Socially|Mundane

Dumped one of my sims and it finally transferred this morning. The "Land of Hope" has finally run out. Thank you Lindens - I know you are absolutely and horrifically swamped with estate transfers and and openspace abandonment tickets and all this during the holidays. It happened sooner than I expected.

The reason for unloading my full class-5 private region is simply that I didn't know what to do with it. Certainly there are a lot of things I could have done with it, but preferably something that would help it sustain itself with raising tier. I already have another class-5 that supports itself plus an openspace, which raises in tier this week and again in June.

I have bought and sold 4 sims in my two years, including this one. And I must say, this time the transaction was convenient and worry-free. All because Linden Lab acts as the escrow agency now, (not really, but in a similar way,) and it was only a matter of setting support ticket and wait patiently.

Linden Lab absolutely will not become involved in resident-to-resident transactions. Period. no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts'. As for private region transfers, they have found a way to alleviate the nail-biting aspect while still following this self-imposed rule.

It used to be - and you still can make arrangements for the sale or purchase of a private region 100% between yourself and the other party. The selling party has almost nothing to do. Set a support ticket to transfer and then go on with their (Second) life doing whatever they usually do.

The buyer on the other hand used to have some serious nail-biting to contend with along with the forced wait before they can even begin the work of setting-up the region as needed and desired.

My first sim purchase was from another resident. Reputable to be sure. We are adults. But it goes like the old, honorable days: a deal on a handshake. I forked over something like 500,000 Linden Dollars (L$) to him in-world for the sim.

Gulp!

Talk about serious nervousness. Then I had to rely on him to set a support ticket to transfer the sim to me. Then I put in mine accepting the transfer. Then I bit my nails for two weeks. Both in excitement, but also with that nervousness that always will be there.

Will he cancel the ticket and run-off with my money? Will something go wrong and the Lindens sink the region, removing it from the grid and I'm out of my money? These and many other questions kept creeping into my head. But, as a rule I wasn't really worried about it. However, there always is anxiousness when you throw the equivalent of $1000.00 U.S. at someone when you have no idea who they really are.

As I've said, the hard part is while the seller just keeps on doing whatever they do during this two-week wait for the transfer to actually occur, the buyer is twiddling their thumbs. Whatever dream, plan, design they have for the new sim is placed on hold until they have control over it.

That's a long, anxious wait. More like the kind of wait for Christmas day to arrive as you measured and inspected presents under the tree when you were a kid.

Then the unheard-of happened: Some one sold a sim to two people at the same time, taking their money and running-off with it. It was huge news and panic struck the grid for used-region buyers. I'm not really sure why as it was a pretty stupid move and occurred only once that I personally know of.

Come-on people, Linden Lab must have your real life financial information if you own a sim. What fool would do such a thing? There is the slim possibility that it was really some accidental thing and has since been all cleared-up (seller thought first sale fell through then sold to another and eventually refunded the first buyer or something - but I doubt it.

Linden Lab is considered a small company, but they still can't turn on a dime. Several months later, they announced that region transfers can now be handled through each party's Second Life account directly, meaning that funds will be debited from one and credited to the other only upon the actual transfer.

This is a good idea and probably should have been thought-of and implemented much sooner than it was. The selling of my sim that was finally transferred this morning is my first experience with this "Linden Lab Escrow Service" since it was implemented. And I must say, it works well. Very well.

It's not really escrow as there is no third party, (including Linden Lab itself,) who holds the money until the transfer is confirmed. Rather the buyer must hold onto the money until the transfer is performed and that is when the funds transfer occurs as part of the actual process.

So this got me to thinking: Linden Lab officially calls Linden Dollars an 'in-game trading token and nothing more'. [I would have linked to the article where this is quoted by Gene Yoon (Ginsu Linden) - but that site apparently is closed down. —Ari] It is not, not should ever be considered legal tender.

However, in the new region transfer method, the seller has the option to elect funds in Legal Tender U.S. Dollars or in Linden Dollars. The transfer fee is $100 U.S. The option to use Linden Dollars was in the original announcement, it just didn't really hit me at the time.

If I sell a region for $500, Linden Lab will transfer the region, then transfer the $500 credit from the buyer to me, then deduct $100 for the transfer fee. or the buyer, it comes from any credit they have available or their credit card is charged.

However, Linden Lab offers a Linden Dollar version as well. If I sell the region for L$150,000, they debit the buyer's Second Life account and credit my Second Life account, then debit me L$28000 for the transfer fee.

This is the part that got me thinking.

The transfer fee is a real life service fee for the work of transferring the region from myself to another person - a real world service. Remember, Linden Lab must know our real life details for billing reasons and the 'transfer' of region details happens in real life through computer data entry and changes.

None of it is actually done in-world.

Thus, paying L$28,000 for these real-life services is, in effect, treating Linden Dollars as legal tender. Well, in my mind anyway. Keep in mind that what I am speaking about here is conjecture and opinion. I do not speak for Linden Lab and neither have they ever even hinted any such thing to me or anyone else I am aware of.

So, the convenience of this new region-transfer logistic that Linden Lab has created is Godsend, it's easy and completely worry-free. Okay, I admit it did cross my mind to ask myself what would happen if the buyer accidentally spent some of his Linden dollars and dipped below the amount to be transferred.

Linden Lab works hard to make the entire Second Life experience more pleasurable. I have never had a doubt about any of that. And I've always known they work hard on all the under-the-hood items and back-end stuff. Even the rarely-interracted-with services such as the support portal.

So, I'm curious what you think: Is allowing a real-life service fee to be paid to Linden Lab via Linden Dollars, (an "in-game trading token" -per Linden lab,) making Linden Dollars any kind of legal tender?

This is theory of course. Obviously it's not, as the entire transaction occurs within Linden Lab properties and one of those properties is the Linden Dollar itself.

But what do you think?

Ah philosophy is fun, aint it?