huh? free stuff is bad for sl?

I doubt it and since regulations wont happen nothing will be done.... its for each to choose their own path and its worked quite well.

On the cons from the summary StoneSelf's building, I'm confused about 1 and 3.

For 1, that's looks more like a header for the category than an item - anyone have better specifics for it?
And for 3, why is fostering new customer loyalty nessesarily bad?

Just curious.

not to speak for the lindens, but since the lindens aren't doing anything about free stuff (other'n providing the opportunity to make $) maybe ll doesn't think free stuff is a problem?

fyi, i don't really understand 1 and 3, but no one really corrected the list so i left them on as is. i'm not even sure i agree these are cons, but these opinions have been stated more than once.

i think 3 is part of 5. i'm not sure. and i'm not sure a free market can do anything about established merchants in a space (even without free products).

i think it's itneresting that the poll is yes 12, in some cases 32, no 102.

this is 146 vote out of 147.

I dont consider it a problem either

Many things I make are given away for free.... like when I teach a water effects class I give a full mod copy of my rain maker so people can tear it apart and see how I did it.
Many times I have been informed by people and shown a better way. This is all positives that simply happen from the 'dreaded' free stuff

So basically... at the core... Free stuff is ok - so long as it's crap

But giving away crap is also bad because it basically fills a persons inv with junk.

So that would be lose / lose - there is no amiable solution within the 'cons' other than the elimination of a persons choice to give stuff away... And IMO a free market should be just that - *I* get to set the price of my goods..

On market regulation... when people proposed the land market be regulated folks leapt up and down and screamed (and rightfully so), but regulating free stuff would be ok?

And to be honest - read this to yourself in your head 'regulate the freebie market to make sure it maintains a standard of crappiness'

Doesn't that whole idea strike you as a seeming a little backwards?

/me wonders why that could possibly be... unrestrained trolls, perhaps?

Okay, I'll be a little less oblique. Any thread our nameless troll participates in degenerates. I would find it rather hard to believe that you aren't aware of this trend. Closing this thread will not cure a thing. You've got "forum malware"; fortunately, the fix is easy - you just need to decide to.

And yes, in fact I do think that having been publically, personally flamed by Philip on these very forums for being critical of LL's deployment strategy, predicting events that did ultimately obtain, gives me a slight moral license to make the above statement. Similarly, you've legal license to censure, censor, or ban me for these statements.

I am still puzzled by what has happened to the video market. It doesn't have the enthusiastic contributors I expected.

I know four people who lost interest because a freebie was too good. No-one seems to want to grasp the content problem.

One of my friends was planning to tackle this content thing, but he seemed to have the heart knocked at him. It was gazing at the free script did it. He felt sick at the idea of the tedium of rewriting chunks of it, but refused morally to cheat and do the old secret "cut and paste". He wanted to get on to the content problem , but faced slogging through this self-imposed but otherwise unnecessary extra fortnights delay before he could move on to the exciting bit.

Since there were lots of other things to do, he moved on to something else. If the slog had been necessary he would have done it. It was the confusion he didn't like. "Look at this lovely piece of code that does exactly what you need. Look, learn, but dont copy any part of it into anything you sell". What does that mean? Shut your eyes, close the page, try to rewrite from memory with your own variable names? When it has bugs, does he come back to see how his code differs from hers ? Modify his to match? But isn't it now a copy - doesn't that make him a thief? So obviously he must not look at it again once his code is written. To hell with it, who wants to get sucked into such a ridiculous game for the sake of someone else's ego. The only way to avoid accidental theft is not to read it at all. Do something else. Surely a script with such a moral injunction attached would be better to be no-mod ?

Or such things should have a health warning. "if you consider it at all possible you may wish to sell any related or similar product for more than $0, please do not read this script, as it will be hard for you to avoid stealing my ideas for the purposes of gain"

Coming back to the streaming video market. Is anybody going to grasp this, and give us the dynamic pay-as-u-go content we need ?
One major player, longstanding in the "animated-texture porno player" market actually announced their plans to do this, then later shelved them because of the freebie situation (including people offering freebie content). This was clearly stated in their apologetic notecard announcing the cancellation of their plans.

I can see other reasons why this market might be in difficulties, but I can't help suspecting that this may be an actual example where freebies have deprived us all of something which could have been dynamic and exciting.

I might be wrong, though. And even if I'm right, it might be a freak situation not justifying the promulgation of my "draft guidelines" above.

Ellie, sometimes an idea doesn't sell. Don't blame the givers of freebies for this. Just move on to something else. That is the way of American Capitalist business which seems to dominate Second Life.

Could we start a special Forum area called
"Criticisms of others Forum Posting Styles",
so that we could stop these endless posts about posts, rather than about the topic.
We could then move this type of non-content there.
And stop diluting, contaminating and derailing almost every thread.

Naive suggestion I suppose. Is the topic nothing more than a "carrier" for attempts to display ones cleverness, intellectual superiority, and ones mastery of the put-down? Is the topic always, in fact, the only real irrelevancy?

I assume you weren't talking about my post since all I was doing was pointing out how things seem to work in Second Life without saying one thing about you personally.

If there is nothing at all in "this some freebies can be negative" thing, it is a bit surprising that 26% of voters thought there might well be something there.

However my personal final conclusion is - the effect exists - it is not large - any compulsory solution would give many more negatives than positives - even an attempt to shift opinion with a little education (eg "guidelines" is likely to cause hostilty, which would negate any possible value.

Ergo - forget it.

Open source threatens innovation by Microsoft too, or so they say endlessly, which does not increase the truth of the proposition.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you are faulting an open source TV for disheartening others from making a less good TV. There are plenty of untapped ideas out there waiting to be invented; they don't even have to be particularly novel. For years the technology to put confirmation screens at RL fast food drive-throughs existed, only no one thought to make them; once someone did, their utility was self-evident. Similarly, I expect that there are inventions that could have been implemented in SL1.1 yet no one has yet imagined them. Aye, there's the rub. Video players are functionally boring, once you've gotten the basic tune, play, pause, stop functions implemented there really isn't all that much one can add.

Skydiving, to pull an example out of the air (so to speak) is interesting, novel, fun, and innovative. SL needs more of that and less TVs.

Because video players with full permissions were given to everyone in their library when streaming video came out, that hamstrung the video market a bit from the get go.

There are bells and whistles that can be added to the concept. Packaging, i.e, shape and textures, group functionality, url lists, etc, but I am not sure that the average consumer is pulled enough by those. I was out looking at some TVs and and the pricing also seemed to be on the high end. That may not be helping either.

You are right. I wasn't. I don't think anyone has said anything about me personally. I just hate having to watch other people endlessly pick-pick-picking at each others posting styles, and slagging each other off, Susie. I find trying to understand the topic much more interesting, and resent having to wade through so much cr*p to get at it.

Surely if people wanna punch each other they should "take it outside".

Yep. That's the point. There can be no viable "mid-range market" serviced by average scripters if a complex "high-end" product by a top scripter is free.

Come to think of it, a better name would be
"Criticisms Regarding Alternate Postingstyles"

What many people don't seem to comprehend is that the giving of freebies is a SL tradition that helps the new players despite the consequences to established rich business owners. When I was new and got my freebies I was delighted and that is one reason I stuck with SL.

I am continuing this tradition. Excuse me if I am wrong for wanting to help new citizens.

I'm not aware, Susie, that anybody here has even hinted that there should be no freebies in SL. The issues are much more subtle than that.
For my view of what might just possibly be approprate, see my "guidelines to creators" proposal above. This gentle exhortation is the very strongest thing I have seriously suggested, and the response to it has been so hostile, I bow and withdraw it.

All I come back to is my final comment:
There can be no viable "mid-range market" serviced by average scripters if a complex "high-end" product by a top scripter is free.

Since everybody seems to thinks this is ok,
and that there's no need even to suggest to creators that it is not a good situation, then I give in.

That was really my fault. I baited when I should have bitten my tongue. Other than that it's been a good discussion.

I think there is something to it, but nothing that doesn't already exist in a free market, freebies or not. No matter what any of us create there's a good possibility someone's going to come along and build a better mouse trap and offer it for less. That's why the only real way to hedge against competition is to try to compete on quality. If something is really good and people like it they'll want it regardless of the price or what similar products are already in the market.

Yes, Chip. We do almost all of us know how a certain someone is, and his/her very special talent for driving the most sweet tempered person into a foaming mass of exasperation, don't we?

I remember when one of my spouses (can I say "spice" ?) was being treated by a psychiatrist, and I complained at what said spouse was putting me through, he said "if it was a twisted leg instead, would you expect him/her to run?"

I got the point. I'm not suggesting anyone here is actually mentally ill (heaven forbid), just that if someone really can't help doing something, we should either mute or not respond. Any other strategy just makes it worse for everyone else. Change of behaviour simply isn't possible or realistic.

(in best Captain Kirk fighting alien mind control device voice) must... not... respond... must... resist... must... ack... pfft... spock!

Your points are well taken Ellie. Thanks

Prok, nobody's suggested that those freebie items have to be universally useful. That's not my point. My point was that those "poor people with no talent" are also important cogs in the Second Life economy -- they are users/customers/subscribers/consumers. The real world is full of people who don't create or innovate. So it is with SL.

If you want Second Life to continue to prosper, then you also want brand new folks to feel as though the learning/acquisition curve isn't too steep to be worth the trouble. You want them to see that there is an avenue of play here that does not have to involve becoming rich. Many of them will stay if they feel welcome, and freebies are one way to help foster that impression. Will some of the crudely designed, cheap, clothing items ever compete with the high-quality product I see from the more successful vendors? Of course not - but I also submit that it shouldn't have to.

I've now taken at least four new people to those shops and events that have freebie content. The clothing and jewelry, etc., they get is not of the same quality I have with commercially-purchased items. But if it keeps them in SL a week or two in order to give them the opportunity to become comfortable in the world, there's a great chance today's newbies will become tomorrow's consumers and/or content creators. It should be win/win for everyone here.

Cindy