SL Scoreboard Pro-SL Business vs. Wiki-Wonks

This is a contest for the heart and mind of SL! Not a trivial matter! The whole world is watching here in the General Forum!!

It's all about building empires and captivating the soul of SL!

I humbly appoint myself the Keeper of the Score Thread for this universal struggle that effects us all.

Tell us who is winning:

The make-SL-more-business-friendly as promoted by our the well know lightening rod, Proko Nva and others or the Wiki-Wonks of Free-To-Be and Free-to-Give-Away as promoted by me and others?

Vote vai your post but remember, the more time you spend in the forums the greater advantage you give to us Wiki-Wonks and Wiki-Wanna-Be's and soon our empire will rule supreme, and make SL capitalism but a broken dream!

_/_/

Death to capitalist pigs!

~Ulrika~

*throws a copy of Atlas Shrugged at Ulrika*.

Couldn't resist.

The thread is sofar pointless though...it's not a contest and neither side is "winning".

Follow, fellow Randians! Once more into the breach!

Jihad!!!!!!!!!!!

If I knew what any one of you was talking about I'd prolly post a trolling comment. As it is, I'll just stand over in the corner there, nod and pretend I understand.

"We are all equal, but some are just more equal than others." - Animal Farm

If you've read your Marx, you'll know capitalism is just a phase anyway.

You know what, I don't think it's an either-or thing. I've been playing two months, and I've been sort of following this controversy of whether the freebies are either bad or good and given some thought to it.

Here's my take on it:

There just AREN'T *that* many freebies out there. I know, cause I swear, I own most of them. (Being a basic member, ya know.) It is true I have so many t-shirts it took me an hour once to try them all on and put the ones with ads on them in a folder of their own, etc. (I'm a tad compulsive that way.) But they are definitely quite finite, as well as ubiquitous.

So it's not like everybody and his dog is giving their things away.

On the other hand, I do understand why someone might get nervous when people give away free movie-scripting TVs. (And thank you for mine, to the person who gave me one, even though I believe it turns out I can't play it because I live on group-owned property.) The TVs seem a rather monumental creation, so I understand that their distribution might be looked at askance.

On the other hand, I believe the TV's to be more or less a basic prototype, one invented quickly and given out as a public service so that we may enjoy the new video streaming more quickly, and more democratically, too, in that you don't have to have a lot of money to get one; and events can pop up on the calendar (whatever, private parties, not sure) more quickly. Fun for all. Anyway, anyone could already do it by means of that special media screen or whatever, I believe.

And because video streaming is so important, I think in the TV case, this in no way hinders all the creative variations to come on the video theme.

So even in the TV case, I don't think it harms anyone, and helps, as a public service to help get the ball rolling, more than it might possibly harm.

I wouldn't like it if everything in the world were free, or if commerce were such that the presence of freebies squashed the desire for creating new items or the market for them. I think it doesn't. For one thing, as I said, there aren't that many of them, particularly compared to the thousands of items you can buy. But more importantly, precisely because they are out there, ANYTHING that must be purchased automatically has a certain cachet freebies don't.

Now I'm personally not one to be a snob about wearing freebies or anything else "noobish". Heck, I hope I stay a newbie forever; it's a terrific feeling to be new and in awe. Besides, I have freebie items that I just love! They are well made and beautiful. But I have to admit that when I won two gift certificates and got to buy some new clothes from Taz at Heavenly (I think is its name) and shades from Firstie's Prim Jewelry, I was thrilled to have something not everybody and her cat already had, lol. In that respect, the freebies don't threaten the sale of items very much.

So I'm in favor of having freebies. I don't think they will ever glut the market. And they are a VERY important promotional tool for the game. You come in as a new member - particularly a basic member, as in my case, and the case of a couple of friends I got to join - and woah, you can't have ANYTHING. What's more, you can't possibly earn money to get anything (unless, of course, you prostitute yourself out to a club or something). It all looks hopeless. I've spoken on that unfortunate aspect of the game before.

But hey! Your friend already in the game is laying clothes on you, and other items, so that within minutes you have things you had to wait for months, even YEARS, to get in, say, TSO. Or spent ridiculous amounts of money and time just to "craft" the same item everyone else does. Right away, you're excited about the game! They take you to Yadni's and hey, you got skads of stuff people in other games beg for forever and never get!

AND you have enough things to be able to enjoy the game - change your clothes, furnish a rented apartment, etc. - for the first few weeks, months, or maybe forever, that you are going to be pretty much unable to do anything to help yourself financially aside from depending on the luck of the draw at Slingo.

So if you are gonna divide it up into pro- or con-freebies, I would have to plant myself firmly on the pro side. I don't think they hurt much of anything, and I think they help a great deal more than they hurt. And I don't think they will ever be much of a threat to the creating and selling of newer, cooler, more exclusive and/or more niche-oriented items.

coco

P.S. Also, in capitalism, creators do give away free products, and all the time. It's a good advertising and PR technique.

Thank you Cocoanut for your thoughts!

Hey .. can I borrow that when you are done pitching it? There are some pages I want to skip again.

In the forums there is no winning, only varying degrees of losing.

On a more serious note, "winning" would depend on your criteria. I would say that there's no reason why capitalist pigs and cheapo kamis can't coexist.

On a side note I'm looking for cast members for my new movie:

Wiki-Wonka and the Particle Factory..

Merwan, do you have a politico-economic ideology to offer as an alternative to Prokofy's "tough capitalistic love"?

Or are you and the wiki tekki wookies doing it out of touchy-feely-winky love?

That's a penetrating question Seth, requiring deeply felt awakenings born from lifeTimes of blissful surrender to both the god of tough-capitalistic-love and the goddess of free-of-fees-touchin'-wonky-wiki-wonky-sweet love!

Short answer is be truthful in life, peaceful in death.

I'm sorry I don't understand the question again please?

Isn't it, "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others."?

4 legs good, 2 legs BAD!

-Flip

Pro business types are whamming the wonks.

Um, I don't think Prokofy Neva's philosophy for SL, as caricatured on the forums by Merwan and others, is in fact a "capitalist tough love".

I think it's more like a parliamentary democracy with a mixed economy, i.e. some state-run businesses like utilities and transportation, etc. and private enterprise. But I'm not for making a RL parliament or government in this game, and I think a lot has to be studied about how game economies can ape or remake RL economies before I'm going to vote someone into a government that will set that social system.

I can hardly be accused of *tough love* when I *give away land* for non-profit projects and even just to people who seem to have something interesting they want to do on land, when I happen to be juggling tier or something.

I can hardly be accused of *tough love capitalism* when my own business sometimes runs at a loss or breaks even in places because I think you have to be willing to experiment and take risks a lot in a very uncertain game/metaverse environment like this. It's precisely because it's more important to me to rent a 2048 beautiful property for only $500/week and enable both a player and me to keep a community nice, than it is to try to collect the $950/1000 I'd need to collect per week to pay tier and get even a small profit.

What's hilarious about your-all stereotypes is that there are players in this game who are monopolists on content creation, who have raked in oceans of Lindens, who are rich as God, and who utterly dwarf my little rentals business, but who, despite being enormously wealthy, keep on pushing the socialist utopian vision for SL. This is like that old joke about a socialist being defined as a wealthy industrialist who pays to send other people to work on a collective farm. You marvel that they could be doing this, but it's not so different than what I find in RL, old Red-diaper babies who made their fortunes in some business who now fund non-profit agencies and foundations that push for socialism LOL. Capitalism is great for me, they say, but I don't want it to be there for anybody else!

Honestly, people just have on idea what I'm doing in the game, but that's probably because I don't have time to record and publish all the statistics on it and also set myself up to be mercilessly slammed by sim harpies in a cut-throat game where business information is not freely distributed and those that innocently provide it can be targets of predators.

I can hardly be accused of *tough love capitalism* when I sell land with architects' houses on it and split the proceeds 50/50 to promote architecture in a game where architects are often ignored or not paid properly for their considerable services. This is a matter of public record.

I can hardly be accused of *tough love capitalism* when I sell PG for $3 or M for $6 to create communities, delaying even a break-even scheme for weeks if not forever, and even at a loss, when I paid more than that for the land. This is a matter of public record.

It's precisely because I am doing these more democratic (but not socialist) ideas in the game that I feel I can properly criticize those who get a hammerlock on the land or the economy, collect huge subsidies or gouge prices for their scarce items or land, but then put out bunches of freebies that hobble newbie initiative, ruin the primary newbie market for sales to each other, and also are fake PR gestures because they don't honestly put items into the public domain precisely because they are free but not modifiable. Imagine what we could do with a Siggy Romulus first-land free prefab if we could at least get in there and take off that God-awful brown/grey siding! (Is it brown or grey? I'm color blind.) And I don't mean to pick on Siggy, who probably hates me from the forums anyway, but I just want to comment on what I see visibly dozens of times in the game daily.

It's not "tough love capitalism" to be calling on people not to suck dwell off their "public transportation system" or not to put caps on service-providers they will begrudgingly allow on their land -- in fact, that's a democratic liberal market ranting against a state-capitalist type of oligarchy.

The reason why I may come off seeming like "tough love capitalism" is that you really, really need to work overtime in this game to try to stamp out all the socialist and fascist flames that constantly spring up. There is always somebody with their hand out, and there is always a handout for that grasping hand, so it's tough. Few people give any thought to how to make a real thriving economy, but just clamor for their entitlements. And a few very wealthy oligarchs are always around to provide them with some of those entitlements to keep them in their sway.

Ahhh Prokofy you have no sense of humor!

And please don't lump me in with the "...others..."

Can't we all just get along?

Personally, I think "Pro-Buisness Types" and "Wiki-Wonks" can play in the sandbox just fine together. But that's just me

The handfull of low prim prefabs I made had stonework sides - the two that didn't were the county cottage (stucco and wood - a la tudor) and the glasshouse - which was white and blue/glass...

And all the ones I made were full mod - so if you can't get in there and totally rip it apart - then you don't have one of my houses... At least not how I released them..

But I guess if your seeing them dozens of times a day, then I guess someone out there must still like them - christ they've been around since 1.3

As for hating someone from an internet game/forum - I honestly don't invest that much here to 'hate' someone... I can disagree - or even think they're stupid, but none of this is important enough for me to 'hate' or 'love'... the occasional thought, and a handfull of silly comments is about all that you're gonna get.

Also heres some homework for you to do -- see if you can get one of Mash's sauna rooms, I think they're a couple of hundred bucks, then go and check out the 'creator' on the scripts you find there -- compare it to the hot tub --- then come talk to me about 'no mod freebies stifling newbie blah blah and no mod or resale'.


Siggy.

~And~




So perhaps it isn't "tough capitalist love" we're discussing here, but "latex capitalism" in an economy largely based on wonks whamming one another in purple clubs of profit designed by oligarchs-of-land-and-sex.

Still waiting on the reply.. but somehow I suspect it will be the 'holy crap I'm totally on the wrong track so I'll pretend nothing was posted' response.