This game is so bizarre.

This issue definitely is going to get very important soon (heck, I'm slow today, it is NOW!). Hopefully LL is already having project meetings on it/getting resident input/etc.*. Because although I would love an (insert biz here) Island, I really would not want to just happen upon it when I am in play/explore mode with my alt(if that is the correct slang word).

I don't mind seeing a 15-30m tall shemale statue when exploring (and I did- lol-- not my thing, but hilarious), but I really could do without a Coca-Cola bllboard.


*optimistic, eh?

The time for (hopefully not futile) speaking out is now, I think, for what good it will do. I would like to be ably to truly browse (insert biz) as a virtual store with RL goods I can get shipped, but obviously don't want all the tremendous individual creativity and "play" here to be drowned out by the commercial noise. Two separate server farms/systems would be good I think (as long as they didn't abandon the current one when the money rolls in... it comes down to whther they have/can maintain respect for people at least as high as corporate biz.

I agree, but only to a point. The commercialization of the internet did knock out some small businesses in favor of large corporations, but at the same time, a lot of small businesses are proving successful. And the fact that the major news media now looks to individually-produced blogs to guide their focus tells us that "the little guy" working as a group can still be very influential.

SL differs from this model now because, unlike the internet, it is still entirely controlled by a single entity (LL) -- and that entity really appears to give preference to corporations over the individual. If it stays like this, I think you are very right, and SL will just be another tool of "the man". But if LL keeps control of SL, instead of letting it eventually be operated by anyone without their explicit consent, I don't see it EVER becoming "the 3D internet".



I'm with you. Buying books is a large part of my job, and I love Amazon. But I love it because it's fast, easy, and almost never has errors. I can't imagine what an SL platform for Amazon would add aside from lag and frustration.

Well, unless they start making a wide variety of cool freebie prim books and bookshelves. Then I would love them inworld too!

Cheer up, Brenda. Things are not nearly that gloomy.

Over time, anybody who is selling virtual items with RL brands on them will have a heap of trouble, but not too many others. For instance, I really don't think Nike is going to start peddling a line of elven booties, And Bally is not going to be introducing a line of BDSM spiked boots. Actually, there is very little product I can think of in SL that would be under serious threat from big RL corporations. The main exception, I think, when SL goes open source and people start attaching offshore servers to the SL grid, will be the casino operators. Non-US casino operators promoting their RL casinos on-line in SL will wipe them, IMO. But I doubt you are losing much sleep over those guys. I'm not.

Actually, it is not nearly so bad in RL as some people make it out, either. In our neighborhood, for example. A few years ago a national pizza chain opened a store in the same strip mall as a family-owned pizza place that had been there for decades. The family operation saw a drop-off in business the first couple of weeks, while people tried out Little Caesers. After which, their business was better than ever, and the Little Caesers place became a good spot to stretch out on the floor and take a nap. The latter folded after about a year. Nobody in town is going to open a hamburger joint with a McDonald's a Burger King and a Wendy's all in driving distance, but other than that narrow category, the most successful restaurants in town are a steakhouse which is the third in a chain started by a family in a nearby town and all owned by them, and a really good upscale seafood place owned by the son of a guy who ran a popular family restaurant in town until he inconveniently died suddenly. Nationwide, there are literally millions of little businesses like that which do just fine. I strongly suspect it is quite similar in other countries. Small businesses are like the grass. The giant trees may drive them out here, but then they move and flourish over there. It will be the same in SL, only I think more so.

I don't have a problem with a virtual store. I'd just rather go to www.(insert biz) to do it. I like as little RL as possible in my SL experience, especially my number one RL irritant. Just as with my ambivilance toward another hotly debated feature we are expecting, The Big Boys are here, and more will come. As long as I can enjoy SL without being subjeted to their crap I'm fine.

Hey, you could always create an unverified alt and grief them...

I can see your point. I am lucky too that even surrounded by Megas Stores here I can still go to Walt's Hardware, The local bagel shop, the Greek Diner, and quite a few independant clothing and shoe shops. I have yet to set foot in a WalMart. And thank God local Pizza joints are all over , I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those assembly line pizza chain stores. I guess all I see is the greed when I see any Corporate entity...I'll go breathe into a paper bag. *Everything will be fine*

Nah..I'd feel guilty and AR myself........it's just the way I am.

Hmmm, what about virtual Manolo's?

OOOHHHHH Manolo's.............*steady Bren*

Heh, the one time I shopped at a Wal-Mart, it was to buy a flat-screen TV recommended by Consumer Reports at a drop-dead price. The help were all local minorities, very polite and helpful, and turned out to be very glad to have the jobs. Wal-Mart bashing is Politically Correct these days, but mainly because once it became the biggest US retailer, it became the prime target of the retail workers unions (it is resolutely anti-union), and the political left has a long tradition of solidarity with the labor movement. Not that I'm a fan of corporate bureaucracy and idiocy either, but in Wal-Mart's case - so far, at least - it is a bad rap. And I am even more not a fan of ideological lunacy, either of the left or of the right.

I agree with you on idealogy for idealogy's sake. That's part of the reason our political system is so messed. My reasons for not patronizing them are sound, at least in my mind based on a variety of things. In many areas they do provide people with things they otherwise couldn't afford, and do employ a lot of people, many of which they helped put out of work by their business practices....but that's just my personal choice.

The nice thing about all the corporate builds is that each of them is off on its own island, which means that they have to be interesting in their own right to be seen, rather than just placing a so-called "inobtrusive" advert in front of teh other stuff you want to see.

As long as teh corporates get their eyeballs by genuine content that people would go out of their way to see, I'm happy. If they try to get their eyeballs with traditional advertising techniques, they will fail miserably, and might destroy SL if they do it too aggressively 9and if they are allowed to do it to that extent). if they did try traditional advertising, I rather suspect anywhere that hosts teh adverts will lose traffic rapidly.

I know where you're coming from-- hopefully LL will find a path happy for all.

I like all aspects: I like to explore people's creations, and I also would like to browse a virtual store and really order the items there ... truly browsing (walking/floating by rows of images in SL's case) as opposed to knowing exactly what I am searching for (website search in most cases)

There are several shirts in SL that I've wished I could have shipped to me in RL.