Ugh, ask first, biatch. >.> (Anshe Chung, that is. Not you, Vint, rofl.)

The “broken link” between the abandoned TSL Exchange and SL Exchange is sometimes good, like now hehe.

P.S.: It seems intergrid commerce will go okie dokie!. Go here.

Oh wait, the site’s under maintenance. Nevermind! ‘^_^.

*insert question mark*

Hehe…. I meant the link ‘^_^.

I could be totally wrong… isn’t IMVU for children?
It’s it’s a younger generation it’s marketed to, yeah of course it’ll have a huge following. My neice is 8 and had her first computer game at 3.

SL seems to be for the 30+ crowd. 30+ = less computer savvy generation as a whole.

Her builders forgot to change the permissions on the animations they bought permission to use. ;P That’s why the items were removed.

I’m working up a post on this because I’m fascinated, and well, it is a slow day today. ;)

Storm, I know. But in the mean while, I’m hoping they will not be listed again. And 30+? Now I feel young. *grins* But I agree that Second Life is not IMVU. At all.

I’m beginning to wonder if Anshe doesn’t think SL is now her game. HER. Game.

In a way I’m kind of happy she’s doing this… “sticking it to the man”. Otherwise… no. She can shove it. The economy is fine how it is, but if nothing else, she’s just going to be another freebie place.

Lol well, I’m in my early 20s, but most market research on SL points to the fact that the average user is 30+. Lots of moms too.

There is a huge difference between those demographics. If I was 16 playing a chat game, I don’t even have a cc to buy money with. So $10 items would be great. But Secondlife isn’t like that.

I wonder if a lot of stuff gets lost in translation with her. “But your business practices are going to make it harder for content creators to be able to afford RL necessities” “Oh don’t worry, my content creators get great salaries and have health benefits”
O_o Oh uh no wait we weren’t talking about YOUR content creators…

Well, I do think SLexchange did the right thing by getting rid of Anshe’s own category. That doesn’t quite seem fair to everyone else. However…just like irl, this is a free market. She has found a way to not only be successful, but to continue to grow as a company. Just like irl, there are the Davids and the Goliaths of business, so why should SL be any different? If you don’t like the way Anshe conducts business, then don’t do business with her.

If you don’t like the way Anshe conducts business, then don’t do business with her.

Tobie, exactly. That’s why I’m a bit weary to use SLexchange in the future also.

Just an informational sort of trackback; Sarah Nerd posted something as well.

Edit: Added the link. (Vint)

Stolen from the comments on Sarah Nerd’s blogpost above, this quote from Nobody Fugazi:

That’s what I read here. If she follows through on this, she should expect a backlash. Given her cloak and dagger investments on WSE as ‘Third Party’, I think she may well be shooting herself in the foot.

I guess when you start as an escort, its all about who screws who. :-)

Mainly because I’m still rolling on the floor laughing with the last comment. I’m not advocating holding people’s past against them, but this is just too funny. =d

Um, October, I think that what Ms. Chung is doing is called “dumping” in some circles; it’s a way to destroy competition by pricing goods at far lower than cost. She can afford to do this because of the money she’s made in SL real estate–not many content producers are millionaires, I dare say, and hence they don’t have that source of cross-subsidization.

Ok, but simply having very low-cost products doesn’t necessarily mean she’s going to destroy the competition. The pricetag may get the noob factor to buy, but for many of us, price really isn’t an object in SL. I’ll buy a product because I like it, not because the price happens to be low. And if the price is high (to a certain point), I’ll still buy it if I want it.

I’m not saying that this isn’t a potential issue for a “Wal-Mart” type of situation happening, but I don’t think it’s quite something to be alarmed about just yet until we see what happens. The market, as always, will decide.

Hmmm yes, but as things were at the beginning, with a seperate category all for herself - SLexchange people now stated that it will list all 10L$ items ranked on popularity - and a name like ‘10Lindens’, Ansche was getting somewhat of a head start in this ‘market will decide race’.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, welcome to the world of globalization, kids.

It’s not “dumping” in any remote sense of the term. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a dumping case going in real life?

In Second Life, production costs for making copies are pretty much…zero!

Pricing in SL really doesn’t making sense. It’s all vapour and hype and puppy dog tails. It really has no sense or reason. It’s not based on any real minimum wage or real life equivalent, but seems largely tied to the Lindens’ totally arbitrary decision back in 2003 or whatever to give $500 a week as a stipend. That set the prices of things at various portions or multiples of that $500. That’s all. Now that this yardstick is eroding as the stipend lowers to $300, and the amount of Lindens you can buy for $9.95 US is increasing to $2600, not $2000 or $1200, as it is now, then it makes no sense to keep pricing around this figure.

So all kinds of pricing wars and experiments will happen, Anshe’s is the lease of them. Have you seen the $60 two-mode Belgian cock in the Brussels sim? Where’s your vexation about your fellow countryman “dumping,” eh? ROFL. Have you see the Brazilian sneakers and belts and watches for only $40 or $60, not $500 or $1000? Where’s the kvetching about dumping, eh? It’s only with people you *hate* for other reasons, mainly ideological.

If a company has an investor who pays for a large chunk of that company’s investment, and that investor wants their own line or visible brand separately visible from the other brands, what of it? They pay. It’s like Martha Stewart at K-Mart. Hello? This is life in the big city. If you want to live on a collective farm, go back to the USSR.

The idea that people can’t use the term “Lindens” in their brand name is quaint, as people do it all the time and the real Lindens seem never to bother to police it.

I’m thinking specifically of the “Lazy Lindens” camp chair that must have sold gadzillion copies by now given all the camp chair emporiums, making Aaron Levy its maker a fortune.

Um, the precious um free crap is the bane of Second Life existence. People really need to take their heads out of their asses on this one. Freebies clutter and obstruct and ruin the economy. They prevent the flourishing of a newbie-to-newbie market, where new people sell their more modest and amateur goods to each other to gain a customer list and following. There is some of that which goes on, but basically, it is stifled by all these vain oldbies who think I should tier the display of their crap until the heat-death of the sun on my land for free, just so they can loss-lead their reputations and force people with freebies back to their stores where they spend $3000 on something ridiculous. Truly, I long ago saw through this fake altruism.

Some limited number of loss-leaders make sense for any business. They need to be rotated, and used strategically or they harm the economy for everybody.

The freebie insanity clutters inventory, and that harms the asset server we all rely on at this point.

Finally, what everybody has lost sight of about this entire saga is that Anshe’s el cheapo stuff is really crappy. There was all this fear that her prefabs in Dreamland would wipe out all the business of prefabbers selling to her tenants. Nothing of the kind happened. She has a crappy, uninteresting, bland, uninhabitable although cheap line of prefabs — a very small following for them, I’d imagine. This furniture also looked like it was from hunger. Nobody seems to have actually gone to LOOK at it and realized it’s a lot of sculptie crap from the Flintstone’s or the Jetson’s or something.

No, no worries Barnesworth or Fade or Maximilian or any other fancy furniture maker in SL charging me $200 or $2000 or more for fine art. I’ll go on paying it just like everyone else wanting really talented good-looking stuff, not crap.

Real life is made up of a huge diversity and variety of levels between amateur and professional, cheap and expensive. Your inability to tolerate this, your constant strangling of the free economy with this creator-fascistic bid to control, control, control has to be whacked at hard, every change we get. Get your hands off our necks, please.

Well, well, look who is here again..

And it may appear strange to you, but I have to admit, you are completely right Prokofy.. there is nothing wrong with it.. its how globalisation works..
Its how the bigger and more powerfull companies / entrepreneurs work. They have the influence, or possibility to take advantage of their acces to cheap labour and they take full advantage of it…
But one thing is, if you accept this, aprove this, why then, fgs, are you ranting about the fact that e.g. some “preferred” players are receiving a headstart from the Lindens in the whole openSIM/ open source case?? Its just the same story, in another context..
Here too we are talking about companies who take advantage of the fact that they have acces to (and maybe invested in?) Linden Labs.. so, explain to the complete ignorant in the world of economics I am, what is the difference here..
but facts and examples please.. not merely the fact that its Prokofys opinion.. or are there “personal” interests involved..??

You seem to have a clear insight in monetary systems afterall..

Anyway, the fact that Vint decides to go to another provider because she isnt happy with SLexchanges practices.. isnt that what free-economy and consumer libertys is all about?? So, should you defend her because of that??

“..Real life is made up of a huge diversity and variety…”
We know Prokofy… we are not all litterature Noble prize winners, and we might have different opinions… question is can YOU tolerate this??
(sorry to mention Noble.. since it is european they only grant communists the honor of winning it…)

“Get your hands off our necks, please.”
Exactly… or finally show that YOU dont have a “inability to tolerate”..

@Vint : you cannot say I didnt warn you.. ;-p

Being a furniture creator maybe i must be afraid, but i agree with October or even Prokofy in some terms (even, as always, i hate his writing style, so paternalistic).

This Chung stuff will be the same as freebies (some freebies are really quality stuff), maybe good for newbies or to have it in house with other products. As October says, if you like some product, how is done or built, you buy it (always in a reasonable price).

About the price of products, if you sell in a store you have to pay tier or a rent, this is the main reason for what you can consider high prices, more than the working time, at least in my case.

And about Chung personally, if she was a escort and she earned a lot of money with it, well, good for her. And as October says too, if you don’t like her, don’t buy her products. I cancelled my sales through SLexchange, i have sold all my land in Dreamland (and i had a lot with Eric, my partner) and i will not buy this 10L$ products, and that is not new, i did all that (except the last) some months ago, and no because this 10L$ story, just because, as Tenshi says, she thinks this is HER world.

The writing style from Vint is what is hectoring and patronizing — telling people what is “a crime,” telling people “this can’t be”, strangulating the economy, admonishing, harassing, instructing. And this gets what I have always famously said is a “pushback” from me. Absolutely.

It *is* Anshe’s world. She has 600 servers. She made a world. Deal with it. Lots of other people are going to be making entire worlds-withing-worlds — they have that ambitiousness and scope, and hey, they have *those many customers* despite a few who leave. I myself have often been a critic of Anshe’s sometimes sharp and nasty policies, i.e. her bilking people for water parcels to force them to buy “protection” from griefing of water. Anyone has to concede, however, that she does what she does *because she can* and that to change that would be to remove the freedoms of the world.

Veronique, you simply don’t get it, because you advocate a controlled, socialistic economy, evidently, and merely hope that you and your little friends, like the “avant garde of the workers” will be strategically and helpfully placed by your “connections”. This is why socialism and communism always “go wrong” — this corrupt insiderism that has no accountability. Capitalism has this, too, of course, but less, and for less lengthy periods, because there is the outside pressure of competition.

When Linden Lab sets itself up as a publicly-open service, in principle available to all with the right computer and Internet set up, and styles itself as a “common carrier,” it has certain “federal government” or “public entity” sorts of responsibilities and expectations that accrue to it.

One of these is that it be fair, open, transparent, equitable. That it follow sound practices like openly bidding out jobs, not creating little friends’ lists. Imagine if you tried to order a phone, but were told that the president’s daughter was ahead of you in the line (many countries work like that) and you had to wait — or pay a bribe. That would be unacceptable, as telephone service is supposed to be working equally for all.

LL signs NDAs with a select few that aren’t demonstrably better.

I’m so glad you admit that Open Sim is getting a head start, and the biggest lie on two legs on the Internet is the concept that “open source” equals something “open”. They should call it “closed source” as it it just for trusted little friends.

Bigger and more powerful companies shouldn’t have absolute power to rule and abuse people. There must always be civic movements that curb them and call them to account. This should be done openly and democratically, and not by bureaucratic socialistic committee that curbs all free enterprise due to the abusiveness of a few.

I don’t *have* to tolerate your opinion, which I find morally blind, obdurate, limited and uneducated — and I’ll continue to say so. That’s not important. What’s important is that we live in an online society where people have the right to express their opinion freely and not silence others arbitrarily. I certainly haven’t advocated your opinion be surpressed, but I will fight to the death to disagree with it — that’s my right — and tolerance of its *existence* isn’t tolerance of its rightness when it is not right.This subtlety is often lost on you hard leftists haranguing people on the Internet; you think you have some glorious gotcha telling liberals like me that we “don’t respect diversity of opinion”. No, we don’t respect an opinion that is wrong and foolish — that’s judgement, good sense, and intellectual debate. We can respect its right to exist, without having to celebrate its content — that point seems utterly lost on you.

I don’t have to “show anything” because I’m not calling for anyone to be limited, surpressed, or locked out of the economy as some of you are. And I fail to see what the issue is about Vint going to another provider for shopping services. Of course she can and should do that, and I wouldn’t question it. I’m pointing out that Slexchange.com, as a free entity in a free economy, can decide to set aside a special line for their chief investor. And no, that’s not like the Lindens putting up set-asides for their little developer friends. Why? Because those little friends aren’t demonstrably their chief investors (we average tier payers are); because there is no open procedure for getting on this list of “specials” — you just have to be “beloevd” — it’s at a whim.

It is kind of funny.. yesterday I was called by someone a profiteer and a heartless capitalist (not by you Prokofy, dont worry), just because I explained someone how perverted it is that in my country the goverment wants to raise the taxes for (private) shareholders again, while meanwhile maintaining a system that not only benefits to the really needing, but even encourages those who dont want to participate to the economy by working.. but that is off topic here..
And today I am suddenly a communist.. well all things balanced I guess I am just moderate middle of the road..
Do you have any other argument to call me like that, other then the fact that I live in Europe, Prokofy??

I really liked your example of the telephone company Prokofy.. you consider us (me included, I guess) as kids, and finally you lowered yourself in order to explain things in a way even we can understand… Well, you are right: many countries work like that… But not only in Africa, Europe and the like… Halliburton, anyone???
Face it; that IS the way things work.. even in a ultra liberal economy. Competition is NEVER ,exept maybe in theory books, only about openly bidding, transparency etc.. It is, allways has, and allways will be a game of knowing the “right” people, lobbying etc… especially when dealing with “federal government”… even in your beloved USofA. Dont tell me that the above mentioned example was just a “accident de parcours”..
Again, and finally, DO READ what people write, please, it are not only YOUR words that exist.., you ARE right in this case about Ashne, there is nothing wrong with what she does, it is how globalisation works..
But really, I dont understand why then suddenly you start ranting that freebies destroy your precious newbie to newbie market.. its true.. they do, but as well (could) does Ashnes tactic.. This doesnt happen?? Well, miss/sir know all with a lot of experience.. ever met someone who is in the textile business in lets say.. Turkey, South Africa,.. Peru?? Newbies,.. emerging economies in RL… Ever talked with people like that? How, despite the fact that they can produce for a fraction of production costs in Europe or the States, they are forced to their knees, even have to close their business because of chinese import, selling at prices lower then even material cost?? ( and yes, I did, and not as an idealistic leftist NGO worker.. you are not the only one who “has been around..”) There is your liberal market… The chinese are communists who take advantage of the fact they have access to cheap labour forces etc..you say? Well, same does Ashne.. cant eat an omlet without breaking the egg Prokofy.. And surely you cant use two standards to measure things when you want to be a critic as you claim to be.. so, why do you continue doing it??

I would also like to recomend that maybe, just maybe, you take another look at your highschool economy course books..
As “an average tier payer”, you are all but an investor in Linden Labs, you are a mere customer..
Or are you granted a stock certificate too, each time you buy something in your local supermarket?

More and more when I read your comments Prokofy, the image of a frustrated bypassed pioneer gets confirmd…

And.. to reply your accusation that *you and your little friends, like the “avant garde of the workers” will be strategically and helpfully placed by your “connections”*… I still dont understand your obsesion to put us, or me in groups we have little or nothing to do with.. Be it Rezzable, be it whatever.. I have no other ambition in SL then to enjoy myself from time to time, when I am in-world.. and when reading blogs about the it. So, why and where must I be strategically placed?? Damn are you paranoia? Do you really see conspiracies everywhere??

Really Prokofy.. be whatever you claim to be.. a critic, somebody with years and years of experience.. somebody who studied.. whatever… but show it then.. and be consistent.
Dont defend one idea or point now, and the oposite tomorrow..
If you like to accuse people, or call names, found it..
Dont fall back on the ever returning boring argument that we dont understand a thing because we are young, unexperienced european communists…
Step of your egocentric pedestal.. over here, the world doesnt rotate around you..
If you like to have a discussion with us, you are welcome,.. but discuss.. dont orate..

Or SHUT THE FUCK UP !

(ps: you wont hear from me the next couple of days… dont kiss yourself for it.. it will be for RL obligations.. not because of your bullying..)

Um, you’re revealing your ignorance and lack of education, again. I don’t know where to start to remedy this problem. You are filled with cliches and stupidities (”Haliburton”) and the desire to blame others for your problems.

It’s hard to know where to start to remedy this kind of aggressive ignorance. But let’s try just on the tier issue — but I’m too busy to address the rest now.

Uh….let me gently introduce the concept of “class” or “aggregate” or “collective” (there’s a word you can relate to!). The entire class of tier payers now pay something like $40 or $50 million per year in fees for islands, auction bids, and monthly tier. That’s a huge amount of purchasing power, that this large class of some 100,000 has. So they can organize it and use it.

It’s standard practice in any private or government office to bid out to say, 3 businesses, to see who can get the best price, quality, timing. This is done all the time, without the cronyism that you fantasize is part of the American experience, merely because it appears to be the European and Asian experience. Oh, sure, connections matter everywhere. But the American bidding system where people really do truly find strangers from newspaper ads really does work and really does lead to more quality and competence. I’ve gotten many jobs — or given them — merely on the strength of a resume sent in to a newspaper or Internet site ad, without knowing a soul.

You have trouble just grasping the common sense of real life and actual stories from real life, since your are obsessed with the dramatic narrative of “Haliburton” or “Enron” ROFL.

Personally, I don’t care if someone floods the market with cheap furniture. I’m not looking to make my space look like thousands of others. She can emulate Walmart or Dollar Stores all she likes. I will still buy things from vendors with a high creativity content. After all, if you want cheap, there is TONS of free furniture in SL . . .

[…] was through The Avastar (maybe is not the most serious news source, but can be fun), later in this Vint Falken’s post and in this Storm Thunders’s […]

Prok, you’re confusing me. If I say ‘liberal / capitalistic / free market system’, that’s a bad thing. Now - even I - consider going for ‘protectionism’ / a ‘regulated’ economy you claim that that is a bad thing too. You do realise we’re almost running out of options - except for communism - here?

PS. Did you not promis to not drop by here uninvited anymore?

PSS. Prok, two quotes of you, how do they line up?

Prok quote I: The entire class of tier payers now pay something like $40 or $50 million per year in fees for islands, auction bids, and monthly tier. That’s a huge amount of purchasing power,that this large class of some 100,000 has. So they can organize it and use it.

Yet on my ‘And it will be our free choice to deside which sims we visit and which sims we ignore. We are free to start our own Second Life versions of labour unions, consumer organisations, newspapers, civil liberties unions, …’ you said:

Prok quote II: … the idea that when there is an archipelago of egos called “My Own Hosted Server” that it will be easy to navigate and chose “the best” or that we will be able to form “civil liberties unions” is…touching.

So for you drop by again for the sake of starting an argument, feel free to decide on your stance on things first.

Um, no, I didn’t promise to do anything of the sort. I did note most likely that it was a waste of time. Indeed I must adopt a hectoring tone with those who themselves began the hectoring.

Privatization of the grid — Balkanizing it and selling it off to a thousand Mr. Lee’s Hong Kongs like so much Snowcrash — isn’t good for the public. It’s extreme anarcho-capitalism. No country can have its public utilities entirely privatized or it becomes corrupt and unaccountable. Every society, if it is liberal, stable, and democratic, needs a balance. Second Life is a public utility that happens to have been made by a private company. It’s rather like a family-owned newspaper; a form requiring the public trust. There aren’t really good analogies to it. But it’s certain that privatizing all functions of SL isn’t at all a good thing.

By the same token, keeping them under harsh state-capitalistic or communistic centralized control as they are now, with favouritism, chaibolism, cronyism, oligarchism the inevitable result, isn’t a good option either. A balance must be struck. Given your extremism on other issues, I doubt you’d be the one to find that balance.

Prok quote III: Anyway, write when you do something interesting, still looking.

See, the problem is, if I do not do anything interesting, why do you keep dropping by? I can not believe your presence makes it more interesting.

Btw, I was changing my comment whilst you were replying. Dunno if it matters to you.

I’m sure you will find something to discuss about anyway. Again, can you please do that on your own blog? If there aren’t enough commenters there to insult - hence you come and battle on my blog - I would consider pondering a bit about the whole Prok-blog-thing.

Proky’s just another land baron who uses that to subsidize her content dumps. She does the same thing with words, though lower quality than Anshe’s furniture.

Of course what Anshe is doing is fine with Proky, because Proky hopes to continue with the same business model.

Gosh, I’m not much of a “land baron” as the total number of sims I own is approximately 17, both mainland and islands. Land baron status seems to begin more at the 30-50 range when people can really make money, and mainly with private islands. I hold mainly mainland parcels and subsidize newbie rentals and a land preserve of 50,000 m2 as well as various public meetings. I also don’t have any “content dumps” that I’m aware of. Let’s see, I sell a prim counter for $1, a candle for $25, some t-shirts for $5 — to support the land preserve. I also have one product that is a tier calculator that costs $50; I once priced it at $150, but it didn’t sell, because few had a need for it, I guess, so I reduced its price.

I think my words are pretty high content, actually, and I publish them for free, not associated with any corporation or metaversal services agency like your friend Vint here.

Anshe’s business model is fine with me because it’s a model that you accept if you advocate a free market — which I do. I personally don’t have that business model, as my model is more about lower-cost rentals to create communities and have those sustain the non-profit side of the work. I don’t make much from Second Life mainly because I have completely different RL jobs and activities that are important to me, and SL is a part-time business for me to pay a few bills. I don’t think I really have the necessary cut-throat determination and investment strategy to make it as some kind of “land baron” in SL.

I realize that doesn’t fit the cliche, and doesn’t help the haters to make their case, tant pis, c’est domage.

Hehe, our “Land Baron” requirement starts at 1/2 a simulator! xD

“I think my words are pretty high content, actually, and I publish them for free” (Prokofy Neva)

INVALUABLE, ACTUALLY.

L O L

[…] As I’m tired of guessing if people want mod/copy or mod/trans, I’ve decided to do both. Get the mod/copy version here on OnRez and the mod/trans version here. Both outfits are also available using MetaMart - if you do not have a MetaMart HUD yet, you can fetch one in my skybox - and at my skybox and shop at Mardes. The price is a constant: 200 L$. (Yes, that is correct: NOT on SLexchange.) […]