Thunes to acquire payments platform Tilia LLC

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I just use FB and IG,

Then at least YOU wouldn't be afraid of Threads.  It's a safe haven.

I swear, too bad people have so much against Zuck!!!

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, Vanity Fair said:

every time he says "Thunes" (it's promouned "Toonz")

I thought the same!

[Sammy Huntsman]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Then at least YOU wouldn't be afraid of Threads.  It's a safe haven.

I swear, too bad people have so much against Zuck!!!

I mean I am not against Zuck, but also not with him. But then again, I am more against what corpos are doing today. Than the actual companies themselves. IE data farming and selling it to other companies. I wish Canada would adopt a bill, that would stop that from happening. 

[Love Zhaoying]

I've been meaning to say: some short general discussion of other social media platforms is actually on-topic, since a lot get Second Life news and discussions from there too, including finding official LL posts.

[Dutch Mainsail]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

What I remember hearing is that he tries to do like a trade off with things.. where they may have to charge more for one thing, he tries to decrease somewhere else..

I think it was something like when they gave an increase in memberships, but a decrease in land or something like that..

It's the part where he was talking about charging a dollar for five dollars of value.. Around that area.. hehehe

I'm still processing a lot of it so it's a bit scattered still in my head.. I'll probably have to watch it again.. But I will say, I wish they would have did this with the other lab gab or instead of the other, because I feel much more relaxed about things now..

They should let us in on something like this, before we hear it from the streets first.. hehehe

I gave up some sweet Beliss spots!! \o/

lol

 

This is somewhat vague comment has me worried too.

Right now Tilia takes 5% of every transfer and apparently they're still losing money.

Thunes can execute the same transactions at (I'm guessing) 0.5% or less and make money.

How on earth is he talking trade off's and adding value and all that nonsense?

Yes as an international creator this deal could benefit me tremendously. Money directly to my bank, in my own currency.

Added value for me for sure, but Thunes will do it at a fraction of Tilia's current cost. So way more added value for them.

[Ceka Cianci]

33 minutes ago, Dutch Mainsail said:

This is somewhat vague comment has me worried too.

Right now Tilia takes 5% of every transfer and apparently they're still losing money.

Thunes can execute the same transactions at (I'm guessing) 0.5% or less and make money.

How on earth is he talking trade off's and adding value and all that nonsense?

Yes as an international creator this deal could benefit me tremendously. Money directly to my bank, in my own currency.

Added value for me for sure, but Thunes will do it at a fraction of Tilia's current cost. So way more added value for them.

That was in response to a different part of the video that didn't have anything to do with Tilla  or Thunes..

It had to do more with him explaining how he does increases and decreases with things in SL, like maybe having to increase membership fees, but will also look to see where he can give a decrease to kind of balance things..

As I said, I had just finished watching the video and still processing a lot of what was said, so it's probably best to watch it for yourself rather than go off what I was responding about..

ETA: Here is the post that has the video.

 

Edited April 26 by Ceka Cianci
Edited to add post with the video.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 4/23/2024 at 1:45 PM, Sid Nagy said:

Wait until the customers whine, because the prices (like the ones from Happy Weekend) go up again.
Or when the exchange fees go up for buying L$.

The exchange fees are already ridiculous! I am really rethinking my in world strategy anyway.

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

5 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

FYI, one can use Visa and Mastercard to but Adult items, including porn, at least in California.

I understand. It's the content creators and the adult platforms that supported them have been removed/banned from payment processing because VISA et al do not want to be seen as supporting the creation and dissemination of adult content.

VISA doesn't care if you buy something from Lovense online, they do care if they are acting as a payment gateway for people who make or facilitate the distribution of adult content like porn such as videos, fan subscriptions, etc. My point has always been that when anyone actually looks in here and sees what can go on, that's when the flags might go up.

Tips in Lindens to sex workers and for access to the harder edged stuff that is available (even virtual ones in SL) are bought through payment processors who may (may) decide they want nothing to do with that.

I'm waiting and seeing. Who knows what some corporate PR/legal/C-level team will decide.

[Fionalein]

Actually a smart move to sell it now. As soon as the first of one of those proposed laws forbidding ingame currencies passes, Tilia would be a dead fish...

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I understand. It's the content creators and the adult platforms that supported them have been removed/banned from payment processing because VISA et al do not want to be seen as supporting the creation and dissemination of adult content.

VISA doesn't care if you buy something from Lovense online, they do care if they are acting as a payment gateway for people who make or facilitate the distribution of adult content like porn such as videos, fan subscriptions, etc. My point has always been that when anyone actually looks in here and sees what can go on, that's when the flags might go up.

Tips in Lindens to sex workers and for access to the harder edged stuff that is available (even virtual ones in SL) are bought through payment processors who may (may) decide they want nothing to do with that.

I'm waiting and seeing. Who knows what some corporate PR/legal/C-level team will decide.

This is a surprise, I was only aware of "illegal" things like drugs, being blocked from banks and payment processors.

[Love Zhaoying]

49 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Actually a smart move to sell it now. As soon as the first of one of those proposed laws forbidding ingame currencies passes, Tilia would be a dead fish...

1. Everyone pulls out their L$ from the market.

2a. The market crashes, or

2b. Nothing happens since LL controls the market.

[Innula Zenovka]

20 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

1. Everyone pulls out their L$ from the market.

2a. The market crashes, or

2b. Nothing happens since LL controls the market.

2c.  Brünnhilde mounts her horse and rides into the flames of Siegfried's funeral pyre, the Rhine floods its banks, Valhalla is engulfed in flames and it is the end of SL as we know it™.

Until the next time.

Edited April 27 by Innula Zenovka

[Jaylinbridges]

7 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

7 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Nothing said about Paypal fees, going in or out either.  Or cheaper alternatives.  I suspect nothing will change until Thune takes over in 2025, after all regulatory approvals.

LL has no influence on paypal fees, only at their own.

I said nothing about LL fees or their influence on Paypal fees.  Tilia charges a fee to transfer Tilia$ to Paypal. Since Brad Oberwager is the CEO of both LL and Tilia at this time, he can decide on the Tilia fee structure as its CEO.  The Thunes CEO will set those fees when Tilia becomes Thunes.

At my location in the USA the Tilia fee for a Process Credit is:

5% fee (minimum $3.00 USD fee, maximum $500.00 USD fee )

At one time the fee was near zero and it has kept increasing over the years.  I pay $25 USD in fees to Tilia to transfer $500 USD to Paypal.   This fee is determined by Tilia.  And when Thunes replaces Tilia,  Thunes will determine the fee for transfers to Paypal, digital wallets, bank accounts, credit cards, etc.  These fees might be more or less than today.  That is why I said nothing should change until 2025.  Of course Tilia could change the fees before the buyout, though that seems unlikely.

This is what we get for that 5% fee from Tilia to Paypal:

How long does it take to process credits?

If approved, the request will be subject to a fee (the “Process Credit Fee”) payable to Tilia, and the credit will be processed within approximately five (5) to ten (10) business days* following the request. Some requests may take up to thirty (30) days to process.

* Monday through Friday, not including US holidays.

I can transfer funds from Paypal to my Bank, or from my Bank to Paypal for NO CHARGE, with only a 2 day transmission delay.

Edited April 27 by Jaylinbridges

[Sammy Huntsman]

8 hours ago, Vanity Fair said:

PK is correct; it is troubling that the walled-garden gatekeepers like app store owners (Meta, Google/Android, and Apple) are each taking a cut of any in-world transactions. It has a chilling effect on anybody trying to make money within VRChat (of course, the social VR platform has long had a booming economy going on outside of VRChat, with places such as the Virtual Market series of avatar shopping events and the VRCMods Discord server, where avatar buyers and sellers can connect).

You do realize, that LL takes a small cut of profits on MP and even when someone sells their Linden Dollars? These companies have to make their money somehow. Yeah they are a pretty steep price, but it is also expensive to run those servers that hold the apps and stuff. 

[Anna Salyx]

5 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I understand. It's the content creators and the adult platforms that supported them have been removed/banned from payment processing because VISA et al do not want to be seen as supporting the creation and dissemination of adult content.

VISA doesn't care if you buy something from Lovense online, they do care if they are acting as a payment gateway for people who make or facilitate the distribution of adult content like porn such as videos, fan subscriptions, etc. My point has always been that when anyone actually looks in here and sees what can go on, that's when the flags might go up.

Tips in Lindens to sex workers and for access to the harder edged stuff that is available (even virtual ones in SL) are bought through payment processors who may (may) decide they want nothing to do with that.

I'm waiting and seeing. Who knows what some corporate PR/legal/C-level team will decide.

I"ll circle back to a previous comment I made that this is not an apples apples comparison here. The payment processor is not dealing directly with the people providing that level of "adult entertainment", or makers of related products. And people on the outside are not paying directly for such services or products.  In all cases it's very neutral Linden Dollars, or simply game tokens. 

By neutral, I mean for the payment processor it is simply buckets of currency being moved around for what is considered a game company. When a person buys Linden Dollar game tokens there is no restrictions or conditions (outside for the Second Life TOS) on how they are used. When a person cashes out Linden Dollar game tokens there is no discussion on if they came from the sale of clothes/shoes, the rental of land, or from adult oriented activities and products. 

In most other cases of clearly adult entertainment there is a much closer association between the people involved and the activities involved that can give payment processors, like Paypal and credit card companies, more latitude to flex control. That is not the case here in this space IMO.

I agree that it's a wait and see, but again IMO there is a very opaque borderline wall between Second Life and the activities herein and the "house" Payment Processor, and then by extension even more of a wall for other up/down stream payment processors and credit providers,  And for that reason, I don't foresee much change, drastic or otherwise, on what happens inside the borders of SL as a result of this acquisition.

 

[Alwin Alcott]

4 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I said nothing about LL fees or their influence on Paypal fees. 

Quote

Nothing said about Paypal fees, going in or out either. 

you did say it, but indeed might not have meant that.

Those you mean are LL fees tó Paypal, that was what made the confusion.

[Anna Salyx]

6 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

 My point has always been that when anyone actually looks in here and sees what can go on, that's when the flags might go up.

 

Second thought, on this.  Whens some actually looks in here and sees what "can" go on, they are going to see a lot of dance clubs, a lot of beaches, a fair amount of roleplay in (not so) Happy Valley, a lot of malls for shopping, lots of art and creativity.  and among all of that *some* adult oriented activity and products.  In the sea of all that's available in Second Life that aspect is not that significant as a core activity. When you look at it closely, Second life really is a microcosm of RL in many ways.  And when, IRL, a person makes a cash advance on their credit card Visa has no say on what they do with that cash, nor does the ATM network. They won't even block the transaction from such locations like strip clubs because there is a level of opaque separation, even there.

[Dutch Mainsail]

6 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I said nothing about LL fees or their influence on Paypal fees.  Tilia charges a fee to transfer Tilia$ to Paypal. Since Brad Oberwager is the CEO of both LL and Tilia at this time, he can decide on the Tilia fee structure as its CEO.  The Thunes CEO will set those fees when Tilia becomes Thunes.

At my location in the USA the Tilia fee for a Process Credit is:

5% fee (minimum $3.00 USD fee, maximum $500.00 USD fee )

At one time the fee was near zero and it has kept increasing over the years.  I pay $25 USD in fees to Tilia to transfer $500 USD to Paypal.   This fee is determined by Tilia.  And when Thunes replaces Tilia,  Thunes will determine the fee for transfers to Paypal, digital wallets, bank accounts, credit cards, etc.  These fees might be more or less than today.  That is why I said nothing should change until 2025.  Of course Tilia could change the fees before the buyout, though that seems unlikely.

This is what we get for that 5% fee from Tilia to Paypal:

How long does it take to process credits?

If approved, the request will be subject to a fee (the “Process Credit Fee”) payable to Tilia, and the credit will be processed within approximately five (5) to ten (10) business days* following the request. Some requests may take up to thirty (30) days to process.

* Monday through Friday, not including US holidays.

I can transfer funds from Paypal to my Bank, or from my Bank to Paypal for NO CHARGE, with only a 2 day transmission delay.

That's the thing though. Tilia and Thunes are partnering. One isn't taking over the other.

Either way, Thunes will handle the transactions. The front end will still be Tilia, just with a different name. Tilia basically plugs into the Thunes API instead of doing the transfer themselves.

So LL will still be able to set the price for a money transfer. Only the transfer will cost them a fraction of what it costs them now.

But since we'll probably get more options, like direct transfer to your bank account and exchange to your local currency, they might not want to charge us less.

Hence the whole spiel about added value in the interview.

[Conifer Dada]

This morning when I logged in to this website there was a message that I was not up-to-date with my latest tier payment. I clicked the 'pay now' and the payment went through, no problem. But this has never happened before, so I'm wondering if it's to do with the change of ownership of Tilia.

[Honey Puddles]

1 hour ago, Dutch Mainsail said:

That's the thing though. Tilia and Thunes are partnering. One isn't taking over the other.

He made it really clear.

Thunes is BUYING Tilia, and acquiring the related MTLs (Money Transfer Licenses) and other dependencies from Linden Lab. All of Thunes business function is expected to be folded into the legal entity known as Tilia, and then Tilia will rename itself to Thunes. "Thunes USA" (or whatever Thunes decides to call it) will be operated out of the Battery Street offices. 

Linden Lab will not be operating or owning Tilia any longer.

[6:35] and [12:50]

Quote

 

 

6:35
So what does Thunes bring to us? What 

6:37
do we bring to Thunes? So we bring the ability to  operate in the United States in a way that is much  

6:44
less expensive than the way they were doing it so  we are a very attractive company to them. Since  

6:50

they're already doing tremendous business they  are going to immediately use Tilia for a whole  

6:57

bunch of business in the United States. Tilia is  actually going to become Thunes' US subsidiary,  

7:05

it's going to change its name to Thunes, but Tilla  will actually be Thunes' US Business Center. If  

7:12

Thunes wants to build Tilia then there's two  beneficiaries one is Thunes and the other is  

7:23

Second Life. Thunes has hundreds of pay they pay  out in local currencies in many many countries  

7:32

they allow for direct payments into bank accounts  they allow for realtime payments all these things  

7:39

that we would have had to build ourselves and  we've been working on this for six years and we  

7:44

haven't built those things and there's a reason  it's really expensive to build them and really  

7:49

hard all those things Thunes already has what they  didn't have was the licenses in the United States.  

7:57

We are going to benefit from that. As Thunes  builds these into Tilia, which will become Thunes  

8:05

USA, as Thunes integrates, Second Life will have  access to it all and Thunes has every incentive,  

8:15

financial incentive, to do that as quickly as  possible.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

 12:50

Okay. The beautiful thing about  this deal, I don't want to over complicate but if  

12:59

anyone wants to look it up it's called a  reverse triangular merger. The technical,  

13:05

the less technical way of talking about it is  Tilia is going to be left as the entity so it's  

13:14

going to be called Tunes but all the contracts  all the technology all the data all those things  

13:24

are just going to stay Tilia. The residents may  never know that this happened. Wow, okay. All  

13:35

of the things that are important in terms of  data are staying the same. All of the things  

13:41

that are important in terms of the technology  are only going to get better. What is different  

13:47

is that there's going to be a different owner  so clearly that's important for lots of reasons  

13:52

most importantly because these money transmitter  licenses are highly regulated each State cares  

14:01

very much who owns them and when you change  ownership you can't just sell the company the  

14:08

State Regulators have to approve the new owner as  you can imagine working with State Regulators they  

14:17

are very detailed it is very important part of our  Society you want regulation when it comes to your  

14:26

money so it just doesn't happen over the weekend.  Some States take a lot longer than others,  

14:33

but this process of getting all of the approvals  for Thunes to take over is going to take five to  

14:42

nine months we hope it takes five we cannot  guarantee how long Alaska takes to approve a  

14:49

new owner so that's the downside to trying to sell  Tilia and we had to again find someone who was,  

14:58

who we thought was going to be able to get these  transferred over to them the fastest that was  

15:03

another key element to who we chose and because of  they're in they're licensed everywhere other than  

15:09

the United States and so if you were a regulator  would you rather let someone who's already gone  

15:15

through licenses throughout the entire world many  places harder than United States or someone who  

15:20

just really wanted Tilia to be their entree into  International payments. They're going to they're  

15:27

going to get through this as fast as any company  could.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27 by Honey Puddles

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Dutch Mainsail said:

That's the thing though. Tilia and Thunes are partnering. One isn't taking over the other.

It's a aquisition, a full sale, or majority sale,  Tilli disappears after approval, payment and documents are signed.

Directly after that the 5 yr contract between LL and Thunes comes in place for previous Tilia services, now handled by Thunes. This is the partnership.

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, Dutch Mainsail said:

So LL will still be able to set the price for a money transfer. Only the transfer will cost them a fraction of what it costs them now.

Once Tilia is part of Thunes, Thunes will set the price for a money transfer.  LL will have no say because they no longer own Tilia/Thunes.  LL will be standalone company,  with Oberwolf (Oberwager) as it's CEO. 

My point is, will Thunes still charge an excessive transfer fee for a 10-15 day wait time for electronic transfers, like Tilia is doing now?  Charging a 5% fee with a $3 min charge and $500 max fee is still high even for an instant transfer, although I would willing to pay that for an instant transfer.  But not a transfer that could be faster by  mailing a check via the postal system like the dark ages.

 

Edited April 27 by Jaylinbridges

[Anna Salyx]

24 minutes ago, Conifer Dada said:

This morning when I logged in to this website there was a message that I was not up-to-date with my latest tier payment. I clicked the 'pay now' and the payment went through, no problem. But this has never happened before, so I'm wondering if it's to do with the change of ownership of Tilia.

Doubtful.  I had similar happen to me about 2 months ago.  I thought it might have been related to a tiny Tilia cash balance I had hanging out after I had cashed in some Linden Dollars to pay for my land tier. That when I was charged monthly tier the next month the Tilia balance was taken but that short circuited the fall through to take the rest the via my CC. Might just as easily have been a momentary glitch between Tilia and my CC company that cased the transaction to fail.  In either case, I manually initiated the charge to my CC and then last month everything worked like it was supposed to. (I'd watched it closely though to be sure).

[Honey Puddles]

There's one great point in the video where he explains that Tilia has not been a successful business for Linden Lab, and it's pulled down everything financially, draining millions of dollars to keep running. The contracts Tilia has managed to secure outside of SL haven't been profitable, or led Tilia to a longterm viable status as a company in it's own right.

But in selling Tilia and all that goes with it, to Thunes, well, Thunes is already *in* this sort of business, and already knows how to operate profitably, and already has contracts and connections in the US that are working for them. The acquisition of Tilia and the MTLs in play, will allow Thunes to better serve and expand services to companies and users in the US.

LL wins by getting rid of the anchor around it's neck, Thunes wins by getting something they can actually grow by having, and SL wins by everything Thunes brings to the table that Tilia (and SL/LL's homegrown attempts) never managed to do.

From a business perspective, this is a win-win..

And LL has baked a 5 year contract into the deal, to try and insulate against those 'ballooning fees' scenarios. It sounds like Thune's main thrust early on will be in expanding cash-OUT options for SL users, especially internationally.. not so much the 'L$ buy' side of things.. and this may still be an area that Thunes will need to work on, or that LL/SL may have to implement in some other way.

I suspect we'll see improvements on both sides of that equation over time.. be that more credit cards, the ability to send money to LL via Western Union or to move a Thunes balance from any number of supported sources, to spend on L$, Tier, etc.

My largest concern is Tilia's baked-in support for maintaining a balance that can be tapped for Tier and/or premium memberships. But I think we'll see what happens, as things mature with this change in ownership.

As Brad said, SL users may not functionally notice any change at all. Only improvements.

Here's hoping.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

13 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I mean I am not against Zuck, but also not with him. But then again, I am more against what corpos are doing today. Than the actual companies themselves. IE data farming and selling it to other companies. I wish Canada would adopt a bill, that would stop that from happening. 

At least Brad's company instead of Zuck's company got the Lab. Meta would've destroyed us and the Tilia/Thunes payment systems --- plus remove the legs off our toons!