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Spread The Love (And Pay Us)
Digitus1337 writes "Wired has an article up about a new online service known as 'FunHi.' You sign up and join a community, and give your fellows gifts, but as Wired has reported, 'these are not ordinary gifts. They're purely digital: little flashing icons of cars, planes, diamond rings and other virtual representations of expensive items included in messages members send each other. And FunHi members don't seem to care that the real money they're spending on the gifts, at prices as high as $30 an item, is going straight into the company's coffers." This leaves just one question unanswered... why didn't I think of this?" It sounds like an April Fool's Joke, but then, so does online trading of Everquest loot.
FunHI - yet another reason capitalism should come with a warning
I suppose a real diamond ring is a status symbol, as is using a $10 bill to light your cigar.
So too is throwing your money away with a virtual gift. let them who want to, do it.
Like purchasing a square on the moon. Whats the point.
A fool and their money are soon parted.
A fool and their money soon part. Capitalism seems to make this easier, and the internet makes it EVEN easier. I say good for this company, if an idiot wants to spend $30 on a picture of a ring, let him, it is no less idiotic than spending a couple grand on a real one.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
These sound like the charm bracelets that my little sister drooled over in the 80's. Except even more pointless.
From the article:
"Selman says FunHi has banked about $10,000 in the month since FunHi launched. And given that Georgiades himself has paid about 10 percent of that, it's clear that not all of the service's 6,500 active members are doing the same thing."
If two people (the article mentions one other having spent $1000) account for 20% of the $10K that this company has made in a month, this seems more like silliness on the part of a very few people, and shouldn't really be considered "newsworthy".
libertarianswag.com
It may sound silly, but little things like this are seen as validating by a lot of people who spend a significant amount of time online. You don't really 'have' anything, but you know that someone, somewhere spent money on you.
How I wish that I were unscrupulous enough to come up with such an idea. This system would be equivalent to: if Slashdot moderation were geared towards highly rating those posts that advertised for their sponsors...
Just as well there aren't 2 billion starving people in the...
Oh, wait.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
The real value of diamonds is a small fraction of what they cost in the market. The reason they are expensive is because a smart cartell has established them as expensive, if valueless, tokens of affection. And there is ample precedent in biology: males are supposed to demonstrate their wealth and prowess by not having to care about expending costly resources on useless pursuits.
However, if you are going to do this, why not dispose of your resources in some socially valuable way? Demonstrate your boundless resources by making a "platinum circle" donation to your local opera house, either in your own name or in your sweetheart's name.
It's not like the money that's spent on this is taken out of circulation, no? It's just moved somewhere else -- a company that pays its employees and (presumably) its shareholders [via dividends], who it turn spend it on... well, whatever they spend it on, which may or may not include feeding starving people.
Indeed, if the people who spend money on this are the kind of people who aren't inclined to give money to feed the starving, then it's to the benefit of those who are starving that the money is now out of their hands and in someone else's.
It's not like there aren't a thousand other "accepted" hobbies in the world that eat up far more time and money. Let people spend their life / time / money as they see fit. If you don't like it, just don't play. If you're just knocking on other people because you can't seem to find a hobby that interests you as much, I pity you.
Yeah, I'm sure that they're all very attractive. Just like in real life.
Deception. The Internet's full of it.
It's getting to the point were some people have so much that there's nothing you can buy them, so now you can give the thought with out burdening them with the need to actually deal with the item.
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"
There's post after post on here of people saying "this is stupid", "I can't believe these people pay for stupid icons", and "why would anyone buy virtual anything".
/. crowd that thinks it is perfectly normal and acceptable to sell items or characters for an EverQuest game. Hello... Pot, you have a call on line one. It's Kettle.
Yet there's quite a bit of the
Probably not. Barnum's Corollary: If a sucker is born every minute now, a sucker will be born at least every minute in the future.
Not to mention having a high IQ is far less correlated with being a sucker than being born in the suburbs.
I still don't understand why some people think paying cash for EQ loot is strange.
You pay cash to play the game at all in the first place. Many people then pay cash for the strategy guide to let them play better. Some people buy new equipment to let them play better, like a new flightstick with detached throttle for their new flight sim.
In the old adventure game days if you got stuck, you could call a number and pay per minute to listen to hints to get you unstuck. You basically paid money to continue in the game.
What if you didn't need a strategy, or a hint to progress in the game? What if what you needed was better equipment or more levels? Why would it be so strange to pay for those, but not the other things?
The people playing this are probably not the types who "have everything" at all. Sadly, as with most things bling, its the people who can least afford it that are drawn in like moths to the flame.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
When doesn't wealth trickle down to the poor? Answer: when resources are being consumed. For instance, if gasoline is being burned in SUV's when it's needed for tractors, that could be an example of wealth not trickling down. However, I believe the problem of hunger isn't caused by insufficient food,but by bad distribution. Therefore, getting money out of the hands of those who have it will, eventually, put it in the hands of the needy. Spend it on a Porsche, the Porsche factory will pay some workers, who will pay their housemaids: that's "trickle down" for you.
My new realization is: A fool and his money are best parted. The last thing you want are bunches of fools with effective personal or political power.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
on the internet? That money you're wasting on yourself could be better spent feeding the hungry. I bet you have the nerve to drive a car, too.
Starvation isn't a money problem. It doesn't take money to plant a garden and grow food. The problem is the assholes in charge who prevent the food from going to people who need it that need to be overthrown.
There's plenty of food. And buying more of it isn't going to make the situation better for anyone but the assholes in charge who hoard it for themselves.
The poor will always be with you. If you feel so compelled, help the poor in far away places. I'd rather help those around me. And that involves buying crap that helps pay their wages so that they don't starve.
I don't suppose you stopped to think that if nobody bought anything they didn't need, 90%+ of the population would be out of work and unable to afford to eat. Our society functions based on the buying and selling of crap. Just like every other country.
If you go to the Mexican border at least, everybody is selling something. Buying a pot or a flower you don't need really equates to feeding the seller and his family.
Buying a stupid little icon helps keep this guy fed and with the extra money he buys more crap which puts money in a lot of people's pockets so they can eat and so on down the line.
To claim that we shouldn't buy anything frivilous is incredibly short sighted. I don't think you realize how many poor people survive selling frivilous crap working at fast food joints, restaurants and what not. You think corporations should just give people money? Where do you think their money comes from?
Ben
Work Safe Porn
FunHi seems to be an extreme manifestation of the overly materialistic culture it has emanated from (people who call themselves a "gangsta" or a "playa" or a "hunie", modern popular culture basically), it's just... too horrible for words.
People judging how popular and loved they are on the basis of how much other people have spent on them *puke*.
I guess they could all be doing it in an ironic and political fashion to show all members of capitalist societies to be whores. I'm sorta doubting that's the case, personally.
She's too obvious. Now a contest between liv tyler and George bush.... Thats got more of a dilema.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Man, in a way, we're always buying nothing. Buy a $15 poster, that's just $.10 worth of paper covered in $.50 worth of ink. Buy a $6salad, you have $.75 worth of vegetable parts in a $.20 plastic case. Shit, even a $200 computer chip is just a few ounces of sand with a negligible amount of metal.
But that doesn't mean these things don't have value. If you think that poster will look good on the wall, you'll pay for it. If you're hungry, you'll buy the salad. And if you need to process something, you'll buy the chip.
This value is in people's perception of the extra effort spent by people in processing these raw materials. Now, those raw materials are basically worthless in the digital world, but if you can process them into a form that people value, then they're worth it.
That doesn't mean this idea isn't stupid, of course. If I want my friends to know I care about them, I'll send them some bitchin' MP3s.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
people to spend their money on. Once they've bought all the neccesities and run out of neat toys to buy, what else is there ? Virtual presents for virtual girlfriends.
What's really sad is that I bet some of the "high rollas" on this site are actually buying themselves gifts from alternate accounts, or are company shills designed to motivate a much smaller number of legitimate members to compete for more intangible crap.
Ultimately, you have to respect a venture like this, that can make a person alternate between thoughts of "WTF This is sick" and "Wow, this is genius". It's both interesting & entertaining, and profoudly sad and pathetic as well. What an eloquent microcosm of capitalism, superficiality and materialism.
But how is it rude when I'm specifically asking for this. I don't care if they want to spend $10 or $100. Just drop it in an envelope and exchange giftw with me. No problem.
It's your presumptuousness that's rude. When people give gifts, they do so because they want to, and want to express themselves through the gift. They're not signing up for some program you set up.