SL economy in trouble?!

I second Enabran. Adding unnecessary costs to something that is free is akin to passing regulations to force the hiring of people whose job is completely unnecessary (like those people who would make a living by hand-copying books back when the printing press was not invented). The point of free market and non-abusive competition is to drive prices down, ultimately to zero.

That's the way the SL economy is headed anyway. It is all going according to The Plan. The RL economy is headed that way too. We're going to have to choose between Gabrielle's model of an artificially scarce economy or a non-scarcity-based economy (like RAW's RICH economy, for example, or Iain Banks' Culture).

I have to agree with Enabran. SecondLife is not a game - its a social/creative platform allowing you to interact with people and generaly have fun.

Have a look at your telephone. There's no "level ups" and "experience points" to aspire to while using it, except for - perhaps - getting a lower bill. SecondLife is pretty much the same. Its a small peek at the future of telecommunications and digital media combined into one.

But thats not the reason I'm writing this post right now.

The reason i'm posting here is to make afew things clear about FreeView, due to a certain poster who have recently posted somewhere in this thread some certain guesses about my "motives".

The reason I made FreeView is simple: I wanted a TV.

Shocking, I know.

I wanted a TV and I wanted it now. And I could not see anything else coming up that was going to be anything I wanted. So I made my own. During development, afew people asked me if I am going to sell it.

It was tempting. It was a new market and I could have charged some pretty high prices for this thing. Hell, history shows that people always do that when a new feature comes up to exploit.

So I released it for free.

Why? Because when I set a price to an item, I price it according to what I feel the return for it should be. Developing FreeView was pure fun. I had nothing to compensate myself for its development period. There were barely any bugs, testing went smooth. There was nothing I felt that I should be compensated for.

Another factor in that decision was the following realisation: TVs are incredibly easy to code. I mean seriously. There's absolutly *nothing* in this stuff that warrents a cost beyond 50L$ at most. The only "hard" work here was the menu construction and making it auto-configure itself. I did not feel that there was anything worth charging here.

This poster whom I have mentioned earlier has also questioned the existance of SLGuide and its free nature. Well.. let me clue you into a secret: Giving people bookmarks with pre-existing URLs that you are not hosting is not exactly what i'd expect you to make aliving off.

The real promise of commerce from media on video streams is just that: Custom pay-per-view media streams.

I would definetly pay for that - if what you have to offer is worths watching, ofcourse.

Public Health Warning.
I would say be very careful indeed, to start believing SL is not a game is to delude yourself. As long as people can hide behind the anonymity of false identities SL will always be a game. As long as we don't know who we are really dealing with, to take anyone or anything too seriously in SL is just not good for your health !

Er, right. Then by your definition the world wide web is a game. Instant Messenger is a game. The telephone is a game. Dear Abby is a game...

etc. sigh.

Going back to the original question--

The thing is that NOTHING is so fabulous that it cant be improved upon. On top of that, there will always be new categories of things to sell popping up (such as animations a few months ago).

A fabulous freebie may squash someone's plans, but it would not ruin the entire economy. On top of that, if everone has something, it loses its value. I'm am not going to wear the most fabulous dress in SL if everyone else has that same dress!

So I don't think we are in serious danger of being destoyed by inheriting the cast-offs of the retiring players, even if there were such things.

I think its a common theme for those from other MMOG's to want there to be a way to MAKE money for just playing the game.

They want to camp or farm or get SOMETHING for doing someothing tedius.

I think all these assumptions went WAY out the window when LL decided it would sell the service based on resources used ( In the form of Teir for Land and associated Prims)

Thus Chip doesnt necesarily pay the same as Aimee who doesnt nec. pay the same as me or anyone else.

Add in USER created content - these other games have game system content you scrounge for with artifical rarity built in.

Then people think the content is so good they are willing to partly compensate people for making it.

I think more that one sucessful content creator say the hourly rate for creating stuff averages less thank minimum wage.

I hope we dont presume to think such talented people work in their "DAY" jobs for less than minimum wage.

I think if you want to mine resources for money - play a game that lets you do so then Trade the money on IGE for L$

I can think of one - EVE - thats all about mining - lol

So i vote NO on creating artificial scarcity.

I left more than one online game due to sheer boredom in functionality and game content. Prim harvesting while supplementing newbies and others is simply not needed. It certainly wouldn't be an incentive to log into SL. It is braindead work and totally artificial in need.

Prim juice and the cost to obtain it, if anything, would stifle creativity. I am not a great builder, but if I had to pay for prim juice in order to learn to build and experiment with prims then I would likely not even bother. If I did manage to come up with a marketable product, the cost would include the price of prim juice, so there would be no advantage to perform mindnumbing prim harvesting as any money earned would just be eaten up by increased prices.

Philanthropy exists in RL and SL and neither is the worse for it. If anything, I applaud people like CrystalShard Foo and others who make product and give it away free or at very low cost. I see philanthropic individuals and groups, like the GNU store, as examples of what good people can do in SL. It encourages others to do the same. Their generosity doesn't cripple the economy. If anything, it spurs on those who are inclined to create for money to improve their product which will only benefit of us all.

And as an aside, what good does it do to attribute negative assumptions to people's actions. Why do yourself the disservice of looking judgemental?

angel

I endorse this product and/or service.

--
Kris

Todays Haul!

Fresh from Kritters Mine today, we have:

A quantity of RED SPHERES! (Limited to four per customer.)

Some newly discovered GREEN CYLINDERS!

And those all too rare YELLOW PYRAMIDS! The ladies love 'em!

First come, first served!

Prims priced according to size and availability.

Default Cubes always available. Discount for bulk purchase.

Looking for a job? Come work at Kritters Mines! Day rates for 12 hours shift minimum plus bonus on productivity targets.

(All bonuses paid in default cube prims)

Very cool thought! Now, if you add the need to kill an ogre with a magic sword in order to get to the bathroom so you don't get sick and die, there would be no need for any other MMORGs!

Buster

WTS [Plywood Cube] x1 PST

Ogres can only be killed by the rare YELLOW PYRAMIDS (Kris Ritter has some on sale but supply is limited!)

It took me a long time, but I finally killed the Linden monster and received the +10 Plywood Cube of Building. I'm still trying to figure out the quest that leads me to the +5 Template of Clothing and the +10 Wand of Scripting...

BTW, I've found a couple of Yellow Pyramids. Anyone know what they're good for?

If you sail between while them wearing Bermuda shorts you disappear into a void.

BTW, if you think free things can just change the scene by themselves, think again... Having too many free items too scattered is also a problem. But even if they were categorized by someone, and collected, they might still just overwhelm you.

So, given the choice, what would you rather do?
* Go to a nice clothing shop and be sure that you'll find a L$100 very nice item in 10 minutes
* Spend hours searching for a freebie, that's nice enough
If you have L$ 100, you'll probably do the first, if you're poor, the second (you're paying with your time).

Well, you might say, what if someone opens a shop, categorizes the freebies, so you can just browse them?
If they do it in SL, they probably need to make nice packaging, model pictures for the boxes, let's say 5 minutes per box, that's still work. Then they need to pack up the boxes, put them out, categorized.

A 512 land can only hold 117 prims, or 'boxes'. Oh, maybe an even bigger land is needed, let's say 2-4000 sqm. That costs some money to maintain, which someone has to pay. And still, you only see 117 items, not the 'free millions'. Okay, maybe there can be vendors, but then we're back to square one: browsing vendors which contain many sucky items takes a lot of time.

So I think brands and quality will always have a value, the only thing that could change is that poor SL people might be willing to trade in their time to spare their money. And I think that's OK.

OK, Let me jump in here again...

Just because someone puts out a freebie of an item doesn't mean that the market for that item for sale is dead. Look at the casino game market. I used to program all sorts of casino games for my casino. When I updated the games, and made more complex and modern versions of the same games, I dropped the price on them to L$50. after a while, I started just giving them away. does the fact that I made a slot machine a freebie mean that now no one will ever buy another slot machine because these ones are free? NO! I had created MORE slot machines that had different designs and animations, and more cash features that were worth way more than the old ones!

In essence, don't get bumbed because someone is making a freebie toilet, go and make your own "SPECIAL" design and sell the damn thing! SL is all about creativity right? be creative and make something. If someone already made it, make it better!

Would you never pay any money for a car in RL if ford made all its 1988 Mustangs free?
No, you would pay for a better model of the same car!

Anyone dissagree?

SL is not a game. It is a sophisticated "sandbox". It allows mostly adults and teenagers to relive and recreate the joy of "pretend playacting" and "pretend building" of our youth (for those of the pre-videogame age). If some do attempt to bring any kind of market economy into a "virtual sandbox" world, they should not be surprised to find problems. When in the sandbox, the sand is free. Make a castle out of it, play with it, share it, stomp on it, whatever... but nobody ever suggested selling a sandcastle. Everyone is trying to sell a reference in a database the shows up on your screen as a bunch of pixels. Look at it this way and explain to me why you all take this so seriously?

Disclaimer: no, I'm not against capitalism or any form of commerce system. I also create and sell stuff. But I view it as playing a game, which I pay a monthly fee for the right to use. Nothing more.

Quite correct. Everyone has their own view of why they themselves subscribe to second life. Different people have different views. Some views are more common than others.

It is rediculous for people to assert that their own view is the "correct" view.

I don't think "we all" take it seriously, but some do. Some people make real money. (i.e., they buy things like food and gasoline with the money they earn from SL.) Those people are entitled to take it as seriously as they want.

Buster

Example of solution in search of a problem.

I agree that people are entitled to take it as seriously as they want. As long as they realize that they are trying (very few succeding) to make money selling pixels on a screen.

Where is the real value of an SL object located? In the object itself? or in our head?
The only real thing going in and sometime out of SL is money. I can't take out the buildings I have built and put them on my RL land, no matter how much I try. It is a non-existing object and it will vanish if someone pulls the plug on the server

But sure, people are totally free to accept the above and take it as seriously as they want, to the point of arguing, complaining, neg-rating, getting they blood pressure too high, loosing cash they can't afford to, and generally get miserable in a place intended to have fun: the virtual sandbox where you can do as you please with the time you spend there.

Take it seriously, as long as you enjoy it.

Sorry if my guess at some anti-capitalist element in your motivation for freebie creation was wrong, Crystalshard. Certainly I had thought you were quite into selling things for a good return. It was seeing this that made me wonder:


Just to avoid misunderstanding perhaps I should repeat. No criticism of anyone, or of the various different points of view on freebies is intended. All are valid opinions. It depends perhaps partly on your vision of where we are going.

What is the value of services like trimming your hair in a complex arrangement ? What is the value of a digital copy of a piece of information (mp3 file, anyone) ? It's not even limited to intangibles, can you decree what is the value of a diamond ring ? I wouldn't pay more than a few cents for one, because that's how much I value the added "prettiness" it gives, but other people may assign it completely different (and wild ) attributes pushing its value way up.

It's not how rare something is (some unique crappy painting is still crappy, being unique does not make it worth anything), it's not how much work is spent making it (why pay greatly different prices for the same book copied painstakingly by hand over months or printed on an offset press in a few seconds; why pay more for the very same article shipped by boat or by dromedary ?), it's not how much the raw materials used to make something were worth (is a ton of iron, plastic, rubber and sand the same value as a brand new car ?) that make something's worth. It's really how much someone will be ready to pay (assuming free competition and free market) for it.

At least that's the current understanding, AFAIK.

Wonder no more.

Crystal and I are forum trolls. Nothing more sinister on our agenda than being disruptive

You should charge for your trolling.. by providing this service for free you are ruining the trolling market for the rest of us.

I troll because I enjoy it. I don't feel the need to carve a business out of it. But hey, anyone is free to offer a better trolling service than those available for free! Whats stopping anyone from innovating or improving upon it? All you have to do to compete is offer something that makes people want what you got over what I got to offer for free, see? If it's worth it's asking price, people will surely pay for it, wont they? I don't get what's so hard about it all. Sheesh.

Like, why do people buy Seburo's when there are free popguns available?!

Actually, I do get it, of course. People whine because you stomped on their get rich quick scheme which involved doing something very very simple and charging a lot for it. Now they'll have to work for their money. Aww, diddums.

I dont think this is necessarily true.

You are correct in that the Newbies will not directly have enough
cash in the bank to pump out 1,000 heavy prim objects, but that's
no different than in FL where large companies are able to out buy/produce
small ones.

BUT... liquid prim is not just going to auto-magically appear for the
large content barons.. and most top end corporate types aren't going
to want to spend their own time pointing and clicking to harvest.
So, they hire newbies to do the "labor" of harvesting and the newbies
are happy for a job.

As far as prototyping costs... we'd only be talking about the time it
takes for the newbie to harvest their own liquid prim, since they would
probably prefer to spend time than money at that point. It could
also be set up that a gallon of liquid prim could contruct a prim of
any size, and even be re-molded later... so if your proto-type took
20 prim... it would take 20 gallons harvested... which could be re-used
and re-molded at any time... thus not ever requiring more than that
during proto-typing or mass production. (if you rethink your design,
just re-mold your prims)


So... this does leave it where you see the interesting question

Gabrielle