Linden Labs made an announcement this week that has a high impact on those of us who run businesses to the extent that we can take our hard earned L’s and convert them into “real life” cash. While elusive to many, being able to efficiently “cash out” profits is critical for a lot of our hardest working residents.
This is great news, believe me. When I see the words:
“Based on current data, we estimate that the upgrades we’ve made will allow approximately 75% of process credit requests to be completed within 2 business days.”
I know a lot of my talented friends likely rejoiced. I’ve often heard them lament about the slow speeds of processing, the delays when documentation is suddenly needed and frustration with the processes in general. Now, Linden Labs can’t do a thing about PayPal, because they have their own security measures in place. They’re talented folks, but not magicians.
However, there were also fee changes that were announced at the same time. If this is a development that applies to you- don’t disregard that important information. The faster processing does come at a cost starting next month:
“Upcoming Changes to Fees
In addition to taking time, processing credit and paying real money to users’ PayPal and Skrill accounts incurs costs to Linden Lab. Each transaction actually costs us more than the $1 (USD) fee we have been charging. To address that and in light of the significant investments we’ve made to improve the related systems and processes, we will be making some adjustments to the fee structure, beginning next month.
As of April 5, 2016, instead of charging a flat fee of $1 (USD) per transaction, we will charge a fee of 1.5% of the transaction value, with a minimum fee of $3 (USD) and a maximum of $15 (USD). Additionally, the fee for purchasing L$ on the LindeX will increase 10¢, from $0.30 (USD) to $0.40 (USD) per transaction.
We hope that you’ll enjoy the improved speed of credit processing and understand that these upcoming fee updates help to support the complex work involved in enabling Second Life users to buy and sell Linden Dollars for real money at a massive scale, all while keeping the system reliable, safe, compliant with regulations – and now faster.”
So, it has its perks, it has its one downfall, but Linden Labs absolutely took community feedback into consideration and delivered improved processing speeds that everyone seemed to be yearning for. The fees, in all honesty, not only offset costs for them, but in this day and age are a natural expectation for something closer to instant gratification.
Go HERE to read the full announcement.
Bria Oceanside
ZoHa Blogger/Social Media