The Sweatshop, the Witch and the 10L$ Wardrobe

While this thread may be a bit off-topic for the forum, the OP was well put together, informative, and qualifies for the news exception. When it comes to reporting the news it is next to impossible to do so without naming names. As long as the news isn't explicitly about the person, the discussion doesn't focus entirely on the person, and the person is treated respectfully, the Private Discussion guideline will not be applied.

By about Monday or Tuesday the news exception will probably expire on the topic. If there is more news to qualify it for an extension, so be it.

I do understand that, but I'm annoyed by the action. I am highly disturbed by the sellout. There are far too many options available than to have to deal with that kind of crap. I'm not going to give Mrs. C. and her slave army any more of my piddly commissions while she seeks to "stimulate" the economy (read: put other people out of business by forcing them to cut profit margins - not that she would be successful, but the attempt is odious in and of itself).

Hey Cristalle, this would be funny: Pull everything off the shelves except for one thing: a box with a texture on it reading something like "Bad for Business: the L$10 department" and then sell it in the L$10 department for L$10...

lol... hmm.. maybe

I had a ringside at the whole event. I just wanted to address a few issues for clarity.

What caused the immediate outcry was that she got her own personalized category to sell from. This has since been removed and a L$10 feature added that will display items of that price by all merchants based on popularity. She also removed the items from sale because the poses mistakenly had full permissions. There are actually lots of clothing on SLX made by ACS already for sale, and listed in the regular categories, but not for L$10 :^).

Ms. C has been a silent partner of SLX for a couple of years, but Mr. A still holds the majority of the company.

She states she is using an office in Germany with a staff of designers and scripters, wants to expand this to 50-100 workers by years end, and create a full catalog in all areas of content in an attempt to lower the average price of content down to the 10- to 15-Linden range.

Kenbro,
I'm not questioning the validity of your statement; I'd just like to read it for myself... got a link to C's comments?

She herself speaks:

Lowering the average price to 10-15L for content is great for consumers

Its really , really rotten for content creators though

I still dont see what we can do about it. Theres nothing shes doing thats against the rules.

*sigh*

I won't do it, but this sort of thing makes me want to just throw in the towel, jump into the nearest hot tub, sip a cold scotch, and say "fuck it all, I'm closing shop." All that work for nothing... makes me want to cry to think of IHOS being undersold by 10Lindens.

I understand that she's one person, and free to do what she likes, but last time I checked, she's NOT the owner of LL. Who is SHE to decide what's "best for SL's economy" (to paraphrase?)

I'm pulling out of SLX as well, Cristalle, now that I think about it. I'm also going to write SLX both an e-mail and a REAL letter (on paper) explaining why.

/me wanders off looking for a hot tub

I to have redone furniture that was too mat prims for its looks. I have a coffee table that was originally 9 prims and made one virtually identical with the same textures for only 4 prims. In another instance there is a very simple freebie bed I love, it works perfectly for the room.

I have looked around at even vehicles, some are grossly over priced for their quality, but it is obvious they still get sales from uniqueness as they are the only place with that particular vehicle if you are dead set on it. This is where I believe having higher quallity product hitting the market for undercut prices would really help. It would force these price gougers to increase quality or decrease their price in responce lower uniqueness of a product that they had previously monopolized.

It's not against the rules, it's just unethical - because she clearly can afford to pay people who will not earn their keep for years. The stuff is not bad quality, but just to earn one dollar she has to sell 27 items. To justify paying people who have an "above average" living and insurance, she's going to need to multiply that by a hell of a lot before she even breaks even. By changing the spending habits of the SL community, she would wreck the economy, if successful. As has been noted in this thread (, she intends to cut out the new content creators. How would you like to spend hours on something just to earn 10L? Especially when it comes to clothing, which you KNOW is on her list.

She may be shooting herself in the foot. A million dollars is not a lot of money, relatively speaking, and can disappear quickly. Unless she is going to rent in every mall and hawk her stuff, which would be a boon to those landholders, she has a long way to go before establishing market dominance.

These seem to be interesting guidelines as to when a thread might be locked.

Where are they defined?

in the quote you put in yours!

Im probably going to go out of business by the sounds of things.

My whole business model counts on the fact that people see the value of my product and will pay my price. I am on the low end of the prices already.

If someone puts out highly visible quality competitive shapes for 10-15L and doesnt need to worry about making teir , paying advertizing, etc , they will easily make it to the point that customers will not see the value any more in MY products.

Since my sales have suffered as of late anyhow wont be able to take abother drastic reduction in profits and still pay my tier. My shop is very small already 1024 M.


Reading the quoted post it doesnt look like a leveraging of low waged workers at all.

It looks like an organized attempt to Influence the SL content market. Probably in an attempt to get more people to STAY in second Life by making everything cheaper - both for direct volume of sales and the indierect benefit. More people = more land sales and rentals.

I mean one reason many complain about SL is "You cant make any money" and "I cant afford to buy anything" People have always concentrated on the Earnings side of that issue. Sounds like Anshe has decided to concentrate on the Prices side of that issue




Still thast the nature of strict business. Sell what you can for what you can get for it, rather than having them buy it from someone else.

Or, not.

Which is exactly what Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, did. Now look at how Walmart has helped to destroy the mom and pop businesses around the US (and working toward the world.) Sure, Sam died a multi multi millionaire but lots of people around the world despise him for what he did. I wonder if AC realizes this might happen to her, or if she cares.

Yes, but that assumes that people who can get things cheaply will be willing to pay for the land to hold it. I don't know about that. I have enough experience with cheap noobs to know that those people determined to earn their L inworld are not likely to buy or rent land, it is just too expensive on the whole. When people complain that 200-400L/wk for an apartment is pricey, you know that they are not the ones buying high end furniture. And those people determined to earn L inworld are those that are precisely the ones who would buy ACS 10L stuff.

My observation is that people who are willing to pay money in this game to have things ALREADY ARE doing it, and they hold land for personal and maybe business use. But many people stay in second life because they can run a business. How many people come here just to play house and shop? The business angle has been LL's selling point for some time now, and if she successfully raises the barrier to entry by being Walmart, I think we would continue to see a decline in premium accounts and a decline in active players.

Would have to be full-perm of course.

But if the IMVU demographic is happy equipping their Dreamland digs with L$10 furniture, wearing L$10 skins and hair, won't they start wondering why they're paying so much rent? Seems to me that this could very well be the undoing of the SL real estate market: If nobody's building anything themselves, why buy land? (Hourly rate "hotels" might be a good investment, though. )

Just from the standpoint of her own self-interest, this seems like a Very Bad Idea.

Quick dumb-dumb question:

"IMVU" and "QFT"? What do those stand for?

For those who want a more precise pointer:


http://uncensored.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=352064

Har, you, mi amigo, are my new hero.

Got me on IMVU, but I've always seen QFT used as "Quoted For Truth" and used when you quote someone you are in complete agreement with without adding anything.

Your post would look like this:



QFT

Leaving off the possible effects of this move, what is more interesting is the "why." What is the gain of creating a $10L empire when there are already thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of free items already available? If rumors are to be believed, this has been in the works for ACS for at least 6 months.

Arguments:

Makes SL more affordable for people. No, not really. Land is the real expense in SL. No point in having a couch if you don't have any land to put it on. Not that much difference between a $10L couch and a $100L couch to someone who is coughing up $15 tier each month.

Upsets the current content creator barony. Not sure why she would care, nor what long-term benefit this might provide. The attractiveness of resident made content is a big part of what drives the land market. How many people tier up because they just have to have a bigger prim allotment?

Provides training for future projects. ACS is involved in other projects, maybe this $10L content adventure is training for a larger scale content creation program.

Why $10L? Why not $50L or $100L? Both price points are considered pretty budget friendly and would expand profit potential. So, profit must not be the motive here.

If profit isn't the motive, what is?

Thanks. Well their avatars are sort of jacked up looking but the website is loads more fun than SL's.