A more structured world?

I've been thinking along the same lines as Phil has lately, and I suspect the current path may be a horrible mistake in that it draws an increasingly sharp line between Creators and Consumers (Landlords aside for the moment, that's a different issue) and doesn't allow one to easily morph from one to the other.

I started in SL specifically to Create things, and it's been a lot of fun at times and mostly pays my tier - even though I've been awfully lazy in terms of actual output the last couple of years. But plenty of folks enter SL for other reasons, and time and time again I've seen friends who felt they had no aptitude or desire to make stuff try it out, enjoy it, take pride in what they've created and finally decide to set it for sale and see if anybody else thinks said stuff is worth having. They dip their toes in, progress to "dabbling", and sometimes move on from there to making and selling all manner of neat stuff.

Now we seem to be on the cusp of a world with lots of barriers to enter the Bizness of creating, and not only might that sharply reduce the variety of fun, whimsical, new things in the world but it also obliterates a major answer to the question "what do I do now that I've tired of shopping and cybersex?" Lacking a way to ease gently into making-and-selling-stuff without a strong commitment and some risk beyond to one's ego, it seems to me a lot more people are going to simply get bored and leave. Perhaps glancing wistfully at the folks who got in early and wishing the same opportunities still existed.

Phil's nailed it, I think.

LL is looking at their own quarterly "in world economy" statistics and feeling jealous of its residents. "It's our platform, why are THEY making all this money? Let's take a bigger cut."

So they are trimming their expenses. They're imposing new fees. They're getting more and more into competing with their customers, in land (themed mainland builds) and now in content ("The Mall of Second Life" proposal by Pink Linden). Of course, since they make the rules, they can rig the game so that they always win.

Pink's wistful comment that "Apple takes 30% of all iPhone app sales" is very telling. LL wants to grab a big share of the profit from user created content.

What you say is probably true, Lindal....makes a lot of sense. But I have to ask...eventually when SL's competition comes along, won't they be structured the same?? Isn't that what being in business is all about??

....
I'm certainly going to have to do some serious XStreet sales analysis to determine what is worth keeping listed there - and if I find that none of it is, so be it. I shall also be looking for alternative ways of bringing products to market. I don't know what they might be - but I am sure that where there's a will there's a way.

What you say is probably true, Lindal....makes a lot of sense. But I have to ask...eventually when SL's competition comes along, won't they be structured the same?? Isn't that what being in business is all about??

Well there's a thing.

I was searching Xstreet a while back to see what was out there for certain types of scripted objects. I found page after page of stuff that was basically a prim with a script from the script library.
I found multiple merchants who had pages of that sort of thing.
It's too easy to dream up dross and stuff it into Xstreet just on the offchance that somebody might buy it.

The result for the users is that they may have to wade through hundreds of uninspiring items trying to find something worthwhile.

Any competition will be set up for profits. I don't begrudge LL a profit (god knows, looking at my tier).

But, first, I'm old fashioned enough to resent it when they don't have the good manners to dance with the one what brought 'em.

And I'm up-to-date enough to know that they'll regret willfully truncating the long tail.

Haha! Don't worry Brenda - you'll all be part of the Greater EU