Are freebies hurting the Second Life economy?

[Khamon]

Stop to put baby in box!

quit!

 

[Essence Lumin]

quit!

Somewhere in a world now far away from Second Life I can hear Andi Apollo plead with Marianne.

 

[Khamon]

She and Buck were fabulous mentors. They were very welcoming and helpful. I miss my little park in Kissling.

 

[Free]

Somewhere in a world now far away from Second Life

Sansar?

/me runs!

 

[Spirit Lapis]

It is gacha more than anything that is hurting the economy IMHO.
Not only does it create an endless supply of cheap resellables for some (maybe more than a few) unethical individuals who use the (not yet fixed) exploits to make duplicates of no/copy items but it floods the market with cheap stuff.
Not cheap in quality though because a lot of decor gacha items especially are downloaded from the web or outsourced to 3rd world freelancers who then .. wait for it.. download it from the web anyway.
The end result is that people expect high quality at rock bottom prices.
Merchants who are doing well, do it in one of two ways.. massive quantity low, low price items of dubious provenance or by finding a niche market that is hard to compete with.
herendethelesson.. amen

I can't stand gacha's. Gacha's are a money grabbing tactic. They lure people in with pretty items to collect but you wind up spending thousands trying to get anything decent from them. I am almost certain they're rigged so you have to spend a certain amount before a rare even pops out, not to mention those hair companies that make NORMAL hair colors the RARE ones and the common ones the lumo crap that make you look like a walking traffic light. I refuse to use them anymore lol. If there's something in a gacha I fancy, I'll look on the marketplace to see who's selling that specific item / set. Gacha's should go same way as gambling in SL.

 

[mikka]

Would have replied to OP (months back) but has some odd areskimet thing active. Also, No. I give them out when asked. Also gacha is your own fault - stop doing it

 

[sldenizen]

Sorry, what were we talking about? I got lost in the freebies section of the original poster's blog. There are tons of free stuff that I have been totally missing out on!

 

[jauani wu]

$$$ sigh

 

[Pr1m]

I'm pretty sure everything my avatar wears was a freebie or a onebie. Would you rather see us broke n00bs all wandering around in the same handful of default avatars instead of a mix and match of free finds?

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I think the biggest threat to the SL economy is Sansar. Not as a competitor, but as a distraction for Linden Lab from updating SL.

I wish High Fidelity would quit faffing around and start taking the idea of having an in-world economy seriously. Conceptually it seems like the closest thing to a "new SL", and I get the same kind of vibes from the HF employees that I used to get from the in-world Lindens.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I firmly believe that they have hurt SL in the past. They were overused as a marketing tactic, and there were a few too many people using FabFree to not participate in the SL economy at all. In the old old days before that, while freebies were a thing the quality was low and you couldn't have a nice looking avatar on just freebies. It's balanced out a bit now, so I don't think they're hurting the SL economy currently.

 

[Chav Paderborn]

Are gachas hurting the SL economy?

 

[Experimental]

Would you rather see us broke n00bs all wandering around in the same handful of default avatars instead of a mix and match of free finds?

Yes. It would be even easier to segregate you into virtual slums if you all looked the same.

 

[Amity Slade]

It is difficult to talk about what is good or bad about the SL economy without defining a baseline of what a healthy SL economy should look like.

I think it is frequently discussed in terms of whether a small percentage of the population who are merchants are generating revenue. That's nothing that interests me, since I'm not a merchant. (Though I am absolutely happy for anyone who makes money through their creations or services.)

It could also be considered in terms of whether customers are getting value for their expenditures, and whether there are enough things on which customers want to spend their SL budget.

Marketplace is challenging to use, in terms of searching or browsing for things one wants. There may be thousands tens of thousands of products in any category, variety and diversity of products is always lacking. Truly evaluating available products requires a decent knowledge of the complex/quirky technical underpinnings of Second Life, which most users find daunting. Buying things in Second Life is very much a frustrating, time-consuming, perilous process.

If one spends a significant amount of time and money shopping, and comes up with enough disappointing products, it is easy to be discouraged from participating.

To get to the question of freebies, getting a good freebie or cheapie is an encouraging, positive experience that is a good thing for Second Life, whether it encourages someone with the budget to spend to go shopping, or whether it encourages someone with no money to spend to continue to participate in Second Life.

Having a population in Second Life is important, whether or not a certain segment is spending money. Ultimately, the heart of the Second Life experience is meeting and interacting with others. If Second Life is desolate, there's no reason for users with money to spend to actually stick around and spend that money.

Here is the philosophical question: If you are wearing the hottest mesh avatar and sexiest clothes that money can buy, but no one is around to see you, are you actually pretty?