Could the Lindens block SL from stabilising as a goldrush economy?

People have been starting up failing clubs for years. And what if the new buyer is just another failing club builder, and the next, and the next?

It's exactly the point that has been made on the OS threads. The market fails to correct in many cases because as soon as the consumers become savvy (on these topics) they leave.. So there's always another generation of unaware consumers.

Then maybe people get a kick out of starting up clubs. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than starting up and failing in a real life business... and, you now, most real-life businesses fail too.

I honestly don't see what needs to be "corrected" here, or for that matter what could possibly be corrected. Even going with your outrageous scheme to "fake success" wouldn't make a difference... people just aren't that easy to fool.
Oh yes, I know, there's some people who leave SL over and over again. It's disgusting.

You believe there should be some sort of built in control so that clubs can no longer be started by the ignorant, based on a history of past failures? I don't. I believe in the free market approach, for better or worse. You feel like a pattern of failed clubs is somehow a failure in SL and it's economy? I don't.

So who's right?

Like selling prim genitalia for noobs to have awkward and embarrassing nerd-sex with?

As others have said; there would be nothing left in SL if they did.

Yeah screw the US automakers..oh wait that's not what this is about. Or is it? I mean if you have a business and you can't adapt to your consumers wishes then you deserve to fail. Is this an indictment of the economy as a whole? Not even close. It just means that one business fails. The great thing about the free market system is another will eventually fill the void. Will they succed? Only time will tell.

"Fake"? We say "virtual" in SL, surely!

What needs to be corrected is that the market isn't succeeding at providing a good entertainment experience. You can see this from SL's constant user churn, combined with the static US$ input. Thousands of people are coming in, buying things, finding they don't enjoy SL - the same SL that the same market made - and quitting. And meanwhile, the market is carrying on merrily, not correcting for this - because those people _are_ buying things.

Now, yes, this might happen in the real world too, but in a virtual world there's increased responsibility. After all, there's no "just the way things are.." in a virtual world - everything is lines of code on the server that a human decided to write that way.

As I say.. my personal beliefs about why the market is going wrong is because, since the removal of dwell, etc, there has been little or no financial incentive to provide _context_ as well as _content_ and so the market has stopped doing so. Also, because the market follows the money so closely, it's fast becoming the case that the only way to differentiate yourself socially is to spend money. Any differentiation that could be made without spending money, there is a gap in the market for someone to make it possible by spending money, sa that they do. The only problem is, it doesn't work, because others ignore things that you've just "bought your way into" (of course most of the time they ignore things you've built as well but that's another issue)

But those personal issues are beside the point - the churn rate plus static spend are whot shows the problem, and although it's easy to say "well, they _are_ still spending, so SL is doing fine", I don't think it's good if it's doing fine by effectively ripping off consumers - charging them for what looks great and then letting them find it isn't really. Most concerning of all is that it creates a lasting distrust, so even if SL or other virtual worlds crack this problem later on, those people won't believe it when they're told so.

No, this isn't "real" versus "virtual" this is "real" versus "fake". The economy in SL is a simulation of a real economy, not a simulation of a fake economy. You can't fake success by sharding people into little sub-economies.
Sure it is. It's not doing it for you, but it's doing it for lots of people. People play, then quit, or keep playing, or leave and return, and that's what happens with every business, and every game.
"This might happen in America, but in the Soviet Union there's increased responsibility."

Second Life is an economic system. You can't ignore economics in an economic system, you can just choose how much manipulation you're going to engage in in the economy. Linden Labs has chosen to limit their manipulation. They have limited it to a greater degree than I personally care for, too, but even if they reinstated some form of dwell and reputation bonus it wouldn't change the economics. People would still come in, set up clubs or builds, not get enough dwell to pay for them, and fail.

I would love to see them return the dwell and reputation bonuses, in some form, because it would encourage more of the kinds of builds that I like that became less common when dwell left, and it would encourage many people to be social rather than camp. But for the person who comes in and sets up a club and gets L$70 a week dwell with expenses of L$7000 a month... they're still going to go bust.

That's not my experience at all. I get great feedback from my avatars, people react the way I want them to react when I role-play around them, even though I bought most of them. Oh, occasionally you run into people who get upset by a foot-long ferret biting their ankles or whatever, but usually it's a matter of fitting in to the theme with an avatar (that I bought). They want serious, I got serious. They want cute, I got cute. They want a flayed humanoid with cybernetic skeletal wings and an exposed spinal cord, I got that (damn, you got some Bactine? Thanks!).

For several months I happily "bought my way in", paypalling myself 20 bucks here and there. And it worked for me. It doesn't work for other people, that's their problem. It works for enough people that they keep doing it. I know people who've been here 3 years who click on that "buy Lindens" button on a regular basis.

You assert that most of the money that's coming in is coming in from newbies who don't know better and leave jaded. I don't believe that.

What is the difference between virtual and fake?



Well, except that I didn't necessarily say that those people who ran clubs did so because they wanted to make money. They might do so just because they want to have the experience of being a club owner, and would be prepared to pay for that... except that they fail, not because they don't make money, but because nobody turns up, so their fantasy is per se contradicted.

(Worse yet is that you'll have to compete with clubs that pay people to be there. Now, paying for land for your club is one thing, but actually paying people to attend your club is going to be fantasy breaking for a lot of people.)



That's only your experience though - there are many for whom that isn't the case. I mean, perhaps it's just the places and people they're meeting, but if you're going to the generic clubs (which is where newbies _do_ go, because they look the most popular) you get very used to being treated generically. If your ferret bites their feet, they just ignore the emote and go on talking about where to get free stuff or what was on RL TV last night. Pretty soon, they learn that paying anything for their avatar was a mistake.

And even that isn't about social differentiation. If you, for example, want to be a ballerina in SL, then at one point somebody could have built an outfit and made their own animations, and that would differentiate them. A regular user would have had a chance at doing this themselves because there weren't professionals making the same things, yet. Now, they are on sale... but you can't perform with the bought ones, because everyone just knows you bought a bunch of animations that anyone could run. And if you make your own, then unless you spend 100% of your time practicing making your own, they'll be worse than the bought ones so no-one will care.



Which is why the question - could LL put in a circuit breaker to prevent this happening? Like, say, introducing a cooling-off period on all content purchases? If I'm wrong, and it isn't happening, then the circuit breaker will make no difference, but it's still there to stand on guard.

Virtual success is success in a virtual environment. Fake success is a scripted cut-scene of people cheering you.
And there's no way to "fix" that.
And there's many people for whom it is.
If they want to use SL as a chat system, that's their choice.
Whynot? People are always interested in where I got my cool animations, and I haven't made any of them.
A circuit breaker based on *what*? And why would they *want* to keep it from happening?

So the differenc is involvement of real people?



There might be. But at least, we should try to prevent businesses running selling hundreds of club lighting systems to new clubs which any experienced user would know would fail. And, especially, those businesses false telling them to expect to succeed.



However, the low retention rate suggests that the majority are not finding their experience satisfactory. Granted, that does not mean that my assertions about what experinces they are having and why they are not satisfactory are correct; but it suggests that more people are generally having negative experiences that positive one. And my own experience and those of several people I've known and spoken to suggests it's not uncommon to be trapped in genericity.



It's not their choice. They want the more role-play, immersive activities. They are forced into generic chat because they can't obtain social consensus for them. And that could be helped by having SL include a system for rewarding the giving of social consensus, as many other virtual worlds in fact do. But that reward system can't be based on real money, as if it is, then it's just buying people's social behaviour like whores, which isn't satisfactory for most people's social desires.



Again, look at profile comments, behaviour in clubs, number of actual events of that type..



They would want to prevent it from happening because it's arguably immoral, and even if that isn't good enough, it is introducing jade and distrust about the whole concept of virtual worlds in _millions_ of RL people. Inspiring distrust is an error from which it is very, very hard to recover.

And as I say, a cooling-off period on content purchases would work as a circuit breaker. For example. At a moment when you buy L$ for real money, you can choose to make your account a protected account. One protected account per real set of payment info. When you buy content, the L$ is held in escrow for 14? 30? some period of days. During that time, you can choose to leave SL completely, and you get all the L$ from the escrow back. If you don't leave during that time, the escrowed money is passed on to the content creators as normal. If you do leave, the content is deleted from your account, or from the world if it was rezzed, and the L$ are sold for US$ to repay you. The account can then never log into SL again and another protected account can't be created with the same payment info.

The difference is real accomplishment. If you're dealing with real people, then you need real people to succeed.

Anyone who tries to start up a business without doing the research is going to fail. SL is no different, except that you can play being a businessman a lot cheaper than really being one.

In a sense, SL is useful training for the real world.
Since most people don't try to set up clubs or in fact do ANYTHING that involves spending more money than they get from a camping stool, the low retention rate has nothing to do with business success or failure.

They can't want them enough if (a) they aren't looking for them, and (b) they ignore one when it bites them on the ankle.

I don't see what you say you're seeing.

I only have your word for it that it even happens. It would be silly to spend a lot of time adding a "circuit breaker" based on vague and subjective criteria that would cripple the economy if it actually fired by accident.

The sky isn't falling.

Holy Easily Gamed Way To RIp Off Content Creators, Batman.

Right. But which is better as an entertainment experience - fake accomplishment, or failure?



As I mentioned, their clubs aren't "businesses", but wish fulfilments in themselves. Does "training for the real world" sell?



That is sadly true, but that is ditto a sign that there is some failure to appeal involved.



a) Often they do look but don't find them or find that they are empty;
b) Being bitten on the ankle by a ferret may not be the RP they want. That's the social consensus problem.



What, that you can't socially differentiate with bought content? Well, name me a person who has done so.



It shouldn't be easily gamed - the "one protected account per real payment info" (ok, you might have to extend that to only permanent credit cards and other non-throwaway payment info) and "if you want the refund you have to leave SL forever" rules should ensure that.

Anyway - suppose that a way of doing the same thing that couldn't be gamed was devised - you would see how it would work and the effect it would have. The responsibility for retention would be set very really at the doors of the people who create the world. (At the moment, it tends to be the mentors who are held responsible, which is really kind of awkward..)

Well, you seem to be getting your entertainment out of complaining, so I would guess "failure".

I don't get my entertainment out of complaining, I complain in the hope of getting entertainment later on when the complaints are resolved.

Also, why the focus on me? The 70% churn remains.

Because no ones hair looks good at terminal velocity in RL

A chance of failure or automatic success? Which is more fun? By a mile the chance at failure. If there is no risk then there can be very little reward.

When I first came to SL, I did open a club. It was fun, and for a small venue (non island) I did pretty well at drawing a crowd. It was fun. I met lots of great people. I spent some money, but so what, I enjoyed myself. Would you have denied me that chance? Denied me the fun of taking the risk of failing? Denied me the pride of succeeding?


As for buying your AV to "differentiate" yourself, an AV is important and showing that you take some pride in your look is important; BUT personality matters in the end. You do need to upgrade your look if you want to be taken seriously, but if you can't carry on a conversation, if you can't draw a crowd with your personality, then maybe WOW is a better place for you.

But the irony is that the chance of failure is only fun.. if you eventually succeed. Otherwise, it's just failure.



No, as long as you were taking the risk with eyes wide open. My issue is that I'm not convinced that everyone is. I'm sure all the experienced residents here know how the in-world economy works, but newer folks don't - and "newer" here can still apply for the first few months in SL, before you observe how things really fit together. "Well, they should do their research" you say - but knowing that - knowing that they should do research first - is another part of the same experience that they don't have.

The problem is that newbies are surrounded by advertising ("Your World, Your Imagination" amongst other things) which suggests to them that all this kind of thing doesn't apply. Mentoring, I think, is an issue too. Mentors (and helpers in general) are commonly judged by new user retention rate, and they also tend to be the kind of people who enjoy making others be excited and inspired - certainly I love that, and many of the other helpers I've worked with feel that too. But the problem with this is that they'll blatantly oversell SL ("you can do anything you like and live any dream you have!", because giving a more realistic estimation, and having a newbie say "I don't want that" and quit right in front of them is far more traumatic for the helper, and more blamable on them, than having the newbie try that dream, fail, and quit 3 months down the line. Had they been more realistic, maybe the new resi would *not* have said "I don't want that", but would have gone on with realistic expectations and stayed in SL for a year or more. That possibility goes missing, because no helper wants to be responsible for driving a new resident away, even if they were a bad fit and that's actually the best idea.

And let's be honest, if your dream is to own a club and you've been told things like the above, are you going to guess that you should first spend a few weeks researching if your club is even viable - and the answer might be no, so you can't open one after all?





I understand, but it's not so much about just "being popular" as about having a social role or living a social dream. In real life you can be the most popular gal/guy at the party, but even that doesn't mean that the others will support you when you want to pretend to be a rock star (or, um, a giant ferret).

If you fail enough times you will succeed in the long run. Or you will move to something you have more talent at. The running the race is just as important as winning it.



I knew nothing about running a club when I started, and I didn't research it. I taught myself. It was fun, there were ups and downs, and eventually I moved on. If you had told me that I couldn't even try........well I would not have stayed in SL at all.



Others have no obligation to support anyone or their dreams. But if you want to be a ferret, simple you search out like minded people who want to associate with ferrets. The search menu isn't that hard to use. Any one can be a "rock star" if they have the will and personality to pull it off. It is about finding your niche. In some venues, I am treated as a "rock star" the moment I tp in. It is about how you relate to people. Hell even just posting on this forum can make you a rock star. I can't count the times I have been in world and random people will IM me or say in open chat "OMG it's the infamous Chris Norse!" I would bet most other regular posters can say the same.

A Goldrush economy is a stepping point to a more stable, vibrant one.

With any large, evident opportunity, of course you're going to get a huge flux of people trying to take advantage of that opportunity, the majority of which will fail. This is a GOOD THING. The risk of great rewards must come with the risk of failure. This spurs innovation, rewarding those who find novel ways to profit on the opportunity. This prevents an economic bubble from forming, and is a stepping point to a more robust economy. That is exactly what happened to California after the gold rush, as the same attracted innovation was shifted towards agriculture (California's true gold), commerce and manufacturing.

No one ever says
upon my arrival. I suspect this is actually quite uncommon.

Right, but the problem with Second Life is that there isn't evidence that the robust economy is actually robust. When the thrill of being able to build the world and profit from doing so is (largely) gone, it's not clear that what's left of SL is a product that's appealing to many people in the sense of making them to want to pay money.

For the purpose of "life lessons" maybe, but for the purpose of an entertainment product? Not so much.



I wouldn't tell you that you couldn't even try. I would, however, want to be sure you knew that you were probably going to fail.



Obligation, no, of course not. But they also have no incentive, which is something that SL could address in design.



But you casually assume that such people exist, and they may not. And this is an issue if a hundred content creators are making hundreds of dollars selling ferret outfits to people who wouldn't buy them if they knew there was no way to ever play a ferret.



Sure, but what happens when you want to play a song? Ya know, like the difference between a rock star and a generic popular person?

Edit: And no one ever says much on my arrival either!

"OMG it's Suzy Baskerville!"

That better?

Then why do most video games have the death of the player as a penalty for failing? If failing is so traumatic, then wouldn't we all be playing "Little Fairy Sunbeam and her Rainbow World of Peace"? The risk of failing, and the pride of overcoming are what draw people to those games. Life entails risks, you can't remove that. So what if you , LL, or a prize winning committee of the FIC tell me I am gonna fail. That just makes me more determined to prove you wrong.


Why would a hundred creators be making hundreds of dollars selling ferret parts if there was no community of ferret people? That makes no sense at all. For the customer to be buying they have to have interest and yes they have to exist. If they don't have a place to play ferret it is the fault of the ferret community, not LL or the SL community at large.

If I wanted to play a song, I would set up a stream of music from a server. Pretty simple.

No comment on your edit.

In most games, "death" of the player character isn't failure - you can immediately try again. Market failure in SL tends to be utter failure; if there isn't room for something in the market then.. there isn't room. You can only try again by trying something else.. which is not starting the game again, but having to play a different one, which might not be the one you wanted to play.



Because people could be buying them, hoping to be a ferret, not realising they can't because no-one else is interesting. Those people don't all work together to become a ferret community because a) playing a ferret interacting with other ferrets may not be the only experience they want and b) two, three, or four people don't make a community, especially when they might only be online together for a few minutes each week, and if they quit SL because they weren't getting to be a ferret then any developing community is pruned at the shoot. Most people are not prepared to hang around in a virtual world, doing something that has no social support, just hoping that it might have it someday.



The ferret community is part of the SL community, and LL's decisions have affected that situation.



Right, but when do you get to stand on the stage with your prim guitar? Again.. you know, like a rock star?