Passage Solution to the New Continent

Random you make some very good points

It really is about each of us, our friends and our family - those are the building blocks of community. Each individual, joining with others of like mind and values, building family - we do the best we can to build from our individual visions by our contributions. There are no bigger issues, seems to me.

Focus on what you do best and don't buy into the "we/them", "oldies vs. newbies" etc. We all had to create our SL and it really isn't that difficult.

Your mind reading abilities are pretty amazing. Especially considering they never refered to you or Charlotte once.

You clearly surround yourself with awful, intolerant people because I have sensed none of this in SL. There are distinct challenges to starting a business in SL, including lack of corporate structure and legal infrastructure. I agree that it is hard, and that LL could do things that it has not, to foster a more efficient economy.

That said, starting a successful business is always hard. You have to take into account competition, including low-priced competitors (which is how you should view this $2 transportation offer).

Your broader point that the ease with which one can create and distribute free goods has created barriers to business success within SL -- that has some validity, but I do not find it as debilitating as you seem to. It adds to the challenge I grant you.

The reputation system point I don't see either, the rep system doesn't work and few rely on it.




who the heck called anyone evil? People ask for free things (surprise surprise) but only a small minority calls for a purely socialist, freebie society, because most know that this leads to mediocrity.




Granted. Communication and documentation is not always LL's strong suit. That said, speculative buyers working off of assumptions are taking risks. Sometimes they pay off (if you're Soros), sometimes they don't.

Merwan, the "Free it Forward" idea is not one I can support. Maybe it's because I already provide a lot of free loss-leaders myself, and swim in a sea of freebies, and often wind up having to do something for cost or free because of the sea of freebies, and it is my personal belief this is a killer for this game. Trust me, whatever socialism's noble goals, whatever its lofty aspirations, it runs out of human capital in time. Human capital gets worn down, and can't keep producing. It's a terrible thing to waste, and other systems preserve and enhance its value better.

You're describing a village, a small town, even a different bucolic, pastoral century where guilds and clans could function with trading and barter relationships.

But Merwan, we're on a big, modern, busy, cross-cultural Internet now. People logging in are not likeminded in the slightest, and you can't press them into becoming so. You can't set a goal of creating a small, like-minded community of a million people. Instead, your building blocks have to be structures of dispute resolution, cross-cultural communication, and fairness in the public space. No one group, even those like-minded who selflessly laboured for a like-minded company from the beginning, can be privileged when an entity like LL positions itself to become a WWW or a host or the Chinese menu of virtual worlds.

This is not a family. It's not a community. It's a vast experiment in which many communities will be formed and will clash at times. You can't whitewash that or wish it away. My reporting on this is not an incitement of hatred or clashes, it is not a "hurting" of SL but a wake-up call to those living in a snug bunny nest of illusions of a "we are the world" made up of just themselves and their special friends.

I don't have to read minds, and they are just innocently doing their thing. In the back of their minds, of course, was a conscious or unconscious huffy indignation at those who charged more than $2 because obviously, they wrote that script into their public wiki -- don't charge more than $2.

Honestly, Ingrid, it's not personal and not venomous. It's just a point that if I or Charlotte or Joe Blow comes out there with a $50 cab ride now, we don't want be tarred and feathered as the ebil peeps who "gouge" at the New Continent because others have set themselves up as the goody two-shoes.

Positions itself??

Just because Philip says this and that about SL being all That - doesn't for one second mean it's gonna happen. This SL of ours has not been able to grab any noticeable market share and at the end of the day, it's the software toy of some very creative people at LL. But as an effective company able to obtain real market share - where is it?

There are no wake up calls 'cept the one within each individaul. You, me, no one person can wake up the rest of us.

Tarry on my man with the illusion of separateness - the electro net culture - it will fall just like all empire do - and what will remain, is what's always been the driving force of the human family - the individual, seeking family, and community, and building from there.

Ain't no big thing.

First I need to clarify a few things!

!. I purchased a small plot of land in Purple when it first came on the auction (back in the real land price wars) and paid a pretty penny for it. Over the last year, I have paid a very large amount of both lindens and rl dollars for the remaining pieces of Purple as they became availalble. The land for the rr was given well over a year ago when the rr was first being built before the new continent was even thought about. When Athos wanted to change the direction of the rr I was more than happy to accomadate him.

2. The Merchants group that owns the sim Purple owns over 100,000 m in sl. I have never made the Developers Incentives nor do I care if I ever do. If my entire goal was to make money, I guess I would have locked the land and charged a pass fee for all of those who wanted to travel to the new continent (some would have). As in rl, there is a balance. When it first came out that you could pay $50 to set your home in the new continent, I thought it was bizarre, but I chose not to say anything about that adventure. Please do the same! But then again, those who don't believe that what you do comes around, will never understand!

3. Don't even begin to tell me about business. I have worked long and hard hours to have the business I have in secondlife, it was not handed to me nor have I ever been subsidized in anyway. But then again, some of us choose to be in-world producing things for a succesful business (making items that people choose to spend their dollars on) not causing hate and discontent in the forums. I came to sl when the established players you talk about were already here. I didn't just sit back and cry "foul-play" I found a nitch and ran with it and continue to do so.

Yes, it is a great day. The sun is shining! Good thing rain clouds only stay for a short while.

You're absolutely right. The issues are bigger, and most people in SL, especially those who have been around, act like they don't get it.

And you're absolutely wrong. You keep pushing for processes, policies, and priorities, blind to the fact that SL is not run by rules, committees, nor constitutions, but by informal social relations. Business is conducted "in the hallway, home, or bedroom", so to speak, not in the conference room, classroom, or legislative chamber.

Hence your original error about conspiracies in SL.

Merwan, bless his six-miles-wide, two-inches-deep heart, is correct: Here in SL, the issues give way to social relationships inside an informal local network, and if you ain't part of the network, you ain't nothing. He's also a little wrong, of course. Not all issues can be solved with justice by appealing to "community."

1. Have you been talking to the Lindens about hooking up your railroad with their railroad? I think that's a matter of general public interest. We need transportation out to the new continent if they don't put in telehubs. And we need to see if some players are going to benefit from this or not.

2. What does RL have to do with anything? Does it imply that someone "has no RL" because they experiment with charging $50 to have people set log-ins and get TPs to the new world? That's work. Why not charge for it? What would any RL status have to do with anything, so why are you implying it? Why invoke "balance as in RL". It's just a $50 charge. It's even humorous. No one may ever take advantage of this offer, but it's interesting to try.

Why would something be waiting to "come around" and punish me because I chose to flag the suppression of over-$2 ferry rides? That's a public service of its own, encouraging more commerce and a diversity of services in this game that take it beyond the content-king centric core. Or are you...not interested in that diversification of the economy?

I have a successful business in SL that people do pay for and it pays my bills and gives me a profit in some communities, and others are non-profit breaking even, and still others run at a loss as an experimentation while I learn the markets in SL.

I found a niche and ran with it and continue to run with it. What on earth is your point? You have not the slightest clue about any of my businesses.

It's ok to cry foul and be sharp and pointed in the forums. This is part of what needs to be done here. It's legitimate dissent against the status quo. Get used to it.

nice post Mash

Seth, what you say can only be true from the vantage point of a small-town, old-boy's kind of network in a medieval guild setting.

It can't be true of a modern Internet type of highway and byway for the exchange of goods, services, and information, where you don't have to know and like someone and be in good with them to exchange business transactions with them.

The fact is, some people will want to create more formal structures like those conference rooms or legislative chambers in keeping with the larger investments and greater numbers of people who will come into the game. Any attempt to thwart that looks like the Middle Ages and warrings of principalities.

I find it a dreadful commentary that in SL "the issues give way to social relationships inside an informal local network, and if you aint' part of the network, you ain't nothing."

That sums up the horror of the situation of this little medieval wiki that can't see beyond its nose.

I, for one, am not interested in sucking up to some informal network in that fashion, and will continue to point out its flaws. I don't have any intention of brown-nosing the "right people" any more than I have any intention of taking the ridiculous reputation/ratings system seriously.

What you are appealing to when you "appeal to the community" is the 5 percent of people who read the forums.

*sigh* I feel sorry for you, I really do.

Yeah, positions itself, because they play a reputation game based on intricate mutual fluffing up of egos, etc.

Well, silly me, I take somewhat seriously the Philip Linden yammerings about having a million subscribers. Why? Because I saw the game get a whole lot bigger just in the time I've been in it, which is 6 months. It still doesn't have as many people as the much-maligned TSO did in its hey-day. But it's growing pretty fast.

And I happen to interact with a lot of the new people coming in, including people from TSO, and I see how differently they look at things.

Families and communities are fine, and I sure as hell don't have any aspirations for the gigantism of thecivilizations that failed and left behind the deadening hand of mausoleum art culture. But I do believe that it is possible to create public spaces for more democratic and less medieval-like interactions of free beings. I do think you can have business transactions take place in a pleasant but not mutually-back-rubbing interface. I do not think I have to live in the small town I left years ago, when this is the Internet where anything is possible.

Geez, why feel sorry for me? My land is making some money in the New Continent that covers some expenses at least and I have good confidence that with more labour and advertising it will continue to thrive.

Is your land doing that?

It becomes more obvious to me that you perhaps are failing in SL and your only recourse is to pee on someone elses parade. You have my pity.

Well which ever way I answer you will jump on it, and I really can't be bothered. I'll leave you to carry on with your quest to 'win' SL.

*rolls eyes*.

I'm not trying to win SL. I'm trying to run a normal business and looking for a normal business environment.

Instead, I'm finding myself in something that doesn't even rise to the Junior Achievers' Club or selling Amway.

5% Solution.

That's because this is an online game.

I'm curious, Random... Between your rants in this thread, and your rants about Hank's 16m2 plots in another thread, do you happen to have a sour pickle shoved somewhere where sour pickles shouldn't be shoved?



- Ace

I took the liberty of editing out the unnecessary characterizations in this statement. But essentially, Random, now you've got it.

As for the horror of it all, you're reacting to the "horror of the human condition", I'm afraid. Perhaps someday SL will be too big for the small town networking that does not tolerate diverse points of view well, and often stifles creativity. In that day we will have to go to a "process of committee" system, and all that implies.

For the moment, however, you can continue to joust with the "local people," and enjoy your reputation as the "crank who lives just beyond the town boundaries." Because SL is a virtual small town, with many of the same characteristics.

I'm actually thinking we won't have to go to a process committee if some of the medieval cultural artifacts can begin to be seen for what they are and eliminated.

I'm happy to live on the wrong side of the Linden tracks.

And, it's ok for me to play how I want....so get used to it.

What part of I GAVE the land to the railroad do you NOT understand. The railroad belongs to the railroad group, of which I am not a member, and therefore, am not privy to what their plans are.

random/prok, I still say your energies are focusing on the wrong things with these defensive posts and conspiracy theories.

there remains a much bigger problem, brought up many a time, that there is no legal or even semi-legal infrastructure in place.

how do you motivate entrepreneurs? Cash flows and exit strategies. Cash flows people are leveraging now (you, me, others). Exits, i.e. selling your company to a strategic or financial buyer, remain relatively rare from what I can tell.

how do you kickstart ventures of any scale? Investors and seed capital.

how do you foster operations of any scale? the ability for an employer to trust a promised work product will be delivered, and the ability for an employee/contractor to trust that s/he will be paid.


All this is missing. We all know this is missing.

You complain that we are too reliant on relationships and local communities -- yet that is the only thing that can be trusted in the absence of more formal infrastructure.

You want to bitch about clique-driven business practices, well I am talking about root causes. That said, even with a legal infrastructure, trust remains a paramount issue when you go into business with someone.

Now Philip MUST be aware of these issues, after all he lives smack dab in the middle of this infrastructure. If memory serves, I think I read that he was an EIR at Accel. But I have not heard him address this in a satisfactory way. He and his lawyers must still be trying to devise a solution that could work without exposing them to liability.