My thoughts on the economy... and selling here....

This will be extremely condensed. My new real life job has me home all of 8 days this month so I'm not nearly as able to think and blog like I want but I also am committed to talking to the smartest people on the internets (that would be you) every day. So...

Having read Gwyn's article yesterday? Good. Here's what is interesting about having such a powerful tool in SL. If you're one of the ones who builds and creates here... then you may not bother buying because you want to see if you can do it yourself. I haven't bought a building in over a year. I admire buildings that others do, some of them I can't even compete with, but I don't buy them either. So learning and teaching about the power of this world/tool trains people not to be customers.... this is true of Real Life as well though, it's why apprenticeships and certifications cost so much in time and money.

The second part of the equation is the 'hobo' culture that is endemic in second life, it's an extension of the information must be free attitude of the early adopters, giving things away is it's own culture in Second Life and the stuff you can get free now is 100's of times better then the stuff that used to be around. The quality trickles down... This is noble, but not a great economic model.

So why do this? Don't do it for money, do it for fun, do it for the lessons learned, do it because you love it. Do it because the money is a way to keep 'score' in a scoreless 'game'. But I don't recommend to people that they can get rich here, it can happen, but it takes a ton of work, and until/if the adoption and expansion includes the non geek consumers (Which is different from the non-geek non consumers.) then it will be a tough road, not an impossible one, but a tough one.

This became kind of stream of conciousness, it's late, I'm tired and I'm on the road, forgive me, I'm sure I'll explore these themes again.