dollar sometimes.”

That's a good point, Tilia can do small transactions at low cost. Nobody else does that very well. The crypto people can't do that. Banks can't do that.

J.P. Morgan, for those who don't know, is the brokerage side of Chase Bank, formerly Chase Manhattan, the biggest bank in the United States and fifth in the world. (The top 4 are all units of the Chinese government.)

"In addition to the investment, Tilia is also working with J.P. Morgan Payments to enhance its current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services."

Tilia will finally get properly plugged into the banking system. Tilia is, right now, at level 3 on payments - they have to go through PayPal or Skrill (level 2) to get to the banking system (level 1). Being hooked into J.P. Morgan should remove the need to go through PayPal and Skrill. (Although there's no reason they couldn't have been doing ACH and SEPA transactions already. Anybody with a bank account can do those.) It was kind of embarrassing for a money transfer company to be that low in the food chain. So, I'd expect that SL users will be able to convert Linden Dollars into real currencies and have them directly deposited into bank accounts.

This is probably good for Linden Lab. It removes the distraction of trying to run a financial service business on the side. Tilia, marketed by J.P. Morgan, might actually get some customers. The current customer list, unchanged for years, is Second Life, Sansar, and Upland. (Upland is a crypto operation which sells markers on maps of cities.) For J.P. Morgan, it gives them an additional service they can sell to their clients.

Could this possibly have anything to do with the law coming down the pike in the USA that any company dealing in digital currencies must be a broker/bank?

Is someone looking at the Linden as a digital currency now?  Or, perhaps this opens the door for SL and other (Tilia games) to accept certain crypto/digital currencies in-game now that a broker/banker will be involved in the exchange...?    Wow.  If what I am thinking is true.  It may be a US requirement soon.  Paypal takes certain cryptos but has not announced that they (Paypal) will become a broker/banker, not that I've heard.

Edited October 19, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Bree Giffen]

At first I didn’t believe the news until I saw a new JP Linden walking around in-world with a giant money bag avatar. 

[Paul Hexem]

Well, apparently my opinion is only allowed to be that clearly this is a wonderful development, Tillia and JP Morgan are great.

Can't wait to see what comes of this.

[Love Zhaoying]

10 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

At first I didn’t believe the news until I saw a new JP Linden walking around in-world with a giant money bag avatar. 

Did he look like the Monopoly character, or more like a stereotype Bank robber (mask, black or striped sweater).

[Love Zhaoying]

12 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Could this possibly have anything to do with the law coming down the pike in the USA that any company dealing in digital currencies must be a broker/bank?

Is someone looking at the Linden as a digital currency now?  Or, perhaps this opens the door for SL and other (Tilia games) to accept certain crypto/digital currencies in-game now that a broker/banker will be involved in the exchange...?    Wow.  If what I am thinking is true.  It may be a US requirement soon.  Paypal takes certain cryptos but has not announced that they (Paypal) will become a broker/banker, not that I've heard.

I missed any news about this. Guess I don't spend enough time on the Forums!

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Well, apparently my opinion is only allowed to be that clearly this is a wonderful development, Tillia and JP Morgan are great.

Can't wait to see what comes of this.

Good job! 

[EliseAnne85]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I missed any news about this. Guess I don't spend enough time on the Forums!

I read the main financial news under the tab MONEY of my browser.  One of the main requirements for transference (buying/selling) cryptos or digital currencies will be that one must be a broker/banker period.  Paypal has been silent.  But, also the gavel has not come down that it is an absolute law yet.

Edited October 19, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, EliseAnne85 said:

But, also the gavel has not come down that it is an absolute law yet.

Perhaps the scales of justice have yet to weigh in.

..or some other metaphor!

[EliseAnne85]

10 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Perhaps the scales of justice have yet to weigh in.

..or some other metaphor!

The pieces of the puzzle fit as to what I am saying, however.  However, it is still speculation on my part.  But, this USA law being discussed in their "houses" has bantered about for so long, it would be about time they decide one way or the other.  JPM is a broker/banker, aren't they?  And, justice, with crypto...hahahaha.  The way the crypto sector works now is a cesspool, basically.  

[Qie Niangao]

Compared to the glowing spin in the financial press—and the take in this thread—I'm much less optimistic about what this means for Tilia's prospects. It smells to me that they weren't making their numbers, needed a cash infusion to try something that might work,  and ended up selling off some equity to JPMorgan in exchange for one "might work" approach. On the plus side, this "strategic investment" plugs Tilia in to JPM's network (very good) but it appears to come at a pretty steep cost to Oberwager and Waterfield, including granting JPM a seat on the board.

Also, Tilia LLC's CEO will be Aston Waldman who was LL's CFO, with Oberwager staying on the Tilia board (still Chair?) along with Waterfield and the guy from JPMorgan Payments, Drew Soinski. (This should be very good for Waldman's career, even if Tilia ultimately swirls down the web3 drain. And LL presumably needs a new CFO.) If all this from Forbes is correct, then Oberwager is choosing to stay acting CEO of LL, not Tilia. I suppose it could be that he's only holding on at LL while shopping for a buyer, but that he didn't choose the hands-on role at Tilia is… interesting.

(Incidentally, I personally don't see any connection between all this and the mobile client development direction, if any. Certainly cancelling the iOS chat client development was something that needed doing for a long time: it was doomed and going nowhere. The fact they announced a new development objective and then everything went silent is a good mystery, but it doesn't indicate lack of investment in the platform's technical future. There's actually a lot going on, just no news about that one initiative. That does make me wonder if the finance guys who run the show might now assess less market potential for a mobile SL viewer, completely unrelated to whatever fate befalls Tilia.)

[Love Zhaoying]

56 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

It smells to me that they weren't making their numbers, needed a cash infusion to try something that might work,  and ended up selling off some equity to JPMorgan in exchange for one "might work" approach.

Silly Wild-Animal Guess (S.W.A.G.):  "Partnering" with a JPM could help Tillia find more customers. (Besides Second Life, Sansar, and whomever else virtually exists already as a customer.)

Regarding CEO's, boards and such: My company's previous CEO told us that it was not unusual for CEO's, board members, etc. to be on multiple companies' "BOD's".  The number given was a surprising number of companies on average per board member.

[Sid Nagy]

5 hours ago, Cinos Field said:

I don't personally see why they'd get rid of SL at all. It's a pure profit machine for them, and kind of a status symbol since metaverses are becoming popular again, of which SL is the oldest and biggest. It might be time to start shaking in our boots if development stops, but they're pushing for all kinds of new technology for SL even as we speak so the interest is still there.

Tilia is separate from all that.

The fact that LL developed Sansar with almost all the available resources, makes me believe that they would have ditched SL without a blink of the eye if Sansar had become a success. And I guess, they will do the same if Tilia takes off.
The Lab knows that SL is old junk held together with a lot of tape and polished with lots of cosmetics. There is totally no enthusiasm to make giant steps forward because of that.
If Tilia grows as the overlords foresee, IMHO SL will go in maintenance mode then. Meaning: raking in the money as long as it holds and that's it.
And after a few years, the last Linden on his way to Tilia, will hang out the "out of business" sign on the SL gates, before he takes his coat and leaves the building.
Let's enjoy the years that are left, but I will bury my hopes for essential improvements (other than repainting the duct tape parts) and growth.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Sid Nagy
What else is there to do, that is fun?

[EliseAnne85]

12 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

And I guess, they will do the same if Tilia takes off.

I disagree.  If Tilia takes off it would be because not only could it exchange fiats quickly but it could exchange fiats into cryptos and other game currencies quickly.  I think gaming would/could be a large part of this new financial system that is trying to fly and get off the ground.  The mobile client would be Tilia, then, too, I'd think, that would be the big hit, maybe even an IPO and SL would get it's name in Wall Street related articles a lot.

Plus, I just saw the newest video of SL on their front page.  It has all kinds of wild and crazy stuff and looks like a lot of fun!  One scene I especially liked in the newest video was all the different un-human wild character avatars.  It looks like a whole new SL in that video.  I don't think they'd make a video like that if they are leaning towards no development for SL.  Or, perhaps someone else has put a bid in for SL and wants to make it a blast.  

The video was exciting to me and I would have signed up in a heartbeat.  It was fresh, it was fun.   What if SL allows accepting other digital currencies too, such as Bitcoin, etc?  Or, allows cashing out not only into fiats but into cryptos/digital assets?   A new world awaits, indeed...

Edited October 19, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Rolig Loon]

If you like playing statistical games, one general rule you discover is one sometimes called the Law of Longevity.  Basically, the longer anything has been around, the better its chances of making it even longer.  It works for living organisms like people, for example.  Genetic mutations that lead to catastrophic failure of body functions are likely to be fatal early on, so if you survive your childhood, you are likely to keep on going.  You get more street smarts, too, so you learn to avoid environmental hazards (like busses and thunderstorms).  It works even as you reach and pass the average human lifespan.  Your chances of living to age 95 are better at age 94 than they were at age 10 or age 45.

(This is sort of the rationale for Mark Twain's observation, "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”)

The "law" also applies to organizations. Young organizations have a high probability of early failure.  Once they get their feet under them, establish clientele and a credit reputation, chances improve.  The older an organization is, the more experienced its managers are and the more slack it's likely to get when the world changes around it.  Organizational street smarts help you see potholes in the road ahead and dull the panicky edge of daily life.

People and organizations do eventually die, of course. You can't cheat the tail of the normal distribution forever.  Still, the point is that if you (person or organization) make it through the rough early years, your chances of making it well out into the tail are reasonably good.  After 20 years, SL has a track record of survival that gives it a better statistical chance of staying alive than it had when most of us joined, years ago.

It's all statistics, of course.  You can still get hit by a bus, and SL's managers can still make stupid decisions or be blindsided by a competitor.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Rolig Loon
typos. as always.

[Flea Yatsenko]

I thought the mobile client got canned because it wasn't anything like anyone here was expecting.

SL makes a lot of money through land, but with the metaverse being a thing now, businesspeople look at SL and how they've basically established a platform for rewarding content creators in virtual worlds. It has been tried with crypto but that's way over the average person's head. Something like Minds.com is a twitter clone but you earn crypto for your posts. Getting your money out of there is a nightmare, you have to get it off the website into the blockchain, then into a trading site, then into your bank. Tilia makes it really easy, you get virtual currency then send it to paypal then send it to your bank. If it ends up being a service that goes from virtual currency then directly to bank, and from bank to virtual currency, it could make virtual currencies a lot easier to acquire.

Companies like Meta are probably looking at their empty and boring virtual worlds and frothing at how to attract content creators to give them a world that's not an ugly and empty joke. SL is basically a working example of building a virtual world with user generated content and having the content creators get paid for it. And the owners of the virtual world don't have to pay the content creators, yet they still get a cut of every sale.

This is probably SL's most valuable feature from a business perspective, already mastering the art of paid content creation without the owner of the platform having to pay content creators. I would even go as far as to say that some of the outdated parts of SL are actually a liability to that business.  I think LL needs to be careful, if another virtual world can get tens of thousands of active users a day and they make it lucrative for content creators to make money, and get that money easily to their bank accounts, they are going to have some serious competition.

Maybe their long term strategy is to become a builder of virtual worlds by giving businesses the tools they need to get the content creator and users seeking content in an empty world chicken and egg problem solved? At this point it's probably better for them to put themselves into that position instead of trying to adapt SL to the modern internet. SL is already at a huge disadvantage because it basically requires a gaming computer to run halfway decently. With PC part prices going crazy having people buy $350 VR headsets and getting them in a virtual world has a much larger market.

[EliseAnne85]

58 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

The Lab knows that SL is old junk held together with a lot of tape and polished with lots of cosmetics

I'd like to say something about this.

The one mistake the Lab did make was not making good mesh avatars sooner.  SL is not junk; SL is creator's importing bodies that SL was not built to handle and their specs are for the Classic human avatar.

However, they are said to be making improvements but I doubt they will give out any new specs until they test THEIR mesh avatars that are in the making now.  There is nothing they can do if people begin trying to import 25 million triangle bodies *if* a new viewer and new specs are given other than halt 25 million triangle bodies from entering SL *somehow*.   Which they should do.  Perhaps all creators should have to go to school and graduate and receive a tag before they can import.  If they are caught trying to import too high a poly count, their tag could be deactivated and would no longer be able to sell.

Edited October 19, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Paul Hexem]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Good job! 

Me or them?

[Love Zhaoying]

51 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

The Lab knows that SL is old junk held together with a lot of tape and polished with lots of cosmetics. 

You don't like our beautiful junks?  We will sell junks to someone else then, someone who is happy for our pretty junks! Our junks will always find a nice home!

Next, please! 

Wait, you still here? This line is for customers buy beautiful junk only! Good day, sir! I said, GOOD DAY!!!

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Good job! 

Me or them?

You.

I found your post polite, in proper spirit, respectful, and on-topic.

Not objectionable, in the slightest.

So, whatever posts were removed, I thought that post was a "good job".

[diamond Marchant]

Looky!  Lab Gab Streams this Friday at 10am PT with Grumpity and Patch!

Patch and Grumpity are gonna say some stuff on Friday 10/21 at 10am on the Youber Tuber! Maybe they will talk us down.

At present, I do not feel good about this spin off thing. Couple of things from working in the SillyCon Valley for so long... when a company is about to turn off the lights, the employees are not informed ahead of time... companies that are around for decades can fail when a paradigm shift occurs and they fail to reinvent themselves (been there, done that)... companies that show flat or negative growth eventually fail... combining two losers usually makes one bigger loser...  splitting a big loser usually makes two smaller losers... tech companies need innovation to prosper... insert a nickle for more cliches*

I suspect we will know within 30 seconds if Patch and Grumpity are freaked out.

* investors are ALWAYS looking for an exit strategy

Edited October 19, 2022 by diamond Marchant
more cliches