Protect the Content Providers

Whats funny about that is I personally feel a mix of scoialism and capitalism is -good.- Of course communism and socialism would work - if it weren't for human nature, and those in charge of it. A coworker of mine (rl work) is from a formerly communist country, and he has seen both the good and bad of the social structure.

Plus, Comrade Pierterson sounds right being easterneuropean/russian in origin if I recall right

If I ever make an alt, I might try for that name.

You know what...after reading posts here i am beginning to feel he is right when he says that SL is hostile to builders.

This is true.

Plus a person who is happy with your freebie will likely come back to you for more of that sort of thing.

And as a new person, I got very aware of people I'd never even met simply because they had made freebies I had, and their names were on them. If I especially liked and admired the item, those feelings automatically rubbed off onto their names as well.

Plus, Land Barons do give freebies in a sense, if you take into consideration the value added to the land. They work to create beautiful lands with beautiful common areas, and that benefits the person who lives there.

In addition, those who live on lands belonging to landlords on the mainland benefit from the 10% land tier discount.

coco

Oooo, Psyra, you so put your finger on it with this last sentence. Now don't get me wrong, I like money, too - but it isn't the foremost concern. It's like what you say - to make people smile, to make them happy with something you have created.

There is no satisfaction greater, and it's what kept me going for a year doing the Game Show Channel in TSO. That was just incredibly fun and satisfying, to see people have such a fun time, and there wasn't a penny in it for me.

coco

Oh, I very much agree with this! Some fabulous things are freebies, making you wonder why they are free! As they probably have made he original poster of this thread wonder.

I have oodles of fun with my entire freebie wardrobe, mixing and matching. Even the things that have some flaws, obvious even to me, are still fun to wear, due to their style. (I also have some gifts from a friend who wants me to have something to wear that isn't freebie, and I love those too, of course.)

coco

Very well put.

coco

P.S. pardon the enthusiastic four posts in a row, lol

I'm a builder. I own a store.

Its not, trust me.

Simple. You make it harder for other players to sell something similar.

philanthropy = griefing!

No no no ! repeat after me : Freebee = piracy

If their product was worth the asking price, they wouldn't be out any money.

There are plenty of free items for new players in SL. I believe that people should stop giving away items with transfer permissions. It is very difficult to sell content when people can get it free, and this fact is very discouraging to content providers. I feel sure that this would be a reason for people to quit playing SL.

I give away freebies -and- sell. Its not hurting anything but junk creators and parastitic freebie resellers.

making free stuff can be a capitalist tactic too.

like if someone made an item. you make a better item and sell at the same price.

then make a "lite" item with the same features as the competition and give it away free

you get the high end sales and kill their sales on the low to midrange sales.

the competitor may find it disheartening enough they wont bother creating a better product to compete with the high end.

so free isnt always socialist.

under the right circumstances, it iz a killer tool in the capitalists arsenal

My opinions on this issue are quite mixed and situational. In scripting for example: i think the ONLY free scripts that should be given away should deal with a proof of concept mentality. I do programming in my first life and have done it as a hobby for many years. I teach a introductory LSL class even. I really enjoy teaching others how to improve their scripting habits. But i dont give away hardly any scripts except to closer friends.

Offering full perm scripts that each can do a very limited simple task is what i give away. Things that show the basics of how to flip thru options. Something that shows how to limit communication via effecient ways of parsing the arguments in a link message. But i DO NOT believe in giving away truely full featured scripts that do a full task in a perfect manner. People should either put some time into learning (heck i'm even willing to teach sometimes) or pay the scripter for their time.

With objects the level of detail is where i will consider if it should be a freebie or not. If you've put in the time to tweak every texture face so that you get seamless work on something, ensured that ridges are kept to a minimal or non existant level and anything else to put your work in the 'professional' standing then i truely believe its absolutely WRONG to give it away. Im not saying objects should be crappy, just that a builder that wishes to give something away should be more inclined to give away one of the in-progress builds. Something good enough quality to appreciate and be useful. But low enough quality that the person will still have SOME encouragement to maybe want to learn the design tricks themselves.

There is also some items set for freebies in various locations throughout the grid that should not even exist. The VAST majority of these items are scripting problems. People giving away items with listener scripts that use channel zero commands. Scripts that dont CLOSE the listeners properly thus contributing to sim lag. Greif weapons. For gods sake script writers have the capacity to make a weapon only fire if its in damage enabled land. That can be checked. WHY THE HELL are we giving weapons to newbies and expecting them NOT to use it? There are many freebies that shouldn't be given out to anyone for a lot of reasons.

But that doesnt make "free items" as a whole wrong. A dozen different posters have already said the various reasons why freebie places will always exist and I support them even while encouraging a bit of restraint. Im currently in charge of redesigning the selection available at the New Citizens Plaza and regardless of personal views im not gonna abolish it. Now i am removing duplicate content. I am removing clothing that ONLY uses library textures. And im also deleteing items that are outright glitched. In addition to those removals I'm also FIXING things that have obvious flaws (due to low quality script work) so that the new person aquiring the freebie has something worth the money they paid. (yes i believe some FREEbies arent worth their price).

But the end result after some removals and fixes will be a selection of FREE ITEMS available to new people that will be organized in a manner easy to find what they want. The selection of freebies will be a decent enough variety that they will see what kind of t hings are POSSIBLE. Overall it will inspire new people and in some cases encourage them to find things even BETTER that they want to purchase. But the most important aspect aside from economical ones will be that the new person will IMMEDIATELY have a means of some extra enjoyment in SL. And new people who immediately start to enjoy the environment will be the kind of people who STAY in the world and continue to be the possible consumers of the stuff you are selling. So the freebies do more to help the economy than harm in my opinion.

</rant>

People can give away whatever they want..theres nothing wrong with giving away more than a basic function.

How? Anyone can build whatever the heck they want, for essentially no cost outlay. SL is the most builder-friendly system around.

Selling, now, that's something different. If you want to sell something, you have to come up with something that differentiates your product from other peoples', and stuff that's available for free. But that person who is willing to give their stuff away for free isn't hurting anyone else. They're just raising the bar of what you can get away with charging money for.

For example... many years ago, I worked for a company that sold (among other things) a web browser. Then Netscape and Microsoft got into a battle over who could give web browsers away for free the most effectively, so that market disappeared. This doesn't mean that Netscape or MS hurt me, they just made it obvious that it was time to get out of the web browser business.

Just like RL, the SL universe doesn't owe anyone a living.

Uh why? Most people are extremely appreciative of builders and content providers. When I go to a cool place I either tip the creator, IM them to let them know their work is appreciated (which sometimes they tend to like more than the L!) or click the little voting station thingie. Does that voting thing do any good to them? Now that I think of it I have no idea, but it must if its out right?

*raises an eyebrow* if the widget you create is totally awesome... people will pay for it no matter what. I burst out laughing to see philanthropy equated with griefing. I guess Im as bad as the people who create self replicating objects and crash the grid?

*goes off to make freebies* i haxor joo!

So says the April 2006 oldster.

Comparing Second Life the way it used to be and the way it is now, I would say that the failure is a little closer to home, Eien.

Personally I think freebies are a good thing, especially now that LL is eliminating stipends for new users after May 29 (this monday) seeing how no noobie is gonna have cash to blow unless someone donates to them or they start hitting up moneychairs/money trees immediately.

I myself have gotten freebies before and turned around to buy other things similar. Alot of time freebies are on the last line of the update list on someone's project list so they tend to be outdated or lesser quality then their premium stuff.

Also other alternatives I've seen in SL that doesn't get much attention are the shareware and demoware items. A prime example of shareware is WetIkon Roam where you can use it free for a week then you had to pay for its use after that. Then there's demoware stuff like some avitars and attachments I've seen that have functions stripped out and/or textures with DEMO plastered all over it. Gives you an idea what the product would look like on yourself without actually buying it. Then finally there's the free Lite versions of some products that have some really good features removed. Allows you to test a working product without having access to the good features that entice people to buy the premium package.

Scripts are a bit different to other stuff when it comes to freebies, because of the lack of artistic difference. That is, there's plenty of scope for different designs of clothes that fit into the same category, but once a script exists that achieves something and works, there's not that much scope for variance between different designs - it's usually about adding features at that point, and once something's made free with the extra features..

I guess this is why there seems to be a fair amount of nastiness in the market for scripted items

As for trialware, it's hard to do securely. ROAM can manage it because it calls into an external server that monitors subscriptions, but not everyone has a website with a database backend handy!

I'm waiting for another alt to make a post backing this statment up, since no one in thier right mind would.

Content creator's throats have already been cut with this new stipend policy.

Did I see anyone mention names? Sounds like a guilty consience to me. I have not ONCE mentionned any names of the people indulging this however if asked in world I will show ppl and prove it in the locations that do do so.

I renew the motion and appeal to all SL Builders and Content Providers to protect their interests and also the long run interests of SL Economy.

1. End Freebie Culture. Don't give anything away free. make it a principle and commit to it. Would you ever get a single sqm free? Then why are you doing that with your own talent and effort? Everytime you give something free, remeber you are hurting EVERY CONTENT CREATOR including yourself. Charge prices, and never charge less than L$10 for the things you used to give free.

Why would someone buy your stuff if they can get it free. So be kind to yourself and other builders and CHARGE for everything. Lets compete in quality and standard. lets make better stuff to attract customer, but let not compete in prices that will hurt all of us while non-creative morons will make money.

Remember: You deserve your "wage" for what you give.

2. Make a Consortium, a Content providers Group that would regularly advise minimum prices and reccommend estimated percentage increase in prices according to changes in L$ value. That group would look for ways to peotect the interests of builders and content providers in SL. And that group would also "negotiate" with LL to change certain policies which are hurting them.

3. Keep a goal in mind when revenue generated through content should match the one generated by buying and selling land.

...open to suggestions.