This wiki entry is meant to give some perspectives on inworld currency.
I think any grid should have a working currency system, not having it at all is doing your residents and visitors a disservice. 'Freebie' sales always remain possible with a economy module installed, for creators who like to offer gifts.
A grid owner should not dictate whether people may or may not transact, it would be a major red flag. Free grids don't take away your freedom to transact, and certainly not ban you for it. Free grids enable a lively free market, allowing residents to do business with whomever at whatever price is agreed on.
You should also read this on the official OpenSim wiki.
What is money, and why is it useful
Money is the successor to the barter system. With barter we exchanged one good or service against another person's good or service. Often it was not possible to complete a deal because one party had no use for the good/service that the other person offered in return.
That's where money comes in. It is a temporary placeholder for a good or service. That way the seller of a good/service can exchange the money given by the buyer for a good/service that is of use to the seller. This deal can always succeed. But it only works, if money keeps changing owner.
When does money become evil?
Money becomes a problem, when people start to hoard it. Someone who has a lot of money, can buy himself anything: a political position, forbidden entry, sex, or even a hitman to kill an unwanted person.
Is monetary greed relevant to virtual worlds? In SL, only few sellers make a livable income out of selling virtual products. The bulk of sellers only makes a tiny partial income (think a few 10s or a few 100s of USD p/m). What is a real problem in OpenSim is material greed, or copybot greed. People in OpenSim expect to be gifted any product they want for free without offering any form of compensation in return.
There are some OpenSim people calling creators who sell 'dirty greedy capitalists'. But they wouldn't call their bakery, hairdresser, car garage, pub or grocery dirty greedy. When an asset is digital or virtual, every excuse is put on the table to justify piracy and ruin the creator.
Systems available
- G$ - Gloebit module - handled by Gloebit
- your own grid currency - opensim.currency module - handled by Podex
- your own grid currency - opensim.currency module - handled by yourself
- possibly crypto - blockchain - probably need an API key for this from an exchange
Obsolete systems
- OMC$ - Open Metaverse Currency module - handled by Virwox
- V$ - Virtual bucks? - handled by ?
2 types of selling, both don't work well in OpenSim.
- High price, low volume - This won't work for digital assets as it scares away most prospective buyers. If a product is non-physical people are not willing to give much for it. Maybe the only exception would be a built-to-order custom made product.
- Low price, high volume - This works in SL because they have a huge userbase with anywhere between 25000 and 45000 people logged in (depends on time of the day). The hypergrid (all OpenSim grids together) only has few active users (my estimate is up to 1000 users logged in, spread out over all ~3000 grids).
As a merchant, ask yourself what is more gratifying: wait 5 years until you sold your virtual t-shirt to 3 opensim customers, netting you an equivalent grand total of USD 3,- (the price of a coffee or milkshake) OR within no time see 50 happy users of your product when you give it away for free.
I know of at least one merchant who is active in both OpenSim and SL; he only charges in SL, and gives his products away freely in OpenSim. This seems to be a nice middle ground, and you keep the credits to your own work since your name is on it as creator.
So what could currency then be used for?
- Parcel sales. This works fine with Gloebit and opensim.currency module.
- Region sales. The 'purchase region' webpage could offer an option to use the inworld balance as payment.
- Rental boxes. Several options exist for this, some open source.
- Upload fees. This would be fair, considering the asset database only grows forever, never shrinks. Assets are forever, and grids need to upgrade storage volumes for those in time, as well as replace failing disks. Only one problem: you have 3000 competing grids, who ask no upload fees!
- Tips for services (live music, dj, escort etc.) and venues (club, roleplay sim, non-profit grid etc.)
- Fundraising for registered charities
What system should I use?
- Gloebit seems to be losing active support. The sandbox doesn't exist anymore, and Gloebit is slow to respond to customer inquiries. To cash out, the first time merchants/creators will have to request sell status/capability in the dashboard. Cashout has a 2% fee. Every inworld transaction has commission fees: 2% goes to Gloebit Inc., and 1% goes to the sim owner. Buying and selling Gloebits can be done with PayPal or BitCoin on the website. One nice feature is that you can use the same balance and account on all your avatars on any grid.
- Podex looks like a more reasonable alternative. They have have all the qualifications being a money processor, and historically also where a 3rd party exchange for Second Life. So far I haven't heard any complaints yet from grid owners. 2% of inworld transactions go to the grid owner. There are exchange fees on currency-to-other-currency, and cashouts. Buying and selling happens on inworld terminals.
- You could run your own currency (same module as podex uses) and handle all the legalese of an exchange yourself, but prepare to pay up for some long sessions with a lawyer! You'll have to conform to all sorts of laws because it makes you a money processor and holder.
- You could also run your own currency (again, same module as podex uses) as a mere 'toy' currency: allow residents only to buy, but not cashout. The inworld balance can then be spend on grid services such as reoccurring parcel/region fees, or on upload and group creation fees.
- Some people have experimented with crypto as inworld currency. I have yet to look into this, I don't know what kind of module is being used and if the grid should run their own wallet (free) or should use some exchange API (which brings additional cost).