Payment for classes

Howdy all. I'm trying to do a little research to see what kind of price the market would bear for education/entertainment in a post-dwell world. Also, as far as I know there are no classes currently charging admission, but the Lindens have said they will only support SL-related classes with instructor payment. So please answer the poll question and also give your thoughts on these questions:
1. What would cause you to trust that a class or entertainment option is worth paying for before you experience it personally?
2. Do you see a future for paid classes about real world skills or information (i.e. writing, languages, political training, lectures, etc.) in SL?
3. What ideas do you have for bringing more real-world skills classes and better entertainment options to SL?
4. Would you ever tip for an event you paid admission to? Under what circumstances?

1) Nothing would.
2) I see a future for classes that charge but not for entertainment

4) I would tip if the entertainment was good. But SL society for entertainment and education should not be based on tips.

I would be willing to pay what it's worth to me, which woudl be measured in US$, not L$...

But I haven't seen any indication that anyone's likely to ever do any event that's worth more than L$0 in second life.

What kinds of entertainment/educational events would you pay for in RL and what would be the posssible parallels to SL?

1. I really can't think of anything I'd pay money for entertainment-wise ATM. Classes though, background/reputation of the speaker(s) and a list of topics covered would do.

2. Yup, I've heard about a few in development and they sound promising.

3. Probably none relevant to what you're talking about.

4. I don't generally tip.



For a class I'd attend I'd expect to pay an absolute minimum of L$5000

Wow. What is the course were divided over several classes, to make it possible to pay for each class had a time. How would that change your suggested price?

You're wasting your time. What "Argent Stonecutter" meant by "But I haven't seen any indication that anyone's likely to ever do any event that's worth more than L$0 in second life." was "everything is sh*t and never going to get any better, I might as well just cut myself".

You're going to need more positive outlooks if you're going to get support for anything worthwhile.

Personally, I have an ARDENT fascination with neurology, but specifically as it pertains to SL and more than likely the text-based MUD's that preceded it. If you can get me a neurologist to research and then lecture on their findings then let me know. I'll pay 'real' money to see that, i.e. say 6,000L/$20 USD

Wow? If anything L$5000 is cheap. From your response, I guess I should point out that I'd expect it to be someone with a good background in the subject who'd probably get hundreds of USD an hour to do a similar class in RL. I wouldn't expect admittance to these classes to be much cheaper in SL than RL, it's still the same effort on their part (well, except that they can do it from home in their PJs if they want ).

As to your question: If the course was split then I'd expect to pay the same for each class, possibly a discount if I signed up to the whole thing.

Last Sunday, we ran an event in which Glossy Page (a well respected hair designer) gave a class on the basics of creating hair in game. Apparently it's one of those things that has a high barrier to entry because of the little things that get in your way. There were 20 people in attendance that paid 100L each, and the feedback received was entirely positive.

What do I pay for in RL?

Live music. REAL live music, where the performers are actually there in the cafe or restaurant or concert hall. I wouldn't pay for a "simulcast".

Movies. But when I'm watching a movie I'm watching a movie.

Going to the zoo or museum (but I'm not paying for prim tigers).

About the only thing that I pay for that you could do on SL would be something like an SF convention with actual authors present/online.

No, what I mean is that I have not seen anyone actually propose an event in SL, ever, that would have any value over just being in SL. I've never seen anyone even propose one. There's stuff that I would happily fork over hundreds of US dollars for (yes, L$30,000 or more), but there's no way you're going to get a Worldcon quality lineup in SL.

The point is that what makes SL so cool are not things that map well into "events". Not that it's shit, but that it's not event-oriented.

What qualifies as a SL related class? If it's one of those I don't expect to pay anything since the instructor is getting paid. However if it's not one where the instructor is getting paid I think $50L assuming there will be several students attending.

As for events, I think charging admission for anything other than WELL ESTABLISHED entertainment is going to be tricky since not many people are going to want to fork over $L for checking out something new. I think to charge admission you will have to have something LIVE going on and it better be pretty entertaining.

And I suppose I might tip someone other than who the admission is going to if I paid admission...ie a dancer, dj, etc. I think to replace dwell, event people are going to be better off relying on tips rather than trying to charge admission.

As I've said before, SL is going to become very boring soon with members having no LL given incentive to have events. Having events now becomes a risk taking adventure like every other aspect of SL.

Very little, maybe a friend whose been to one themself reccomending it. But its unlikely I would.


I can't say I've thought about it before. I think it would probably work, but I don't see it taking over.


I would think the best way to handle something like this would be to set up a university or HQ building, hold classes, and ask people to pay/tip what they thought the class was worth to them.


If the price was incredibly low and I got a lot out of it, I may tip or donate if there was a jar or something about.


What I prefer above paid classes, is classes people hold and they ask you to donate/tip/pay what you feel the class was worth. That way if I find a class really bad, or hard to follow, I have the option to leave with the same amount of money that I went in with.

It also tells me the place/person/bussiness is confident about their classes being high quality. If they weren't they wouldn't be getting paid.

There is a rumor that SF authors are planning an event in May. I do not know if they plan to charge a fee

The same way I would in R/L -- recomendations from friends, reviews from groups that in the past given good reviews to things I liked & bad reviews to things I didn't like, and lastly compelling previews or advertising.

I'd turn this around, how would you decide if you wanted to go watch a film that had no "big names" in their credits?



Yes. I already know of a few conventions that are held entirely online via collaborative meeting software and interactive websites. The key will be making the process as simple and striaght forward as possible for someone that knows absolutely nothing about SL, to see an advertisment for an online class, and be able to within 5 to 15 minutes go from advertisement to sitting in the "classroom" ready to attend.



I think the key is to target people who don't currently "play" Second Life, and streamline their enrollment from advertisement/announcement of the entertainment or class being available to thier attendance in-world.



Yes. Under the same conditions under which I tip people in R/L. If I believe the host or entertainer was above and beyond my expectations, or if I felt the value of the entertainment was above that which I was charged.

I attend a renaissance pleasure faire each year and they they have "free" entertainment at stages within the faire grounds -- I have almost always tipped the entertainers even though I paid an entrance fee, with the rare exception being when I thought the performers were absolutely horrid.

It seems the safest bet at this point is to charge L$50 for a half-hour event, though what this does to the potential for tips is anyone's guess. I hope more people will take the poll and will submit comments.

Look at it this way:

How much would you pay for a high-quality, 30-minute entertainment/education event?

Nothing 30.77%
20c     30.77%
40c     17.95%
80c     10.26%
$2      10.26%

Convincing me it will be a high-quality event... hard. But if you do dropping $2 on it is nothing.

0..........

Next

I wouldn't provide anyone with 1/2 hour of quality instruction/training for $0.16. SIXTEEN CENTS??? Really, if people don't value your time and knowledge more than that, they don't diserve the benefit of either. This thread has given me an interesting idea, though.

I'd teach for free before I tought for a few dollars. I'd teach for lots of dollars before teaching for free, but that's not going to happen.

Well I know for me the question is, can I make my work in SL at least cover the money I spend to access SL?
Because even worse than getting paid 16 cents to teach someone, is for the teacher to pay for the opportunity to teach.

I would pay something for high-quality classes or events, but not for the average sort of thing that I've seen.

The problem is that you need to establish a reputation for quality before you are going to get paying students or audiences.

Also, what you earn will never be more than a few cents an hour. You can't really earn a living that way.

You might get authors and such who come in mainly to generate sales in real life--I see that as the real angle to go for here. However, audiences are so small (25 or 30 people at most, unless you want the sim to go down) that most big wigs are not going to think it is worth the effort. You might increase your audience if you broadcast or use repeaters with mulitiple sites for your event. In any case, the host is unlikely to earn much compared with the effort involved.

I really would like to see many more real-life oriented events and activities in SL, so I hope someone works out the economics of this!