Free products - are they good or bad on balance?

I don't believe giving away freebies harms SL at all. Quite the opposite.

The people who benefit the most by (most) freebies or $1 items are newbies, and/or those without a lot of money to spend, and/or those who want to take something apart and learn how it works and how it was built.

I've been told numerous times that my $1 prefabs helped people learn to build, because they're copiable and modifiable so they weren't afraid of being out $1000 if they screwed something up. Most people that I've talked to go on to build their own homes once they've got the building basics down. That's why I make them. They're starter homes.. throw-aways. They certianly aren't going to put Juro or Barnesworth or Lordfly out of business, because they aren't up to those standards and detail, but they serve their purpose.

Creating free or very inexpensive content also raises the bar some for those who want to charge more for their creations. People will pay for quality and detail, for spiffy features, for bells and whistles, but they won't pay $500 for a textured cube when they can buy a whole house for $1. If you want to charge a lot of money for something, you have it make it worth the money.

If free items were bad then why do the Lindens give them away at almost every telehub?

I see most freebie stuff as a temporary item. They are used until something better comes along, either made by themselves or purchased from someone.

Some freebies are exceptional, but, they are not the end of the line. Someone will always make a similar item that is better or unique in its own way. The advantage to giving away things can be as simple (and powerful) as name recognition. CrystalShard is gaining a name from her freebie movie setup that may serve her well in the future.

Demands in a market can be tricky to estimate. There will always be people specializing in a niche and I doubt that freebies hurt those that have a good business model and want to work at it.

A good example of this is the 3-button hot-tub that Siggy made for the Linden contest. It's a great product, and being 'open-source', many people have taken that product or the basics of it and created even better items. There's a Sauna seen all over the grid that was created using the Super Hot Tub as it's base, and it's wonderful!

I love the Super Hot Tub! (wasn't that the name?)

I feel free items are needed in SL not only to assist those who are just joining our big family, but also for older, more established residents. They serve a purpose as all goods do.

I suppose there are many ways to view the effect freebies have on our economy, but I think it ends up helping in the long run.


I do wonder, what % of all transactions are for free (or $1) items? Hey Lindens... any way to pull those figures? Perty-please?

Giving away free items, particularly those that require complex scripting or building, only serves to enrich Second Life. CrystalShard's media viewer is not only a great usable object in its own right, it's a fantastic look at how to use the new streaming video functions in LSL. I see it as an educational tool that happens to also serve as a functional media player.

I don't see how this has completely axed the market for video players. It's still possible to make a video player with a different interface, or to house CrystalShard's video code inside a pretty prim shell to make it look like a TV or a movie screen.

Items in Second Life's virtual economy are worth the same thing that real items are in the real world economy: as much as people are willing to pay for them. If people aren't happy with the free version of an item out-of-the-box, but lack the ability or time to make their own version, they'll usually be willing to pay someone to tweak it a little, or add feature X, or paint it pink to match the drapes. Free items in no way detract from the vitality of Second Life or its economy.

I wonder about this, too. I provide freebies in my newbie/experimental community in Jai-Town but I wonder...if it is killing the market in newbie experimentation, newbies selling to each other, etc. Newbies love selling to each other and we like to provide that opportunity, and they are creative often, but...I do wonder if all this free stuff kills a bit of the necessity to make or get something.

It's also the case that a lot of this free stuff can't be modified, so you are kind of stuck with it.

I was expecting all kind of TVs to come on the market, as to look, and feel, and capacities, and I see that once again, there is a free thing everywhere that some will sell and some can't modify.

Why couldn't it be sold for just $10 or $50?

Why this fetishization of freebies? It's like some kind of cult. Unless you distribute free junk, you can't get that Brownie badge that you are "working for the good of the community." Feh.




Hmm...now I wonder about that. I'll be if I were to do that, and make a prettier box for CrystalShard's thing, everyone would jump on me for stealing and ripping off and exploiting and whatnot. I actually don't think it would be right to do that to her script, and I think she should just sell it, and then when you get it from her, you can ask her, hey, can I buy one modifiable copy at a bigger price so I can put it in a box, then make it available as a free component of the box? To be sure, it means I'm circulating sometihng "for free" that she is selling, but it's a question of market placement, and me paying her up front more for those losses.

I reject the premise -- harmful to WHOM???

Making something free can be very harmful, hurtful and discouraging to people who sell similar things.

If everything is expensive, no-talents are unhappy because they can't afford anything. If everything is free, talents are unhappy becuase they can't sell their goods and make money.

Personally, I like to see free stuff around, because it enriches the game. But I would hate to see TOO MUCH free stuff, or an "everything should be free" culture, because then there is no economy, and very little competition to make improvements.

Few people are highly motivated by bragging rights. If the competition to create is stifled by too much free stuff (and the general expectation that everything should be free), then that aspect of the game will be overshadowed by the competition to see who can be the most annoying without getting suspended. That's when I would leave the game, and I don't think I would be alone.

I can't see this as a bad thing. The way I see it, it's a matter of calculating the bad to the community (economic loss) versus the good to the community (more stuff to use). I give away freebies all the time, as I'm pretty sure most of you know.

Invoking CrystalShard directly might not be a good idea for this topic, but I feel Crys has been doing good by the community, especially with the latest scriptset. More power to the (good) scripters of Second Life, indeed.

As for me, I usually target markets that haven't been probed, or need selective fixing. That usually downplays the hit to economics. Unfortunately, however... not a lot of people use what I put out. So it works all the same.

Folks give away stuff for free in RL as well as SL. In RL it's called open source and creative commons and can be anything from software to photography.

In the short term it can be very nice for everybody.

In the long term it can put folks who've spent years of their life going to school and studying their crafts out of work. I've seen it happen to friends and co-workers, both artists and programers. Folks who did small garage shareware games where they had total creative control now work in large corporations doing the usual enterprise stuff coding. Some still work on games, only now instead of a career it's a hobby which fights for time with their family. Folks who ran freelance photography studios folded under the pressure of zillions of amateurs with digital camera and day jobs they hated.

Free is almost always preferred to quality - doesn't matter that you might waste three times as long dealing with it, customers will almost always choose free.

I have no problem with free in SL... I give away plenty of stuff. But SL is just a big hobby club, nobody's gonna lose their job here.

In RL, hobbyists who devalue their work because they have "day jobs" lose people their jobs. They make it so they will never be able to quit their "safe daily grind" and actually live off what they enjoy.

Real people get really hurt. Think about it the next time you choose to spend (or not) your money.

I think Henry has hit an important point here. Maybe it depends on what the creator allows people to do with her/his creation.

CrystalShards Freeview may in fact be a very BAD example to have taken. Her script is free to modify, and although she never quite says so, it is strongly implied that she offers it to creators as well as users, and is happy for people to modify it and sell it, provided the scale of her contribution is noted.

Obviously this would mean closing the script away from public view. I would think including a notecard with honestly-drafted credits would do the trick.

A freebie released on such outstandingly generous terms may well stimulate further creativity in adding features. The only remaining problem with it is that it looks SO GOOD that it may perfectly well meet the needs of 95% of users, who will never feel they need anything else.

If it was no-mod, or it was forbidden to charge for something including it, that would be a very different matter.

Not only are free items beneficial to the community of SL, they were crucial to its creation! Forming economies are almost entirely gift economies. Without the freely given contributions of the Lindens and the early SL members, I doubt the world would be anywhere near as big, rich, and varied as it is today.

Prosperity does not come about because people grasp as much as they can, it comes about because most people create and produce far in excess of what they have recieved. Anyone who attacks people for giving freely of their efforts should be shot, run over, slandered, stood up and shot again, because they are attacking the very basis of goodness in the world.

Edit: Giving away free things should not be confused with stealing and distributing the creative work of others.

I agree, open source code has helped me greatly in learning lsl myself. Had there been none, my learning curve would have been much steeper. I applaud the selflessness of these authors. Siggy's hot tub is a great example. It's a wonderful piece of code and I have drawn from it to create other objects.

Open source code stimulates the economy and broadens knowledge, I disagree with the ramblings of a shall remain un-named non-scripter that its harmful.

Oh whoops - sorry guys - I made a major mistake in my last post by saying CrystalShard didn't mind an improvement on her/his script being sold.

He/she actually says:
"//This script is distributed for free and must stay that way. DO NOT SELL THIS SCRIPT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE."

So thats that. My conclusion is its a bad thing on balance.

The script is so good, and so comprehensive, and must have needed so much testing, I guess a fairly skilled scripter would need to spend a week of slog just to scramble back up to the point with they have something they could give away for nothing. Yet alone build in improvements, and start selling.

And I guess they'd better not even read her script, or they might start copying it, even subconsciously.

So I was wrong. The generosity is aimed solely at users, not at creators.

What a minefield this whole question of moral rights, varieties of open source, encouragement of creativity and competition etc, is !

Maybe this is an exceptional case, because the arrival of streaming video at one instant in time should have heralded the birth of a whole new industry. Which I now fear is effectively squashed for quite a while.

So there you are. I made my mind up. Bad thing. Kind, warm, clever, generous, but misguided and bad on balance.

I guess it depends whether you see SL as a game for consumers, or an arena for a vibrant market in creativity and competition. There are lots of games elsewhere, guys.

Note that the creator of Freeview does sell all her other stuff, including a relatively straightforward scanner for (I think) $600. So he/she does support the more conventional economic model.

I disagree, while my development of a movie viewer may be delayed somewhat, it was my choice and not made upon any competitive market pressures. The viewer I am working on has many features not available in CS's version. The movie viewer itself is only a small part of a marketing strategy. Having alot of experience with streaming audio, land ownership issues, buyers who don't read instructions and bug/error controls, I strive to address all of these issues in my products and that takes time.

You know the saying "Build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door"

Although I'm flattered, I'll have to point out that the Super Hot Tub was the third (or forth) thing I ever scripted in SL - the code is pretty dated and could be revamped to be a lot better... Still if it managed to help a few folks out getting started then it's mission accomplished

Funnily enough, the history of the Hottub was in response to exactly the OPPOSITE of the original posters fears... Here's the story on the tub and why I decided to give it away:

Set the way way back machine to around the end of 1.1 - some friends of mine and I, (all still fresh with that 'New Av smell') were sitting around after doing bits and bobs at a friends house when they decided to whip out a new 'Hot Tub' they had bought for 500 L$ -- it consisted of a tube with a water texture shoved in it.

That was it.. the water didn't even move. I had a texure loop script, but we couldn't put it into it... and thus the great hottub quest began -- we scoured every sim (because you could do that in an hour or two) and looked for something better.

The only decent one we came up with was the 'magic hottub' - but we couldn't work out where to buy one.. ever other was a 'box with water' (many not even phantom water) - and most priced at 400 $L or more.

So I sat down and worked out all the features I could think of that should be in a 'basic hot tub' -- many sim crashes of the sandbox later and I had the first one made... 2 buttons - water and steam, no jets (they were put in the day 1.3 came up and it was submitted to the Lindens 'Scripted Items for New Players Contest')

I'd handed quite a few around to friends, we tested it - and it came down to 'selling' the item.. I figured that making it free would be a good way to make sure that folks didn't pay 400 bucks for a 'box with water' again, and all the little basic things I learned could be shared.

I think it worked - the 'boxed water' tubs slowly vanished and many different tubs became available - with great features that were worth the money they were selling for. Various spinoff products came from my own tub too -- which is even cooler to see... someeone using it as a springboard to make even cooler and more interesting items..

Sure, I probably could have made a fortune off the tub - but I think making it free did a lot more good -- for the communtiy as well as for myself.

When I get in world I'll probably pick up a copy of Crystalshards offering too - I think putting up a 'how-to' example of a new feature to is fantastic for everyone - and I totally respect and appreciate Crys' contribution to the community.

Siggy.

Hi all.

At first I wanted to stay away from the thread, I usually keep quiet when people discuss my items unless they have a tech support question. But concidering how this thread is not just about me (phew), I guess I have the freedom to drop my 2 cents on the reason FreeView exists.

First, i'd like to note that I am answering to snippets of Barmovic Boffin's post, but I am in no way answering only to Barmovic, but to everyone else in this thread. Barmovic just summed up most of the issues in this thread in one post, which makes it an easy to-answer-thing. So i'll be using that as reference.

So. Lets go from the begining:



Indeed it does. I was wondering when you will notice that remark.

I was thinking about this issue for awhile and in the end decided to not permit a re-sale of this script due to past experience.

In my experience, people do not just take a free script and improve on it, and then re-sell. Most people end up taking the free to distribute item and either resell it as it is, or just shove it into a different box with a different texture and changing the labels.

In my mind, these people's actions actually harm the economy more then any free to distribute and modify product. And these people are the reason why FreeView is not allowed for resell.

I DO NOT MIND people who study my script and make their own product based on what they have learned. On the contrary - part of the reason for the release of this script was to help people learn how to make their own media control script. I have been working on this script since Preview opened for the first time.

Therefor, the following quote:



Is wrong.

FreeView is intended to educate new creators on how to make media scripts. FreeView can also be used to educate you on how to make a notecard based browser, and a proper, user friendly dialog menu system.

FreeView also raises the bar and prevents people from selling a 3-hour worth of a script for 500L$. Bad? I dont really think so.

These free to copy scripts are the reason why I can code in LSL the way I can today. I have learned my original scripting from XyLor's anklet animator bracelet (Which is, btw, still immensly useful even years after 1.2), and a freebie home security system that had open permissions.



Now this is an intresting issue, and I have to disagree.

While developing FreeView, I had many ideas and concepts in mind that I wanted to include in the product. But I didnt. I wanted to keep it "basic" - as far as I perceived basic anyway. Some of the features I wanted to include could have been pretty spiffy, but I did not. And the reason I did not was exactly the reason Barmovic mentioned. I did not want to kill any market. I wanted to raise the bar - and I wanted to do it as soon as possible. And as far as I can tell, the market is not dead.

I am not going to tell you what the features I had in mind are, since I dont want to do the R&D for you. But they are there. And they will make your product sell.




Ok, this is more of a personal note, but I couldnt shut up. =P

The Scan-Foo is not a simple product. =) It includes over 6 different filters that can be combined with add-on filter toggles to narrow a scan to a certain object type, ownership, and mode. You can use it to look up objects using their full name or a keyword. I have yet to see a scanner that does all these functions in the same object.

The reason it costs 600 is because the item is aimed at the more experienced SecondLife users, and is definetly not a newbie product (the scan methods and user interface is not newbie friendly). That, and because the time I invested in making the item as high quality as I could was enourmos.

That being said, I do support the "economic" market. Yes, I am selling most of my other stuff, though every now and then I may surprise you with a free copy just because I feel like it.

This may surprise many of you, but I am not scripting for money. I script for fun.

That sums it up I guess. I'll go wear my asbestos now.

P.S.
You can find additional, wonderful free scripts in this archive:
http://secondlife.com/badgeo/wakka.php?wakka=ScriptLibrary

I especialy recommend DeluxeDoor, Conversation AI and Create a Flying Pet. It took me off M&Ms, saved my house and helped my cat off the tree.

I'd like to see a collaboration between Crystal and Siggy. I can only imagine how much ass that would kick...

Took the words right out of my mouth, Torley

Thanks Siggy and CrystalShard for your posts, both inspiring.

I can totally understand this

Everything I do is for fun as well - I don't think I've ever thought 'I must make a new product to make some money', it's more making something thats fun and cool - and then working out what to do with it.

Some get thrown out for free, some get sold, and a *LOT* stay in my inventory

As for 'supporting economic models' - sheeeeeeit, even Linus Torvalds has a job

Siggy.

Your Hot Tub script and free starter homes ruined the economy!

Yeah, in bizzaro world, everything am backwards!

Wait till I get back in world - I'll make the 'club o matic - autorez sex club in a box' and make that free

Siggy.

Thank you to both Crystalshard and Siggy for the free stuff they have distributed to the community. I for one, sucking at scripting, am very grateful.

What SL needs are permissions which allow creators to give away freebies that cannot be then resold. When are we going to get a Free Forever permission choice?

Well, while I disagree with Prok's stance on free goods, he did raise the useful point that people need to be aware of *how* they are putting their free goods out into the market and explicity denote what rights they as creator intend. Do they object to people including it in a customized/altered for-sale product? Or is the product placed in the public domain (do with it whatever you want).

(Which reminds me that I haven't done so in my free building tutorial thingy - which is intended to be totally pub domain)

Giving out free products can hurt some people, absolutely, but no one has a promise that they will stay in business forever. If the barriers are low, it is just a risk of doing business.

In SL, there is little difference between a free product and a *really* low priced one -- it forces the high-priced market participants to either exit the market, match the price if they want to maintain market share for branding purposes, or create enough new value-add that they can once again charge money. It's the nature of business and competition.

Sure, in some cases a market area seems to have so little room for innovation that a free product takes over and no one else tries to build a competing product. But this doesn't usually last long -- someone always starts tinkering and tries to come up with a better mousetrap.

Much love to Siggy and Crystal!