J.P. Morgan investing in Tilia.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 hours ago, Evah Baxton said:

Loab?

What does 'loab" mean?

[Rolig Loon]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What does 'loab" mean?

I know only what I could discover in a 30 second search of the Internet.  https://hyperallergic.com/760593/loab-the-internets-latest-urban-legend-is-worse-than-anything/ . Maybe?

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I know only what I could discover in a 30 second search of the Internet.  https://hyperallergic.com/760593/loab-the-internets-latest-urban-legend-is-worse-than-anything/ . Maybe?

News to me! But that certainly fits the "dystopian nightmare" scenario description. 

Thanks!

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:53 AM, Qie Niangao said:

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.)

I agree.

First of all, it's only an investment. Investments are good things, but that doesn't mean we as residents benefit. LL benefits and stays in business. That's all to the good. But at what point does JP Morgan, which emerged from the housing and loan crisis that induced a recession years ago as...whatever it is today -- begin to extend banking practices to SL accounts. I personally cancelled my account at Chase for lots of reasons and went over to TD which has better service and less harsh fees.

I don't know why everyone is rushing to assume that what this means is that we can skip Paypal when cashing out. Says who? Is that to their advantage? How will this be achieved? As an ACH payment? As a wire transfer? What FEES will be introduced?

At what point will other lovely banking practices coming into play? If you are late with payment of tier, you have 30 days in which to pay it *without penalty*. Will a late penalty be introduced as with credit cards, which are run by banks? That would be my guess, and likely something long overdue in "practical, business terms" -- which some forums swaggerers love to invoke, on others and not on themselves. What entity, even a phone or electric bill these days, doesn't have a late fee?

So I say, look for late fees of X percent of the amount owed, or a standard fee, like a credit card late fee of $40 or the kind of $35 fees that banks all charge if you bounce a check or overdraw your account -- and which compound for every new overdraft. THAT is what I would expect because it's the industry standard missing from Second Life accounts, which now also have taxes like every other Internet business. If you don't pay your Amazon server account on time, isn't there a late fee there? So tier is essentially payment of server costs and there will be plenty to applaud the standardization of LL and Tillia. If you could pay a late fee in lieu of being locked out of your account and unable to sell Lindens to pay for tier -- a common land baron conundrum -- in fact land barons might welcome it -- the big guys that is. For the small businesses like mine it might be the last fee that pushes us out of business.

While in theory this could somehow play out to give Tilia an advantage of earning interest on the float of Linden and US dollars they hold (I assume they do this already somehow but we've never heard), it's hardly likely to give *us* the option of earning interest on unspent Linden or US dollars. They aren't setting up a bank; they are investing in a company that sells limited licenses to use game tokens and then after collecting a certain number of them, to sell them back to the company and cash out the money. That's different.

As with the cooptation of Casper, I don't believe this comes with zero costs to us in the long run. I have no idea if it is a sign of stress or not. But it's not a good sign that LL has only an "acting" CEO. 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Coffee Pancake]

15 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But it's not a good sign that LL has only an "acting" CEO. 

🖐️🎤

[Sammy Huntsman]

I mean I am not making speculations of doom and gloom, there is no need to get yourself stressed over it. I would honestly just wait until everything settles and see what it does in the long run. All this doom and gloom and misinformation in this thread is unbelievable. The fact that people are fear-mongering, without a lick of facts. Is absolutely disingenuous, I mean I can see and will call out LL for making a bad business call. But right now, this seems like a good investment.  You will be connected to one of the largest networks in the US. So no more having to wait a long period of time potentially. It will just go into your bank in 3 - 5 business days. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Banks are suppurating pustules on the backside of a system that exists for the sole purpose of generating wealth for people who are definitely not you or me. They are heartless and soulless to a degree that is remarkable even in the context of an inhumane and iniquitous economic system. They produce and create literally nothing -- their financial model consists solely of shuffling notionally valuable abstractions of wealth in such a way as to increase their own share without actually generating anything real in the process. 

Of course this is going to cost us more. Milking us is their raison d'etre.

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Banks are suppurating pustules on the backside of a system that exists for the sole purpose of generating wealth for people who are definitely not you or me.

So, I'm guessing that you don't like this idea?  

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

So, I'm guessing that you don't like this idea?  

Hard to tell, "Dr. Pimple-Popper" has really popular videos! 

From what I can tell, pustules are definitely "IN" this year!

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hard to tell, "Dr. Pimple-Popper" has really popular videos! 

From what I can tell, pustules are definitely "IN" this year!

I love Dr. Pimple-Popper.. 

[Rowan Amore]

31 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hard to tell, "Dr. Pimple-Popper" has really popular videos! 

From what I can tell, pustules are definitely "IN" this year!

[diamond Marchant]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

First of all, it's only an investment.

 

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But it's not a good sign that LL has only an "acting" CEO.

My understanding (please correct if I got it wrong) is that Brad is the idea guy and Randy (of the Waterfield Group) is the money guy. If Forbes correctly described the transaction as a "spin off", it means that the Waterfield Group, in their capacity as a Private Equity company, is now the owner of Tilia. Brad has been previously called an "executive chairman" and Linden Lab has been self described as being run by 4 people in an "office of something". Brad has other businesses to tend to, hence this weirdo organization. They may simply be trying to be less weird by calling Brad an acting CEO while they search for someone to take the job full time. Good luck with that. Hopefully, Patch and Grumpity will clarify this during Friday's Lab Gab but my bets are that they will try to distract us with other things, like Trick or Treating. Patch and Grumpity are just employees of Linden Lab and may not be apprised of everything going down.

[Lindal Kidd]

6 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Banks are suppurating pustules on the backside of a system that exists for the sole purpose of generating wealth for people who are definitely not you or me....

While I hold little more love for banks and bankers than you do, I would not characterize them this way. In point of historical fact, the invention of currency, banks, banking, and interest are the foundation of our system of commerce, and we could not function without them, or something like them.

For a very interesting take on the early days of this, read Neal Stephenson's massive novel "The System of the World" It is a very long read (six books, in three very fat paperback volumes) but once you start it, I think you'll finish it, and quite quickly.

For a somewhat shorter lesson, but every bit as enjoyable, read Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth". One of the main sub-plots deals with how commodity futures were invented (in the novel, by a clever young woman, but she serves as a stand-in for what was happening during the Renaissance in the area of business.)

[Nika Talaj]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:57 AM, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

I'd like to see Tilia used by more platforms, such as Blizzard, Epic, Play2Bit and others and have a system to use earnings from one to spend at another without cashing out.

I believe that JPM also are interested in seeing if Tilia can use their new investment to land a deal doing financial services of ANY description with just ONE major other game platform!  It's the big success hurdle for Tilia, yes?  But this investment is undoubtedly too tiny for JPM to actually DO anything to help or harm Tilia directly, I think. I think they are in it to watch.

As you would expect, JPM has been tiptoeing thru Metaverse hype tulips for quite a while.  This investment dovetails nicely with a metaverse position paper from JPM last January, which mentions Second Life here and there.  Not that we'll see Jamie Dimon sashaying around SL in our lifetimes 😁

I don't know if their investment portfolio includes other virtual world/gaming companies, but Mr. Drew Soinski's social media does include paragraphs that give peeks into JPM's thinking.  Interesting that another of their multitudinous position papers tosses Gaming and Resorts into the same "Entertainment" bucket.   I'm guessing that the larger theme parks, cruise ships etc. use (or would like to use) something like token systems for individual ride/experience payments, true?

Quote

Resorts and gaming operators could develop advanced super-apps that create a frictionless end-to-end journey for their guests. These apps could integrate multiple different services allowing customers to customize and personalize their experience ahead of time. They also typically include embedded payments so transactions can be made simply and quickly with a swipe or a tap.

Quote

 

As the physical and digital worlds converge on the casino floor, guests could play any game without the need for cash or chips. They could also seamlessly switch between in-person and online gaming, using the same digital account and payments capability.

 

 

 

WRT changes at LL, the executive structure on their website has not (yet) changed ... so there still is no LL CEO and no public search for one, and Oberwager is still "Executive Chairman".  I wouldn't call Grumpity and Patch "low" on any metaverse-related food chain, though I doubt Tilia will look to them to communicate much.  The two of them have deep, specialized expertise in virtual worlds.  I doubt that they would ever bail to go to Tilia; FinTech is not where their careers are centered.  Personally, I think that guiding SL may still be a blast for them, and if they could get media traction for what it is like to LIVE in SL, and a decent incentive program with good onboarding, the platform still has growth potential.

There are 6 open reqs listed on LL's website, and they are all for Tilia, as you might expect, given that Tilia has more than spare change in their pockets now.  Time will tell what is up for SL's future.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Nika Talaj

[diamond Marchant]

31 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

so there still is no LL CEO and no public search for one, and Oberwager is still "Executive Chairman".

Linden Lab is under no obligation to publicly disclose an executive search. Also the About and Jobs pages appear to me as unchanged for months.

[Flea Yatsenko]

21 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I don't know why everyone is rushing to assume that what this means is that we can skip Paypal when cashing out. Says who? Is that to their advantage? How will this be achieved? As an ACH payment? As a wire transfer? What FEES will be introduced?

At what point will other lovely banking practices coming into play? If you are late with payment of tier, you have 30 days in which to pay it *without penalty*. Will a late penalty be introduced as with credit cards, which are run by banks? That would be my guess, and likely something long overdue in "practical, business terms" -- which some forums swaggerers love to invoke, on others and not on themselves. What entity, even a phone or electric bill these days, doesn't have a late fee?

Why would one of the largest banks in the world invest in a payment processor that's only used for an old virtual world with around 50,000 peak concurrent users a day? Easy, they want to expand the platform. But how would they expand the Tilia platform when it only works in L$ and a payment processing service that isn't theirs? It's obvious they want to expand Tilia to other "metaverse" (I hate that meme buzzword) projects and to expand it globally instead of forcing everyone not in the USA to deal with USD.

Even if Tilia prints money, it's on such an insignificant scale compared to everything JP Morgan does.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

15 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

While I hold little more love for banks and bankers than you do, I would not characterize them this way. In point of historical fact, the invention of currency, banks, banking, and interest are the foundation of our system of commerce, and we could not function without them, or something like them.

For a very interesting take on the early days of this, read Neal Stephenson's massive novel "The System of the World" It is a very long read (six books, in three very fat paperback volumes) but once you start it, I think you'll finish it, and quite quickly.

For a somewhat shorter lesson, but every bit as enjoyable, read Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth". One of the main sub-plots deals with how commodity futures were invented (in the novel, by a clever young woman, but she serves as a stand-in for what was happening during the Renaissance in the area of business.)

Well, as you know as well as I, this is a conversation we're not permitted to have here Lindal.

So, suffice it to say for now that we should be able to distinguish between the functions banks perform, and what these institutions currently look like and do.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

Even if Tilia prints money, it's on such an insignificant scale compared to everything JP Morgan does.

Plus it will have some goober's face on it, and not be accepted anywhere except a couple metaverse-places.

 

[diamond Marchant]

17 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

Hopefully, Patch and Grumpity will clarify this during Friday's Lab Gab but my bets are that they will try to distract us with other things, like Trick or Treating.

No clarification on this topic. Patch and Grumpity offered that the "status quo" is being maintained, that is, operationally the relationship between Linden Lab and Tilia has not changed. Grumpity did actually say the word "scary" at one point. Patch insists that ownership of Tilia has not changed, which I interpret as meaning that Waterfield owned Tilia both before and after the JP Morgan investment. They did have much to say about other topics such as upcoming pricing changes. Details yet to be released but it seems like lower price land owning options may be coming.

Strawberry pressed the question of data security. Grumpity said that our data is "secure" but then starting saying stuff about lawyers needing to make statements.

Edited October 21, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

No clarification on this topic. Patch and Grumpity offered that the "status quo" is being maintained, that is, operationally the relationship between Linden Lab and Tilia has not changed. Grumpity did actually say the word "scary" at one point. Patch insists that ownership of Tilia has not changed, which I interpret as meaning that Waterfield owned Tilia both before and after the JP Morgan investment. They did have much to say about other topics such as upcoming pricing changes. Details yet to be released but it seems like lower price land owning options may be coming.

Rewatch from 9.30 into the video onwards where Grumpity fumbled a little with the question whether the new investors would have access to our data and then after describing a legal pathway for how to they could(?) get access, then ends with affirming they would never sell our data, which really was not the question to begin with. Even then, if the new investors can instigate a proceeding for getting our data, there really is no guarantee the data would not sold or even shared with a partner of the investors. The supposed clarification just raises more questions.

[Coffee Pancake]

18 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Strawberry pressed the question of data security. Grumpity said that our data is "secure" but then starting saying stuff about lawyers needing to make statements.

 

9 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Rewatch from 9.30 into the video onwards where Grumpity fumbled a little  .... The supposed clarification just raises more questions.

Grumpity is spectacularly good at taking a question that needs a quick and definitive YES answer and adding an awkward pause or conditional exceptions and doubt.

I'm going to take the answer as given - Yes our data is safe, as safe as it ever was.

(If you buy L$ with money, then the bank knows you bought L$ and they know you're a secondlife customer in the same way they know you're a walmart customer ... are they going to know, or care, what we spend our L$ on, no.)

[Arielle Popstar]

17 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

 

Grumpity is spectacularly good at taking a question that needs a quick and definitive YES answer and adding an awkward pause or conditional exceptions and doubt.

I'm going to take the answer as given - Yes our data is safe, as safe as it ever was.

(If you buy L$ with money, then the bank knows you bought L$ and they know you're a secondlife customer in the same way they know you're a walmart customer ... are they going to know, or care, what we spend our L$ on, no.)

The bank wouldn't, but they also have their fingers in many other pies then just Tila and if they are looking to get more involved with various Metaverses, then you can bet that the information on what sort of content is of interest to virtual lifer's, could be worth quite a bit to other potential clients. That is just one angle where there would be an interest in the data that S/L and Tila would have on us.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

if they are looking to get more involved with various Metaverses, then you can bet that the information on what sort of content is of interest to virtual lifer's, could be worth quite a bit to other potential clients

This is an excellent point.

[Coffee Pancake]

I don't think they need to spy on everyone's L$ shopping to figure out what we like.

 

[Rowan Amore]

The one thing they will know who is processing out large amounts of cash.  It would be fairly easy for them to then, see what store is.connected to that account and what that store sells.   What individuals buy isn't important but what type of product IS selling would be.