Idol Linden or Beggar Linden?

um.. the fact i enjoy helpin people out that help me out.. is a stumblin block to SL's growth... how?

i mean i don often criticize but prokofy, you need to understand that the only thing really hindering SL's growth is the attitude of people like you that ya can't just be nice and enjoy yerself here. I've prolly signed on more trial members by jus sittin around, chattin with them, than any number of the things i have for sale ever have.

If you can't figure that out or come to accept it, you know what? i know the cause of your problems, an its gonna be found in the mirror, not in other residents jus doin what we can and enjoyin ourselves.

-edit-

i guess what im tryin to say is just let yerself, enjoy yerself, theres alotta cool stuff here.. i didn get into the new land till a few days later either, but big deal, it wasn goin anywhere.

i don't expect to be special, and im rarely suprised. And if sometimes a friend of mine does go the extra mile an jus do somethin cool without bein asked to, jeez thats a *good* thing... expectin them to do that, nigh demandin it... thats a *bad* thing, and its gonna jus eat away at ya till theres not much else left

hmmm am i going to let Prok make me lose my temper? deeeep breath. no.

you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong

Now I don't know eltee deeply, but I would say that eltee's attitude is good for SL. She leads a community zoning project that you might actually like. I love what she and the other Lusk officers have done with Lusk/Perry. Her particle system has helped probably thousands of people understand particles. She makes money as part of the lusk team and she also gives back to the community. She usually gives back to the community with an explicit explanation of IP rights so there is less confusion (that confusion being something else you were complaining about earlier). I could go on, but instead i'll just repeat

you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong

Thats not true at all. Whatever you create in SL is yours to own and do with as you please. Including turning it into something IRL (tringo is an excellent example, coming to cell phones around the world)

Oh hey Bub. I finished work on your giant shiny rocket phallus.

Excellent! Ahead of schedule. I'll be in-world to "God Mode" you your payment. After I check the particle effects, that is.

-Bub

Yeah those effects are just... eww dude. Seriously.

Actually, it has nothing to do with seeing Lindens as “stars”or gods or whatever. Its just that I realize that without LL my precious “content ownership” would not even exist. Therefore, it just feels plain rude to me to denie the ones who granted me the right (and I think granted is the right word here) over the stuff I make using THEIR tools, an example of the usage of those tools.

Also, in a more selfish way I think handing out free stuff to a Linden could also be seen as free advertising, much like having a celebrity walking around in your clothes. In RL, celebrities tend to get a lot of designerclothes for “free”. In those cases, “free” is not actually free, its advertising really, paid with clothes. I think a Linden walking around with your stuff comes really close to that situation.

Hmm..I wonder what Linden I can get to walk around wearing my D/s toys and gear and holding up my porn? Jeska..will you be in-world later tonight?

Depends on what they wanted to use it for. If they were assembling a gift bag for some other resident, then I'd ask them to purchase the item at regular price. If they were using it for some project which benefited everyone, I'd give it to them for free. If they were going to list me with a credit, I'd give them two!

HAHAHA OMG that's GREAT. An AC reference! That kinda reminds me of Toonville in Olive, actually.



Tru, tru... when Aim is not fixing up roadways and smacking down greefer kin and punishing intellectual property violator unpeople, she is making clothes that she gives to her Linden alt, who pays for them too. Onlookers may be puzzled but this is Second Life after all.

And let's not forget Munch is a Linden too.

Oh, speaking of,



Yes. Pathfinder is my Linden alt. There are numerous clues attesting to this.

*sigh*

At work though I had to sign a no-watermelons form because it'd be too obvious and Philip was all like, "Hey, Torley, I've got a great gig for you: put on this big floppy hat and hold this stick and cast magic spells to smite the flamewars." I couldn't resist.

^ emoticons are there for a reason



Seriously - hmmmmmm! That's a good point.

<.<

>.>

Also sometimes, you become friends with someone after good business relationships get more personal, and it doesn't feel right to charge a friend. As a Resident of Second Life, I'll still insist on paying, but some things just can't be paid for by money -- my enthusiasm says a lot about that.

Okay, so a guy feels wierd about something, posts a question, and eventually gets answers not only from thoughtful people, but even a couple of Lindens. Good show.

Just one problem. Early on, someone insulted him for even asking. Oh, there were no swear words and there wasn't any name-calling... but the statement was clearly a shot at the original poster. So the guy gets a little steamed and tells that person to take the ego somewhere else. Honestly, it was a nicer response than some of the ones I've seen on the forums.

It was halted (mostly) when Pathfinder brought the hammer down and reminded us all to play nice. Good show on this one too, Pathfinder. But you only quoted the thread's author in your statement. You should have included both individuals in that post.

I understand that you were trying to throw water on the fire, but that kind of omission fuels the attitude many people have about griefers getting away while regular folks get slammed. "It's okay for them to grief you, but if you grief back the Lindens will be on you in two seconds flat."

Of course this isn't the way you do business, and you did the right thing by intervening. Just remember to either put everyone on the list, or no one. When you singled out Kade, you gave the appearance that it was okay to insult him if as long as we dance around our words properly. It just looked bad.

On the bright side, it's good to see you and Bub taking such and interest in the forums. Thanks for jumping in!

eltee, I'm not a very nice person, I agree. I can be sharp in tone. I feel this is necessary for this debate, which I feel is vital. I feel the attitude of "people like me" expresses more than you care to acknowledge. It's great you signed on trial members, but no one person can carry that load in this game, and who many of them bought land and tiered up?

The game can't grow and be the WWW host thingie it claims it wants to be if it just has all these nice people selling to Tom Nook and collecting Linden and other freebies. Geez, is it time for me to go back and skill up to get my milkshakes in TSO? Seriously, it is not due to lack of me "chilling" or my shortfall in character that I believe that this is an obstacle. The position I'm articulating is the same as in the TSO debate about whether you should pay for buffets or not, or charge for them or not.

Things of value cost something. When you give something away for free, you have assigned it a value: 0.

Sorry, but there it is. Multiple 0 x 0, and you get...0

This is just basic economics.

www.kernel.org
www.freebsd.org
www.sourceforge.net
www.mozilla.org
Gee... I see a lot of 0 x 0 here....

And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

no prok, it is excessive simplification. Sophisticated economies have a wide range of activity going on and can support that complexity. There is plenty of stuff for sale in SL -- it can support some free goods.

People give things away for many reasons. Sometimes it is business model driven, i.e. they want their products seen on the right people in the right places, and sometimes they are investing to build a brand. Sometimes free or low-priced things are loss-leaders to get people to a location or drive some other desired behavior.

Sometimes people build things that they want to give away for free just because they feel like it. Well that is their right and their choice and yes, it can have a serious impact on a market including putting people out of business but nobody has 100% assurance that they get to stay in business. Risk of price wars exists in all businesses.

If a free product is good enough, it raises the competitive ante for those who want to charge for the same type of good. It can improve quality. And if something becomes enough of a commodity that the free good takes over 100% market share, and there is NO way to have a higher-end version that you can charge for, well its time to exit that market. But you know, someone almost always finds a way to innovate, differentiate, and improve.

See sigline.

That is only when you weigh your measurment in dollars against dollars.

There are other forms of measurement. For example, perhaps your neighbor has a chunk of land that is just sitting idle and they can't afford to do anything with it right now so you create landscapes, and you give your neighbor some trees and flowers for 0 linden. What's the return?

0 = pretty park near your house and a neighbor to hang out with once in awhile, hell you may even make a friend.

Or as eltee pointed out, if your knowledge of scripting is limited and you are struggling with creating something and someone helps you so you give them what you created, what then do you get?

0 = help from someone, less frustration, a better product to sell to others

It's not always an apples to apples deal, sometimes it's apples to oranges.

Even when you just give something to a person because you like them, the return is never 0 when they appreciate what you gave them.

Just my 2 Lindens.

Several Lindens have asked for my creations over the course of the last 5 months and I provided them without reservation. It just seemed like a nice thing to do, I guess. Besides, even if ALL of them asked for something and you gave them ALL what they were asking for, you'd be out, what, 25-30 sales? Not the end of the world by any means. Without exception the Lindens I have met have been pretty cool and seem to work hard. I don't see why it could be profound and evil to say thanks by way of honoring their requests freely. Sure, I do charge residents for my creations, but most all of that profit goes right into tier so I can keep putzing around without having to worry about it. This seems to me like folks are getting pretty worked up over what amounts to a personal choice: to give to a Linden or not. Whether it is nobler in the sim to suffer the pushguns and camp arrows of outrageous economics or by primcrafting, end them. Maybe it's not a big deal. It's clear that the Lindens respect our IP, so no worries there.

As far as giving away free content, I have long pondered moving to this mode in hopes of "encouraging" content developers in my field to innovate a little harder. The idea would be that if I'm giving it away, then it makes it a whole lot harder for folks to make profit on it, ergo more innovation. If one of my competitors did this, I'd feel a LOT more compelled to teach myself Gomez's .bvh prim anim importer (the next logical step for my particular wares). But me doing so to others seems like a good way to make folks mad, so I haven't done that yet, except to give away (more or less) an anim overrider preconfigured to make the magic that makes my goofy avs possible.

I think I'm beginning to digress from the intent of the thread so I'll stop it there. =)

I endorse this statement. =)

...

WHOA!! Could environmental economics be coming to SL? Could people begin to value things beyond the simple $L value? Are externalities like land clutter, the costs of learning to script without freebie example scripts, and lag now being taken into account? Yo! =) Hot.

I woud make sure the item had full permissions so they could copy, trade, or modify it before I traded it to them with a smile and thank you for noticing!

Torley and I have been seen at a number of inworld gatherings at the same time, which just might punch holes in this idea...

But then again. Maybe we have a DOZEN computers all running simultaneously, each logged on to SL under a different account. Deep in our secret bunker in Antarctica. Which would explain while my avatar looks vaguely pengin-y.

<looks around shifty-eyed and goes back to feeding the penguins>

Fire is currently undergoing beta testing. Along with "phlogiston" (my own personal project).

Thank you for your interest. We'll keep you posted.

Thank you for the feedback on this. I was implying that both people should tone things down, but you're right...I should have included everyone involved more explicitly.

I'm still getting my "sea legs" on the forums, and I'll be sure to do this in the future.

A few (or couple, time flies) months ago, you contacted me asking where you could buy the picnic tables and benches I made that you'd seen on someone's plot. When I offered to just give you a free, copiable version, you accepted and seemed very grateful.

I'm just curious why you accepted without paying for the object, or alternately, why you didn't lecture me on ruining SL?