An opinion question of sorts.

I have to add two Cents here Myself. I think anyone Clever and creative enough to Copy, and script a Mustang in SL is ALSO Clever enough to design a Vehicle of their own that whould Kick the Snot out of Mustang Sales.

You people seem to forget that this IS our world, We have been here many of us two, and three years. It's Our Pond and we know how to swim here. The corporations For all their Money, are Still Noobs. People fear them because in the Real world they are the Sharks, In my Opinion, Given the design Talent, and Business accumen i have seen in SL players, the Corporations here are just so much Sushi. Our long term residents have the distinct advantage of Long experience in a medium that is, to the Corporate mind, Alien Territory. Add to that the Fact that the Consumer base In SL is decidedly Hostile to ANYONE who attempts to Stifle their creativity or Freedom, I think the Corporations will be very careful where they step. What works for them in RL won't work for them here.
As i said Elsewhere, The Corporations carry with them a Lot of Baggage. There are things We are free to do that they can't because it might "Harm their corporate Image" As creative Individuals WE can Change our Business direction at the speed of thought, Corporations have Committees that have to examine and approve everything, THEN it has to get past their Legal Boys. In describing their potential performance in SL, i have to use a line From "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy";
"Soars like an Eagle, Steers like a Cow".

Stop Worrying about their Advantages, and START Recognizing your own.

Angel.

If you have no land that you are using to promote your rl DJ business, then you would have no land charged at commercial rates.

If you set up land to promote your DJ business, and that business is actually in the non-SL world, you would be charged commercial rates.

If you are a DJ only in SL, and you set up land to promote that SL-only business, you would be charged resident rates for the land.

coco

P.S. (after reading on) What Seola said.

Well, I think all these points - plus what others have said, about SL residents liking something unusual, and all that - are absolutely valid.

I dig all that and agree totally.

I'm not movitated by fear that Nissan will sell more pixel cars than indigenous car makers. I simply want to keep SL within the reach of those who don't make or sell real-life products or services.

I want the residents to pay resident rates, and the real-world companies here advertising to pay a commercial rate.

I've been thinking for days about a good analogy that would explain things better, but I haven't come up with one yet!

The best I have come up with - and forgive me, because this is rotten - is a town crafts fair in a small town.

The fair is filled with people who pay $10 a space to sell the crafts they made to the other townspeople. (Already the analogy is rotten, but bear with me here anyway, lol.) None of them has an actual store anywhere.

Suddenly in comes Nissan, and they rent a stall at the crafts fair, also for $10. But they aren't there to sell crafts. They put up a big ad for Nissan cars and trucks. Which aren't even for sale in the town! And they give away perfect little Nissan toy trucks and cars for free.

What's wrong with that picture? Well, Nissan should - if they are going to have a presence at the crafts fair - be there as a sponsor, paying sponsorship prices.

Because they aren't even concerned with presenting their crafts, or charging $2.95 for a wooden truck. They are there purely to advertise something OUTSIDE of the crafts fair.

Unlike some others, I like real-world companies in SL. I think they add variety to the things we have to see or do here.

But I don't want them renting a space for $10 along with the rest of us just to advertise something that isn't even necessarily available at the fair.

Even WORSE, I don't want us charged $1650 for that space, just because they can pay it out of their advertising budget.

Because when that happens, what happens to the crafts fair? I'll tell you what - it no longer exists. The crafts fair becomes Advertising World.

I want us "crafters" to still exist, still have our lands, and not be charged out the wazoo just so Nissan and other real-world companies don't have to pay more than we do. (And that is not to mention those residents who don't even sell anything in SL.)

We already subsidize the educational and charitable institutions. I don't think we should be picking up the slack for real-world companies' advertising budgets as well.

coco

Yes!!!!! And what Isablan said too.

What I find really peculiar about these conversations about swamping and the like is, it's not the big nameplate brands who do the spamming elsewhere. We don't get spam from McDonalds or Nike or Nissan; we get it from dimbulb get-rich-quick LITTLE GUYS, who think that their road to riches is paved by 250,000 mis-spellings of "viagra".

In fact, if what you want is a non-aggressive marketing environment with respect for the consumer, those big brands are your friend, not your enemy: personally i've been invited to several groups by Avs whio carefully don't mention that group membership equals group spam: so far, no "big corporate name" has done that.

So who's the criminal here?

When you have been around a bit longer, you will understand the group spam idea. There are no business groups that don't have spam about events and such, and that spam may make a few leave but a helluva lot more show up. But either way, that certainly doesn't compare with the notecard bombing I've recieved from Toyota and American Apparel. The avs probably didn't mention it, because it's common and probably assumed you knew it, otherwise, why join that particular group?

That's hardly comparing a guy who sells pixel T-shirts paying the same price as Toyota for a classified ad, or the same price for land. In the RW, commercial zones are much more expensive, but there are limitations (though the lemonade stand lawsuit was stupid), most people can sell out of their homes, because they aren't selling in multimillions of dollars.