Charlotte Bartlett

Flickr is another example. I have been "Pro" for years. This year however the increase in fees and move to monthly subscription (it used to be 24.95 a year back in the old days and crept up with each sale and now is 7.99 per month) just tipped it over the edge for me cost/benefit of "Pro" so I ended my subscription. 7K followers but now I am a "free" user. Facebook (page + group) and Instagram out perform it for my particular user case so we focus our time there. Whereas other subscriptions e.g. Adobe for Substance Painter which is 19.99 USD a month is cracking good value, supports Indie designers and cost/benefit is amazing when combined with Substance Share etc. The reason for my examples are - the subscription models have to be "good value". LL have worked hard to provide this value but it's always a tricky balancing act when you try to blanket all users with "one" type of account option. It limits you. Premium Plus didn't pick up the opportunities it could have, and this blanket approach has compounded the lost opportunities. Adding to that making premium the only option when it's so limited already, I think would be a commercial disaster based on the economy model used in SL.

I can't imagine any business user case that would make Second Life premium only. But who knows! 1. I am not Premium but I am Concierge (sim owners are) so I was always hopeful we would get a merchant premium offering but it was soon clear with Premium Plus it was going towards something else (and not surprised it got delayed). 2. Forcing Premium will slow new user sign up as SL is a difficult and complex place to get used to. Even with a free trial, it would likely lead to a lower sign up rate. Lower sign ups lead to lower opportunities for those users to "stick" and invest USD into their new hobby. Why reduce your market? 3. It's a myth that free accounts cost LL money. In fact the opposite, they are an integral part of the economy. Those free accounts can spend x amount of money each month buying content from creators, renting land, all of that translates into an end point where LL receive income as a result. They are a vital and needed part of the SL economy. 4. LL over the past 2 years have heavily pushed their income model to rely on fees and less from land. Whilst the premium accounts balance Stipends to sinks (Linden Dollar fees) so the USD fee charge goes into the profit column, the free accounts can (and do) spend Linden Dollars purchased with USD allowing the economy to run and more of those fees to be generated for Linden Lab. Without free accounts purchasing and spending their USD, Linden Lab would face a shinking economy which would impact their fee income capability.

Firstly - Welcome to Second Life! I can't actually remember my first days here, but I do remember being actually afraid to use the forums because it seemed quite limited to a few loud voices who had very specific views. 14 years later I tend to now be able to navigate a little better. I hope @Strawberry Linden sees your post as she has some great resources to help people get started so having this front and center for new users may help. I would love to see Linden Lab across their channels push more content out to new users and as you said make it easy to find to keeping it fresh and up to date. I know Strawberry has done an amazing job in those areas already so hopefully more can connect to new users to help. What kept me here for 14 years was finding a friend in my first few days, and she showed me the ropes (she was a few months older than me). So hopefully you can connect in your travels. I found searching for things I had interest in (e.g. architecture, design) brought me into contact with groups with like minded people. I would join their groups to find out about events or things to go and see and meet people. The clothing bit - I just can't imagine how new users deal with the whole mesh body, heads, clothes stuff - it's become a seriously complex part of "user generated content". Personally I have hoped for a long time that Linden Lab would simply release Avatar 2.0 so there is a base body that is comparable (but properly riggeed/optimized) for creators to use as well that is also open to all creators to use so they can learn to create clothes on it etc. That's a whole other thread in itself, but I def would google Strawberry Singh (her name pre her Linden Lab days) blog and see if any of her posts help. You are on the right track with the freebies etc as that's a great way to experiment until you decide to invest any money into a hobby.

What they "mean" versus what "law states" versus "tax code interpretation" versus what defines a currency all plays into this as I mentioned above. I don't believe it's an open question (my CPA, my own background) is comfortable that the answer remains to that question "No" when answered solely in relation to Linden Dollars activity only. And it remains that the gross USD activity that remains reported as regular USD Income for tax purposes in the US and fees charged by Tilia and Linden Lab plus USD Sim fees as relevant remain as deductibles. FinCEN in 2019 did actually pull together some guidance that pulled in the Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money-Laundering regulations, but did not update it's core guidance (which was not particularly helpful) around virtual currencies. So as it stands convertible virtual currencies definitions still do not fully align with Linden Dollars. The categories around open-exchanges / open currencies etc I am not going into again here as above already mentioned how mangled those definitions were and it's no wonder that a level of confusion remains to those who are not certified tax experts (and even to those who are). Even you want to get into deeper reading you can take a look at how FinCEN's guidance was derived from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's framework on digital asset-related activities back in April 2019 you'll see how far off the topic of how Linden Dollars (Tokens) being defined as a convertible currency are.

You shouldn't be pasting screenshots from PitchBook (even if just a sample/public data part). They tend to frown on that per their Limitations of Use... just a friendly note!

As one of the old retired Moles there is nothing stopping LL expanding whom they contract for user support. Does not have to be creators.... also Moles tend to be an international bunch so using California wages is a bit of a moot point. LL benefits from helping users stick. Many communities already do a lot for “free” so LL (and the new investors) should be looking at quick easy low cost wins to continue the momentum of the past 9 months. Community programs tend to be far more challenging to manage than your own contractors.

I do however to this day miss Spike Linden

For near minimum wage an hour LL could have two moles mentoring in the on boarding process and people. They are already vetted, under NDA and not going to cause drama or griefing. low cost, easy to implement and most importantly they can help users stick by having live human interaction of a positive nature, from the moment they accidentally take off their clothes and wonder why their middle parts are transparent. Wikis and walls of text work for some. Videos work for others. But having a human there talking to new sign ups, who “shepherd” those users through the daunting situation with the frankenmesh stuff through to finding communities to join...

That’s really getting into the basics of using SP. You can control directional lighting via environment and I tend to find Studio 2 HDR the most useful. I sometimes if doing a large building will cluster my bakes and then rotate my environment 90 degrees for the next cluster and so on to balance out some of that. You can also apply a filter and activate two of the light options to further tweak directional lighting. The 2d export will exactly match the 2D viewport if you have set up your project correctly. It won’t match the 3D view of course. What settings are you also using to bake and what template? I tend to bake at 2046 then reduce size down in photoshop for SL. So check your settings are high enough plus whilst SL may use OpenGL from memory there may be some buggy behaviour with SP and the 2d export so have a play when you export using DirectX instead just for the 2d part. it seems you may be new to the application. On the website they have tutorials you can get through the introduction ones in a few hours and it is well worth the time investment as it shows you how to manipulate elements like environments so you can control your directional lighting etc. Always learn the interface first then apply it to the weird SL workflow we use rather than try to only learn the SL elements as it will be far quicker to get up to speed.

Assuming you are trying to export 3 items 1 diffuse 2 normal map (OpenGL) 3 glossiness you can use the regular PBR export in the current version for 2 and 3. For 1 simply use the 2d export which SL users has been asking for years for and they finally delivered it earlier this year (ish). The 2d export basically exports what you see on the flat 2d map and works well for diffuse ready for your 3D program or Photoshop etc. If doing glass I wouldn’t bother with alpha and instead so that in your photo editing program as you can then control how transparent you want it to be. So I use a basic chrome material when making “glass” effects.

Ha. Well how did your number go down? Also if we really did go down the rabbit hole of using gains / losses and appreciation etc, the fact the Linden sell rate has moved 21 points in the seller favour will be part of the calc. there is so much bad information out there. Right from Investopedia through to a paper in 2013 which mangled the definitions of open flow currencies as an audit paper to the IRS. People have then based further opinions off the flawed definitions so no wonder the regular tax paper doesn’t really know the right way to manage their tax liabilities. I ensure annually I hit “zero” Linden Dollars in line with tax periods so all the USD income and deductibles matches my taxable events.

Firstly, It matters what FinCen defines a virtual convertible currency as. Trying to retrofit the IRS language above doesn’t work without understanding currency definitions in full. Would be very interested to know what your CPA says assuming you pay US tax/cash out? Mine still remains fully on the side of the fact Linden Dollars don’t meet the FinCen definition of a virtual currency at this time. So USD payments remain reportable (for income and deductibles). FinCen guidance changes and I do think at one point Linden Dollars (a terrible name) will get included in the future, but they are not yet. If it helps you can read more about FinCen definitions at their site. But it is best to leave it to the professionals when understanding the complexity of banking, regulation, currency and tax laws as the above posts could mislead merchants to sending in incorrect tax returns (that goes for my comments too).

So as a note to other merchants. Get your CPA to answer this. Don’t be swayed by forum posts.

It really does. The threshold for currency is not an IRS definition. To meet the criteria of a virtual currency and the convertible test you need to be able to convert in other venues. There is a reason LL / Tilia closed third party exchanges.... IRS are trying to cast a net but tax law on the US is still far too behind to bring in Linden Dollars. As I wrote above I expect that to change in the future. I am fully comfortable based on my RL profession answering this particular question and knowing the correct answer is No for LL Dollars. There is also a reason why Fortnite got removed from the IRS site based on tax law. One thing I will say is Tilia did their due. diligence and I am fully and wholly comfortable with their definition.

You aren’t cashing out Linden Dollars. It’s in the fine print. You are obtaining a refund for unused game tokens. Now will there be a time where that definition is challenged....? Probably. But for now it remains defined as a token and not a virtual currency.

The answer to this on my return this year was No. SL Dollars are not a virtual currency. However all USD transactions with LL and Tilia are reported including sim payments and cash outs.

You can ask for it using the JIRA and request there. As a note LL were quite clear that Marketplace development won't be an active focus until the "move to the cloud" work was completed. There are a ton of outstanding JIRA requests at this time for Marketplace features but it's still worth adding yours as if you get lots of watchers it may help LL decide priority.

I had this with sim surrounds so a bit different.... There is a Jira for that one - https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-225295 This was a super old one (10 YEARS OLD HA) that was kind of similar with sculpts back in the day. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-13982?jql=text ~ "zoom" If there is a JIRA expert reading this they may be able to find if there is one open for the bug above (I am useless with JIRA),

I guess it depends on customer service levels. A normal day for me is no more than 10 customer service enquiries and task and 50% of those are via the Facebook or Instagram channels, and 50% in SL. I am a hobbyist so we only release 2 things a month on average. Somebody doing it for "work" I can imagine will have a ton more customer service enquiries to do. I found the auto help responses on Facebook Chat, answers a lot up front for us. It sounds quite similar to the command stuff you mention. It has a ton of questions right up front as they start typing (e.g. redeliveries, exchanging Gacha items for Mod/Copy which we do, how to find the latest release etc) and it gives them an auto solution, it makes a huge difference to then secondary questions which become minimal. You sound like you have awesome CSRs. I love doing mine - Scarlet Creative is 14 years in a few weeks and I am still making new friends via customers who get in touch

There are quite a lot of creators with Facebook pages and groups for their businesses so it seems still quite popular but not all of them are active I am sure. But I can understand why some may not want to maintain a presence. I have found mine to be a great way to engage with customers, from what we make next through to sharing their artwork of our products, or even things like getting early access to sales etc. You can look at my page/group as an example. I have ended up with over 6K followers on there plus 2K in our group so it outpaces our inworld group albeit I am small fry compared to those big brands who have 20K on their pages. I also like doing a high percent of my customer support on messenger as it's easy to chat back and forth versus offline email when I am away from the computer. It's probably just me who loves it as I love talking to people and getting ideas on what I can make for them It is an extra line of "work" for SL so I am sure it's not for everybody. I have also been lucky with having minimal bad experiences albeit these days I am not a consumer really. I hope the OP gets better results with other creators ❤️

Hang in there! I was once in an earthquake at lunch on holiday.. Left my purse and ID on the table as I ran out, but somehow kept a kebab on a stick in my hand with no issue (priorities).... I had nothing on the German lady on holiday who came running out of the apartments over the Restaurant stark naked screaming. Your local government should have a website that should help with information. FEMA does too. if you have no damage the aftershocks shouldn’t then cause more hopefully. But sometime you really need to check for damage. Get a torch or phone light and check things like pipes that enter your home (may be in confined areas) to ensure no cracking around them. Check inside cupboard / closets too for any shifting walls esp cracks. If you are all good check again in a few days as things can still shift. However it sounds like hopefully you are all ok!

One of the reasons I don’t have a CSR is so customers know it’s only me they need to deal with. Not all creators behave like this I promise. It always sad for us to see this happening too as it paints a negative against us all. Also it may be worth seeing if they have a Facebook page for the business as it may show how responsive they are and it also shows their stats on responding (they get penalized if they ignore you for too long). A public message also can be surprising effective 😉 LL doesn’t remove negative reviews unless they fall afoul of the rules (trust me). I had one review that called one of products “rude word in another language” and it still sits there proudly with it’s one star.i hope this one bad experience and your others doesn’t turn you off all SL creators. There are some good ones out there who really do care about their customers.

All those plus Nonna Hedges - I did kill my inventory - it got too much when mesh came out, so sadly don't have any of these items.

I also miss Paper Couture who did proper "collections". It was always quite exciting each time they did a release.

Glad you found it - if you buy gacha again directly from creators - some of us exchange them for Mod / Copy versions so you may want to check with the creator of yours to see if they offer that service - much safer for homes and furniture to be mod/copy! ❤️ ps thanks @FairreLilette for the recommendation! ❤️