"Those who use SL for income deserve what they get"-Do you share this attitude?

If they do you can sue then in bankruptcy court. You might not get a lot, but you can get something. There are safe guards to protect business in RL. In SL there are none.


People are arguing emotional points and ignoring some facts about the economy.

Exactly.

There is a world of difference between saying that relying on SL for your income is risky (Um, no shit, Sherlock, I'm glad I have your keen IQ of 30 to point that out for me), and saying that you deserve what you get when someone screws you out of money.

One is stating the obvious.

The other is being a moron.

I'll place much more value in the opinions of someone who states the obvious than in those of a moron.

That's provided you can afford to sue them

While I see nothing wrong with using SL as income I do think grouping the type is ok only because it appears 90% seem to act as one unit. Take the recent "exploit" situation many jumped on the "cut thier balls" idea. Noone questioned motives to see if this might happen again just in a different way. Also when something bad happens many of these people (not all) seem to imediatly jump up and down screaming for SL to protect thier business. They want the security and no risk, which will never happen in real business.

With that micro rant being done. I do appluad heavily those that make a living off this game. I can understand it is hard, frustrating, but yet enjoable and as said by many others you are making money at what you love. If I could do that I would be thrilled. I've tried tinkering around in "this and that" in SL and it is hard so I respect those that can do this, enjoy the game, AND KEEP A LEVEL HEAD. My father said t best that "Anyone that can make money here (SL) has balls, guts, and talent. That much I can tell."

A couple hundred bucks is worth it in most cases.

holy crap! i can't believe there are 4 pages of this. i stopped reading at page 3, so excuse me if someone has already said this. but who cares! if you think it's stupid to supplement your income from sl, don't do it. if you want to take the risk and make your money from sl, go right ahead. i don't see what the big deal is. people have different opinions, which everyone is entitled to. respect that, and move on.

I'll have to look into it next time it happens (which hopefully won't be any time soon). I always assumed it would be far more expensive than that.

No get a good Lawyer, filing the papers are pretty simple so most don't rake you over the coals on that. I have never spend more than $350 to sue someone, but the fees and laws vary by state. I can only talk about Illinois, and my most excellent but ancient lawyer.

Sorry for veering the thread a bit OT but out of curiosity do you have to keep the lawyer on retainer? If so what does that cost you?

this about sums up my attitude with this one addition - i think it's a severe lack of foresight (thus bad business) to not plan for things like permissions problems or sl going belly-up.

the notion that people deserve bad things to happen to them because of other people's spite or dishonesty is absurd.

I think those that are being called morons (at least in my eyes) are the ones that demand LL be responsible for the price of $$ to Lindens and seem to want all the $$ and none of the risk. They don't want to worry about "what if" and "disaster recovery". They want to make something, turn around and spend none on investing and turn it into pure profit. If you don't realize ALL BUSINESS HAS RISK then you (group noone specific) are a moron.

No argument here. I chose Flash as an example, because really I am a Photoshop guy at heart. Photoshop skills can be applied to creating stuff in SL and to creating stuff in Flash. The skills are, to an extent, transferable.

Nor am I arguing that you can't make money in SL; clearly it's possible.

But I don't think it is controversial to say that Second Life is an inherently unstable platform for maintaining a business. As a freelance web designer I can say that I participate in an industry with established practices, a multitude of large clients, legal protections, mature end-to-end software tools, and ongoing and foreseeable need for my specific skill set. None of these traits apply to SL, which may not even exist next year.

On the other hand, making money in SL must be a blast, and I hope the ride continues for you into the foreseeable future. I wish you only the best.

We already know LL works to try and keep the exchange rate stable because they say so themselves, and because we know it's in their best interest to do so. The ability for content creators to profit is the primary incentive for people to develope professional level content for SL, which makes it more attractive to new users, which translates into more people signing up and paying money to LL. It's a logical symbiosis.

Absolutely.

Ok, I'm definitely one of the "come on it's play money people, I'll be glad when we go back to the worthless L$!" group, but not the reasons you would point out.

If you can make some money in SL buy selling L$, then great! I've got no problems with.

My reasoning for wishing L$ would go back to being play money was the change in attitude and the change in the user base attracted because of it.

Example: When I first started DJing in 1.0, people who had been in longer and amassed quite a bit of money were more than happy to shower it upon me to give out as part of contests, and I thought that was wonderful, the way things should be (at least til I fugred out my own way to help put money in the pot.) When 1.2 was announced (when L$ were "allowed" to be sold and began gaining RL value), I received several tells from people (who have long since left the game, mind you) asking for refunds on their gifts. "It was just a loan in the first place, and with the upcoming update, I really need the extra cash," I was told over and over again. (and for the record, trying to pay everyone back left me completely bankrupt and landless at the 1.2 release.)

People got a lot greedier, and that saddened and still saddens me. Sure, there are those that don't, but there are a lot more that do.

Will it ever come about? Nope. The L$ has a RL value and nothing short of an announcement closing the grid will change that. Still won't stop me from wishing for times when things were simpler. (Damn, I sound like some old codger sitting on a porch sipping lemonade and complaining about the weather and prices and remembering "the good ol' days"! Yeek!!!!)

Wow, glad to see this sparked a great discussion. I see that several people are talking about the irresponsible or risky factor when using SL for income. If you look at my post you'll see that I addressed the risk factor.



My point is that to assume people who DO use SL for *any* type of income, whether it be part time or full time, don't understand the risk or plan ahead is wrong. I completely understand that this could stop at any time and therefore have always had a plan for when it does. SL is a part time income for me and a way to save money for school. I have another job and as I stated before I do not expect LL to be responsible for my bills.

Just to throw in my $0.02.

I think commerce in SL in this method is a great idea, and has wonderful potential. I definitely would not take the attitude of "Those who use SL for income deserve what they get". However, I do have some comments, which definitely are not a slight at any of the businesses within SL, but more things to take into account when doing it.

At present, from a technical standpoint, SL is horrendously incapable of supporting any real commerce. Permissions and security are a huge, huge mess. Reliability is an even bigger mess. These are all problems that LL hasn't addressed which they should.

The real problem is that LL does at least in some way market SL as having the potential to do this. Unfortunately, what they don't tell you is that the technical side of things does not live up to the requirements for safe and reliable commerce. I don't really think this is news to any of us, and certainly there are methods to get by.

The only thing I can really offer, other than to say keep your head down and trudge through it, is when you design commerce in SL, design it with this thought in mind:

"Nothing in Secondlife works. Nothing in Secondlife is safe. Nothing in Secondlife is reliable."

Log you transactions, log any sort of modifications, expect your scripts to fail, expect your items to disappear. Plan to basically conduct your business manually, as if you were really just standing there with your product. SL is simply too unstable to keep any other mindset for commerce.

With that said, to all the businesses in SL. Keep up the good work. It never ceases to amaze me that you're able to conduct business as well as you do, in spite of all the shortcomings of the medium.

LL, these people are probably your greatest asset in bringing this metaverse to a stable evolving reality. Help them out in every way you can.

All that is definitely true. I think that's usually the case with any new business opportunity or medium. The more pioneering it is the higher the risk, but the rewards can be very high for those who get in early

I'm understand there is a symbiosis but these people that demand the price stay at $4.00/1000L$ and those that say it is LL's responsibility to keep it there. It's those that think problems should be resovled by others and not by them.

Of course this just may be me working in customer service. I answer calls like this all day where they tell me how the service is going to be and frankly they are wrong.

I just want to make an observation.

On the very first page of this thread, we have Torrid, Chip, Cristiano, Aimee, and Jennyfur -- all 5 successful Second Life merchants. I noticed because I happen to own items from all five of them, and consider them among the finest quality stuff in my inventory. When I want the kind of items they sell, theirs are among the first stores I peruse. (Right now my avie is wearing Torrid's hair, a Torrid top and some undies from Preen because I love the quality of the stuff.)

So my conclusion is that there's a reason people are able to make real money from SL. It's because they offer a good product and keep their business growing with their own sweat and ideas. Their stores offer a pleasant ambience that doesn't make me want to leave quickly. And if I have a problem with a purchase, they respond to my complaints promptly and with courtesy.

To those of you (the ones I named and many others) who have managed to create personal income out of SL, my hat is off. For those of you (like me) who aspire to emulate that success, take note of how it's done. Brilliance helps, but far more important are hard work and attention to your customers.

hehe, I pretty much agree with you. I consider a bit of volatility in the exchange rate to be part and parcel of the medium, but I'm glad that LL cares about trying to keep it at least somewhat stable.

I think ultimately it comes down to a simple premise that is a variation on an oft used warning:

Seller Beware. If you go into this with your eyes open, knowing the risk, and you are able to reap the rewards for however long you can, then more power to you.

It is interesting that $4.00/1000 has become the standard naturally. I did rather enjoy when it was $7/1000 * sigh *

That reminds me, I want a refund for the free ones you gave me.