Let's say you take $20 and buy Linden Dollars. You now own 4756 L$ (based on current viewer buy-button data)

Now you go and buy 4756 L$ worth of stuff, and for simplicity's sake, let's say that you bought all those items from one maker, on the marketplace.

The seller receives 90% of that now.. 4280 L$ (since there are no fractional L$, it's a flat 4280).

Now the seller goes to sell the Lindens to other users.. (the only way to cash out, btw... LL doesn't buy L$ back). A Market Sell order (easy) would result (at this moment) in roughtly $15.52 USD balance. A Limit Sell (requires more patience) at the current viable block of 257 L$ per $1 USD, will result in the slightly higher amount of $16.08 USD balance.

So now the creator has received $16.08, right? Not exactly. That's the number on their balance of their 'Tilia' account.. but it's still not a fungable asset in any practical way.

To send it to paypal, the creator is charged a 5% fee, minimum $3, up to a maximum of $500. In this case, 5% of $16.08 would be just 80 cents.. so we have to bump that up to $3 (that's now 18.657% btw). So now the creator receives $13.08.

Now of course the Federal and State governments take their cuts on the income.

But let's just look at these numbers here.

From the original $20 USD that you cashed in, the creator you gave it to received just $13.08. Just 65.4%. LL absorbed 34.6%, or nearly $7 of that money... Over one third.