Money is how we keep score.

"Life is a game. Money is how we keep score"
-Ted Turner

Guess the motivation: romance, money, popularity, knowledge, family.


MONEY INDEED
When money is the motivation, your objective in life it to do anything that can earn you more points, and points are money. The objective of earning more money.

This means you do whatever it takes to get money with one exception.
That exception is ethics. Ethics are standards you set up for yourself to follow no matter how much money is involved. An example of an ethical standard is: "I will never take a human life". Therefore, no matter how much points in the game of life (money) you stand to gain or lose, you will follow the ethical rule never to take a human life no matter what. Another example of an ethical standard is: I will not take a human life in any matter involcing less that $100,000. These are just examples of ethical standards.


Aside from abiding by ethical standards, the game is open for any strategy, trick, or method you might want to use for the purpose of profit.


There are 2 necessities of intrinsict happiness:
Enjoy what you are doing and make sure you will gain something worthwhile from what you are doing.
If you are doing something you do not truly enjoy, and are not getting anything worthwhile from it, you are only open doors to your doom.


When it comes to profit, many subconsciously at least want to be fair to others. To give others what you say you will give them, and to compensate them if you are not able to come through. Responsibility. Other than that, the market is open for fresh meat. As long as they agree, to your offer, you cannot be held responsible.

Deception is the key to making a great sale. Smoke and mirrors. Pretend to be sincere, and you will gain the trust of your prospect. Then extract as much money as you can. The objective of any great profit organization is to extract money from their patrons. As long as the patrons choose of their own free will to throw their money at you, the points continue to accumulate.

Then there is the convenient mistake. Something done intentionally is not really a mistake. But alot of times, certain unintentional "blunders", happen to profit the profiteer. Woops!, I accidently charged that person an extra $25.00. (Wink wink. It wasn't really an accident.) That person may not notice, that person may notice but might not take the effort to complain. At that point, I can decide which is more profitable:
Keeping the $25.00 no matter how much the person tries to dispute it, and the possibility of losing a customer.
Giving the customer back the $25.00, and potentially gain more profit from the repeating customer.

What you say? Profiteer?
Yes profiteer. I do not actually like the dictionary definition:
To make excessive profits on goods in short supply.

ASIDE - This is the same thing as price gouging. Certain fascists will arrest you for charging alot for food or water when food and water is in short supply. Or maybe they are not fascist, and are looking toward the best interest of the public.

But no. Profiteer.
I like to use the term as someone who does things for profit. In this connotation, it is harmless indeed.
The same way a "volunteer" does something for no profit.

So you have the profiteer (not the dictionary definition, but the one I put my own defenition to) and you have the volunteer. And you have Second Life.

The economy of Second Life has every aspect of a real life economy except for one thing. You cannot got to jail for stealing linden dollars. Isn't it beautiful? In fact, Linden Labs cannot go to jail for zeroing your Linden Dollar balance though you may have tens of thousands of USDs or even more worth of Lindens. Best of all, if they delete your account altogether, there is no transaction history to trace that you ever had all those lindens.

Here's a good startegy:
Say somebody wants to exit $100,000 worth of Linden so they put it up on the Lindex. When all those Ls are bought for $100,000 by other players, LL can keep the $100,000, and delete the seller's accout as if they never placed the bid in the first place. All the complaints can be silenced, and effect of the whole situation can be covered up. And SL will continue on with little reprecussion from the incident. Meanwhile, $100,000!!!! Mo money, mo money, mo money, mo money!!!!
SWEET!

Well, sure. Enron can't go to jail either.

Well I don't think Enron is the same. The difference is in the situation is as I stated. No law is being broken. No risk.

--
Got my devil's advocate hat on today. =)

The validity of the Second Life TOS hasn't been tested in court yet. Until such a situation arises, your statement is nothing more than speculation

There is no law against LL zeroing the Linden Dollars in your account. They have every legal right to do it regardless if the TOS says they are allowed to do whatever they want or if the TOS does not mention it.
If this is any way in question: Does SL have the legal right to shut down anybody's account? Does LL have the legal right to set the funds of an active account to 0 despite how much millions of Linden Dollars the account might have? Does LL have the legal right to set the Linden Dollars of every paying and nonpaying member to at any time?

The answer to all of these is yes.

LL can legally set the entire population of SL to $L0. They can do it to only the males. They can do it to only the females. They can do it to any player-av of any shape and form. They can do it to any number of players anytime. They can deduct $L10,000. They can add $L10,000. They can add and subtract any amount of $L they want to. Though the interface may not be set up for it, they can legally put your $L to negative if they wanted to. It is game money. It is their game. You have no legal right to it. The only right you have to those $Ls in your account is only whatever right LL allows you to have.

Rights to $Ls are not a legal right as much as you have no legal right to borrow my bycicle any time you want to. I have full legal say about whether or not I let you borrow my bike. LL has full say what they can do with the $L in your account any time they want to whether you like it or not.

Just like that dude with the "marriage contract". She signed the document, therefore he can do whatever he wants to her legally under the contract.

The law isn't as simple as saying "the TOS gives LL godlike powers to do as they wish" and you agreed to it. They are covering their ass, but it does not mean that LL can exercise the blanket rights granted in the TOS with impunity.