Illegal in RL but okay here business practices?

Comparable by what barometer?

Comparable to a price of over .80 cents a gallon when he entered the market, $16.00/gallon in today's money. So the average person found it cheaper to heat and light their home, isn't that a good thing?

OMG - do NOT let Brenda hear you say that.

Yeh no kiddin'

/me has a vision of SL robber barons giving out low-prim mortgages.

Yup.

If only they had an un-repossessed home to heat

Which makes ya post pretty much useless...



WTF are ya talkin' about?

Having to compete in a competitve market. Not being able have protection from someone competing for your business. Whining in general.

It's not, actually. It's arguably a bait-and-switch. But I don't think it's restraint of trade.

But it's not clear at all if it was a bait and switch scam. It could be but then that brings up another situation..........if you are entreperial enough to have a business you certainly should be aware pit falls when using someone else's products for your business platform. The successful are always on the look out for better methods........including developing their own.

Survival of the fitest, so to speak.

Um, that's a bit over the top, isn't it?

You're suggesting that GOM should have developed their own virtual world?

No, I'm suggesting the OP quite belly aching and find a way to make their business work or start something else.

You know..............do something besides cry over your misfortune. Move on, get busy fixing your situation, be constructive, quit looking for someone else to make it right for you. What successful people do with their lives.

Actually. . .this sort of thing goes on all the time IRL. The original IBM PC used off the shelf components that were easy to get and quickly duplicated or "cloned" (Which is where the term came from.) So IBM came up with the PS1, and microchannel architecture which almost totally abandoned the standards they created. Luckily for the industry, their backpeddling was a total disaster.

OK, so that's an old example. But there are plenty of recent examples among computer, console, and mobile phone manufacturers.

Where did they ever say they weren't doing that?

actually it's most similar to microsoft incorporating features offed by third party developers that extend windows functionality (which essentialy accounts for EVERY interface addition in the last 3 commercial versions) in which case even the real world legality is a question of spin (and how much wind you can generate by waving money around....)

Opening a thread to complain about some undisclosed item that did some undisclosed task that made the OP some undisclosed benefit that some undisclosed person changed to produce some undisclosed deed that made the OP suffer some undisclosed harm........produces exactly what in a constructive manner? Time spent whining instead of working to resolve or make the changes necessary in order to continue with whatever it is the OP wants to continue is nothing but unconstrctive. A rant with, as far as I can see, the sole purpose of gaining sympathy...........I don't sympathize with lazy people.

I can think of a few here who have had to deal with major changes in policy, competition, outside forces who never complain. They work themselves through it. They spend their energy constructively.......no time to whine. Looking seriously at the direction they were headed and if found that it was necessary to change then they changed.......found a competitive edge, or moved on with something else.

Sympathizing with a whiner does not help. It actually harms.

Most of those "undisclosed" things are only not disclosed because of forum rules, so I don't think it's really fair to blame the OP for not disclosing them.

Sorry, that is not the liberal way. I am entitled to be taken care of and given a free ride.

Then we are right back where we started..........what's the point? What's the purpose? Why tell us anything that you cannot disclose fully? What help could possibly be obtained?

Got any useful answers to any of that? I thought not.

That is my point in fact.......it's a whine with the only purpose I can see to gain sympathy. Time spent belly aching when that time would be much more constructively spend working for a solution. If the OP really wanted help he/she would have contacted someone or some group of someones who he/she could disclose the pertinent information to. He/she did not........that makes it a whine, rant, cry baby thread.

I don't sympathize.............I don't think the OP wants help. He/she may want someone to fix it for him/her however. On both occassions he/she does not get my support. Get to work on solving the problem or do something else.

The purpose is to highlight sharp trade practice in SL.

What are "sharp trade practices"? You lost me. Are you trying to say "unfair"? If so, then we are to take the OP's word as gosple without any confirmable facts to back it up.........pretty useless, huh?

So give me a real answer to one of my questions that is in any way gaining the OP something constructive to work with. I can see no answer coming besides what I said.

Someone might hear the complaint and take action against theis type of practice. That would be constructive. So if you're so worried about the post having constructive results, why don't you?

Seriously? Haha......you ain't going to like my answer. It's short too.

I do not have a business in SL. I have no desires to have a business in SL. I think anyone who has a business in SL is playing with fire if they seriously want some monetary gain (even as little gain as simply meeting tier). It's not RL. It does not mimck RL. It's a great big game. Approach it like that and you'll never be scammed (or whatever it is the OP feels has happened).

In a nutshell........though some have and do make a decent return on their time/investment they did not do that by approaching any endeavor in SL as a given that RL rules applied. And because of that they adapted.........within the rules and policies within SL. Never thinking how unfair it might be.

And is that a good thing?

For success in SL..........absolutely.