Dragon Mommy

The job was fun, but it didn't pay well. I also REEKED when I got home every evening from all the scents, haha. I haven't given Panier Des Sens a try, but now I'm tempted! I've recently been trying some lip balms and face oils from Rebel's Refinery, (they have some amazing packaging, worth taking a look) which have really mild scents I am fond of. There's also a company called Auric Blends (found in pagan gift stores and head shops across the US) with some perfume rollers that are super nostalgic to me after I used them a lot as a teenager and I wonder if they will still smell as good to me some twenty years later.

I like it, but it was never one I handled in bulk to have ruined for me, hah. A lot of Yuzu labeled products are actually using a blend of bergamot and sweet orange and other additives so we didn't stock it. (Much as I wish we had, along with some other really nice scents)

I almost exclusively buy in world these days, unless I know the creator's work. Partly this is to avoid the overly prepared images. I'm not talking some Photoshop of a second life screenshot (you can and should use an image manipulation tool to do things like blur backgrounds or fix lighting) but I do my best to avoid the clearly not rendered in SL screenshots.

I used to work in the cosmetics / skincare industry blending fragrance oils and some essential oils... Which made me super picky. Some scents are great in a bar of soap but when you crack open a 50gal drum of it it's the absolute worst. I cannot stand floral scents because of this. Except Champa. Oh my god. I could bathe in the stuff. (which... Don't. Essential oils should never be applied directly to the skin.) I will bathe in Champa scented soaps, burn Champa incense... That and lavender, citrus scents, and the scent of Tonka flower and Lavender that lush uses for their Twilight bath bomb. I also make a beard oil for my husband with sandalwood and orange-- great combo btw.

The vaccine rollout in my Provence (and honestly my entire country) has been so painfully poor and its effects weigh on me every day. It's the fault of both the current and previous governmental planning and a dozen bad decisions. There isn't one easily pointed to bad guy gumming up the system but a core failure of distribution, management, and so much more. And it hurts, because people I love are getting sick. Because they can't work from home, and are stuck still facing the public as the daily infections rise quickly. Covid has utterly derailed my life in ways I'm not ready to type to the public. It's hard to count my blessings going in or coming out of this, because each one of them comes at a cost. Nana hasn't been exposed to Covid, but at the cost of knowing her Alzheimer's had gotten significantly worse because all we have been able to do for a year is video chat. I worry when I can finally hug her again, she won't remember who I am. I don't have a point to this. I'm just so tired.

If LL would allow me to own a homestead right through them I'd happily do that rather than rent. That's the biggest barrier to me for sure that requires me to use a landlord.

Yeah... Too much for a joke name I would want to change in 2-3 weeks.

Well, two of my friends just swapped to OwO so I can confirm it's quite real.

I am WAY too tempted for this for my own good.

#2 maybe if I get the land to go with it.

Nobody is arguing that your current business venture isn't profitable or that some people enjoy it, Wili. They hold the oppinion that it is predatory. An oppinion I personally share, given that two people close to me also lost a great deal when your service was hacked, and you refused to make things right. Those stories follow you. And the stories of your other ventures that were shut down, or related to crypto, or felt predatory in ways that people were unwilling to participate in. I would say from the goals and tone of your posts (trying to find ways to increase your revenue, trying to find ways to increase your market by increasing the number of people in Second Life, etc) it sounds like you may have saturated your market and growth isn't happening at a rate you're comfortable with. I get it, this happens in business... But coming to the forums to argue with people who have every reason to be wary of you isn't helping.

100% Though the only other reason that LL might ignore a DMCA is that it was improperly filed. If you do not properly fill it out, they cannot do anything. But I have a feeling what happened here is the other party submitted their counter claim which means Wili, you would need to take them to court... And given the information shared here it might not be a good idea to go through with the Discovery process. And to be fair I can't see the case being all that worthwhile anyway for slices of virtual market.

The longer these threads go on the more shady all of this looks.

Most large vendors I work with need to reach out to their account managers or other contact with their host before running a sale of this magnitude in order to allow for the allocation of server power. Does LL have someone or some contact for large vendors to do so?

Maybe, maybe not. Linden sits in a strange place in a world fast catching up to regulating crypto and other forms of virtual currencies. What that will or wont mean for Linden currencies is TBD, I think. It's absolutely a dangerous place to be in, especially if we are talking sums greater than 10k USD (which by OPs accounts, we are.) I think the most untested angle from a legal standpoint would be the data collection. No matter how you spin it keeping 'credit scores' and other data on users enters into interesting territory. I'm not a lawyer though. Chances are though this is unlikely to run headfirst into legal trouble if it remains within the singular system as part of the way you can enter the game. Pay the full amount upfront and keep 100% of winnings, or pay the partial amount and keep 50% until the full amount is remitted. You could easily spin that as two price points for the same item with just one working a little different for awhile, no actual 'loaned' funds. That doesn't seem to be the actual intention though, this seems to be an ill-advised attempt to become the SL version of Afterpay or Sezzle. A little primer on how those companies work: Most pay their merchants up front, and handle payments afterwards. That is why merchants are willing to use them. Say I sell makeup and a customer checks out using Sezzle. In most agreements, Sezzle pays me the full amount right away (minus their cut, a few % points, which is how they make money), and my part of the transaction is done. I'm not at risk for late payments, or non-payments. Sezzle takes care of that because the customer doesn't owe me anything. They owe Sezzle. Unless OP is willing to put up their own linden to cover creator butts and handle ALL late payments, lost payments, etc, in a virtual world is 0 way to enforce any of this, I cannot see this being something that gets off the ground. I also cannot see it in that state being okay by LL, because then they ARE offering loans. Directly.

This works in your system because your system allows people to generate income at some rate. You already supply them a way to pay off debts in a model that resembles a pay as you go game and less of a cash advance. I have serious concerns with a private system creating credit ratings and other user data within Second Life. I can't see this in its current form being useful to any system that doesn't have a built in regular payment. Perhaps it might work with breedables but unless you put kill scripts into clothing it won't work for that. And honestly for a newer person in Second Life I can see the inclusion of that in a clothing brand to just add another layer of confusion and trouble. Second life already has an insane learning curve we don't need to make it more difficult by adding in credit ratings. That is provided this whole system doesn't run afoul of the laws around loans and banking with SL. (I am not familiar enough with these to determine if they are.) Further, there are no risks for you. These are virtual goods that don't cost you anything to manufacture in bulk. somebody not paying for one of your products doesn't mean one less product in your Warehouse. The only people who stand to lose are your customers who now have you overseeing some sort of virtual credit score. My dayjob has me working constantly with with companies like Affirm, Afterpay, Sezzle, and PayPal (for their pay later). Buy now pay later is way more complex than most people think and there is a very narrow range of products where it works... And all of those companies are under heavy scrutiny for the data they keep and the credit checks they claim they don't do. tldr? There are so many ways in which this comes across as another get rich quick scheme of yours.

Ran a CE roleplay server for awhile and played on others. I discovered a ton of people arrived from SL to that community.

I work for a firm that helps businesses navigate ecommerce. My focus is financial for small businesses so... Covid has been rough.

I'd love to see more art deco buildings. If anyone knows any sims in that style I'd love to tour them.

You are going to find second life far less interesting to try and troll anyway, unless you find yourself that funny to begin with.

So I have noticed a trend across most of the boards that a thread bumped a year+ out from its last post rarely ends up with on topic discussion. I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts about threads auto-locking after a set amount of time after the last reply (one year? Two years?) The idea behind this is that if a thread has been dormant for that long, it might perhaps be better to start a new discussion than dredge up an old one. I would be curious what drawbacks and issues others might see with this, as I can think of a couple myself (sometimes the previous thread has good info or the question has already been answered there) but the majority of old threads I see bumped more than a year out seem to do so only to bring up old conflict or it derails.

The problem I think you keep missing Wili is that the industry you are talking about already exists across the internet and is not specialized in one game or place. Second Life greatly undervalues creators and custom work, and most people here are not looking to pay hundreds of dollars for custom rigging or code or artwork. I know plenty of people with talents such as that who play second life and create things for Second Life, but their primary focus is one of a half dozen firms or websites that help them freelance and be paid what they're actually worth. Translating something like that into second life requires Second Life to grow significantly. In the grand scheme of things second life is a very tiny market. This is a niche social world with niche appeal. I admire your ambition to make it into something more but I think you might be better served using your skills on other platforms if your intention is to build a large business with capabilities to franchise or expand into a startup. Yes, creators make money in Second Life. I've casually made a few hundred dollars just through small bits of custom work, and I have a friend who pays her rent on the back of her second life business. But the amount of time that goes into a product determines how many people need to buy it before you break even on your time and costs (if you had to hire someone else to handle parts you could not). If I spend 6 hours on a custom skin for a furry Avatar (as an example of one the bigger markets of SL), I need to sell that skin enough times to make 22500 Linden just to make minimum wage. So... Around 34 sales. You talk a lot about money and growth and franchises and a dozen buzzwords related to business. When people call you on those buzzwords you claim that it's because everyone sees things from different perspectives and that they don't understand your vision. I'm not saying that you don't know anything about business but I am saying that you don't seem to know anything about presenting your business. if you want to present this as a business you need to give a business reason why people should opt in. That means it has to pay enough money to warrant their time and energy to you. If you want to create a makers commune where people share skills and information for the joy of it you need to stop advertising it like a business. And moreover, please try to understand why the vast majority of the forums finds your approach abrasive. You don't need to give any credence or time to trolls but there are lots of people in your last four threads who have genuinely tried to communicate with you about the issues in the ideas you present or the ways you present them and you have dismissed them all.

Any good animesh breedables yet? Now that would be a good market to tap if not. 🤔 Though the prim cost of animesh might be a barrier.

Every idea here that has any traction (stores with people who are experts in multiple products surrounded by affiliate vendors, avatar help centers...) all fail in second life due to the basic requirement for near full time staff. How many people with how many hours are you going to need to make a place like that work? Most paid positions in Second Life pay three to four dollars an hour if not far less- so you get tons of turnover because it's basically volunteer work. This niche is filled by websites and groups, which do not require regular staff. This idea as a whole is a pipe dream because it relies on the second life economy mirroring the real world one. It doesn't take into account the unique complexities of virtual economies.

I review dozens of business proposals a week for my day job from individuals seeking financing or support, and yes, some of those proposals are for virtual goods or for businesses tied to virtual spaces. You really need to change your approach to trying to start these businesses, Wili. If anything like your posts was the overview put on my desk, it would be in the shredder before lunch. A business will franchise because they have a successful business that had reached the limits of their market-- primarily their geographic market. If you go to Subway you're going to go to the one closest to you. You are not going to go to the one 6 hours away. Virtual space has no such limits and you need to demonstrate why someone would go to a secondary location when the primary one is literally a teleport away.