SLX and SLB a hive of scum and exploitation?

Browsing through the catalogs of SLExchange and SL Boutique, I noticed a large number of either completely useless items, such as "secret communication rings" (Uhh... IM, anyone?), to really simple items, such as scanners. Being a scripter, I know that these things are extremely simple, and could be made in less than thirty minutes.

Am I ranting flamebait, or is there something to this?

(I love SLX and SLB, they provide a great service, but I'm skeptical as to the usefulness and value of some of their items)

You can find useless or easy to make items in world as well, am I mssing the point?

Well, I'm not a scripter, and I couldn't make a scanner.

I don't look at the houses there, either, and say, "Hey, why is somebody selling this? Why, I could make one of these in no time!"

coco

Hmm... perhaps you have a point. It merely becomes concentrated once it's in a central point, but when people begin selling objects which are easily found freebies, it begins to become absurd.

It's the exploitation of those who don't know better that I'm most interested in. How many people who have just joined SL go to one of these sites, and, ignorant of their other options, buy a massively overpriced or useless object?

New signature line, perhaps?

So somebody goes to slexchange.com and blows a buck or two or five because they are too lazy to do some research. Big deal.

If they have the oomph to get to the slexchange.com site or slboutique, etc. they could also muster up the moxy to ask a question in the forums or ask around at the welcome area, or in some other way seek out some knowledge that would keep them from making a purchase in a state of total ignorance.

The headline phrase "hive of scum and exploitation" is just silly. Instead of discussing the matter further with any seriousness we should all just have a big round of laughter at, ummm,

Darn someone's at the door.

Does SLEx sell a plastic bubble for n00bs and naive avies so they won't hurt themselves?

Well, take the time to make something, list it and support it for cheaper

I think you'll find it is not as profitable as you first might imagine.

I knew that sounded wrong coming out... ah, well...

Perhaps, but it's annoying to see such blatant scamming. Scamming should be done in the privacy of alleys behind seedy clubs, not on websites which also sell useful items.

Dang, maybe I should just argue with myself when these sorts of things come up...

I think a bigger concern that simply selling items that are of dubious use is the sale of items that are clear violations of the TOS, like remote chat monitoring devices. While it is certainly not up to these sites to enforce the TOS, I would hope that they would have policies in place forbidding the sale of such items and would remove them upon notice as part of being a good faith business, since both sites are profitting off of these items. A quick search for spy on either site reveals that both sites are currently selling such items.

most of the fun stuff in SL is completley useless

I've kind of wondered about that as well. While I like both sites, I do believe businesses do not have carte blanche in such areas.

In my eyes, the era of tolerating businesses which believe that they operate in a social vacuum or are solely beholden to their shareholders is (and should be) drawing to a close. People are getting fed up with the results. Businesses are as much a part of society as individuals, and they have more responsibility to improve that society, not less, by virtue of their greater impact on it.

I tend to be hesitant about doing business with companies that disclaim any responsibility whatsoever or show a distinct lack of official positions on questions affecting the world.


To put it another way, I don't think these sites are legally required to remove violating items (in the context of the ToS being the "law", nor do I think they need spend any effort searching out violators (down that path lies the madness of RIAA) but I do think they have an ethical responsibility to remove violating items when pointed out.


It goes a little beyond ToS violations for me, though. I've been sort of looking askance at them for awhile due to sales of copyrighted character avatars and I think I've seen some overzealous ban scripts being sold and yes, the spy things ... but more recently, camping chair sales are the one that made me raise my eyebrow.

Quoted for truth !

"Useless" doesn't mean "easy", though...

Ahh another arrogant high-handed poke at people who don't know how to build or script as well as the OP. "How silly to buy a scanner or whatever when *I* can do the same in the time it takes to make instant oatmeal! How stupid to buy something when you can just build it yourself ... like ME!!" Well aren't you wonderful.

Get over yourself. Some people can't script, some people suck at building. Some people love to buy stupid gadgets.

You know, there is a cream for hives of scum and exploitation.

Whoa! Product opportunity!

I want one that rolls around like a hamster ball.

Well, I can only speak for SLBoutique here, but I suspect Apotheus would say the same thing: 99.9% of the items on the web site are not "our items", they're listed by residents through an automated process. Any kind of review process or manual effort for the slight commission charged would be an instant business killer.

We're rapidly approaching 30,000 items, so we rely on residents to report items to us that are flagrant ToS violators, much like Linden Lab does with abuse reports. We then contact Linden Lab to allow them to make the call on whether or not the item is a ToS violation. Most of the time, the response is that the item could be used to commit a ToS violation, but that doesn't mean it WILL be used for a violation. By that mode of thought, LSL itself COULD be used for a ToS violation, but I think we can all agree it should not be removed from SL.

An example was Blaze Spinaker's nuker (where's he been hiding, anyway?). It was reported as a possible violation to us, but Linden Lab confirmed it would not be if used in a combat sim, so it stayed listed...and Philip Linden bought a copy!

While we will remove any item that itself violates the ToS, the last thing we want to do is start legislating taste. I'll leave that up to the PTC and the current party in control of the three branches of the US Government!

As for ease of creation, what's easy for one person may seem very difficult to another. Its an open market, and I'd think that having 30,000 items in one place, instead of scattered throughout the world, would lead to more fair-market pricing through competition.

Regards,

-Flip

Yah? where?

i want some

FLIPPER! Mind your manners. We do not use those words here.

It's no different to inworld really. In fact it's probably better enforced than inworld, TOS violation wise.

It's not against the rules to sell overpriced junk but newbie education helps stop that.

I've wondered about that before, too. This happens in-world also, though. I've happened across stores in malls that are selling items that seem to blatantly violate the ToS and ARed them, they were still there weeks later. One store I came across was selling weapons that's entire purpose was, as stated, to 'knock everyone out of the sim and crash the sim.' Uh, this is legal? The seller had a disclaimer of 'Not responsible if used to violate the ToS' or something to that effect. My question would be, is there another use for it?

Just for the record, Blaze had brought this purchase to the attention of the public in a previous forum thread discussing this very topic; we'll never mention any purchases made unless its been made public previously.

Regards,

-Flip

As much as I disagree with Flipper on many a topic, I will say that I dont think they should be held responsible for the dubious quality/'legality' of the objects that are sold on the SLB site. And yes, that even includes those objects that are clear and obvious TOS violations.

Why?

Simple. If they're that bad an object, then it's up to the Lindens to deal with that object in-world and remove it. Removed from in-world means automatically removed from SLB listens shortly afterwards.

SLB's listing the item for sale is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Forcing SLB to police the sales catalog neither fixes the problem, nor does it remove the problem from SL.


- Newfie

Is it alright to knock everyone out of a sim and crash the sim if its an island sim and you are the owner?

That would be one potentially acceptable use for it.

What if it's a fraudulent claim?