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.

Comments

wow...

[AssProphet]

FunHI - yet another reason capitalism should come with a warning

Snobby Greedy Bitch...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the Snobby Greedy Bitch... the one who thinks these gifts are reprsentative of real ones?

Then $30 will seem quite inexpensive.

Re:Snobby Greedy Bitch...

[websaber]

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.

Re:Snobby Greedy Bitch...

[UberQwerty]

RTFA: It's $30 for a faux CREDIT CARD. In real life, they're free. (Also, when you buy it for someone, they get $28.00 in credit to spend on more worthless imaginary stuff. What a deal!)

By comparison, the second most expensive item is a faux private jet, valued at $14.99

Status symbols

[gbjbaanb]

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.

Re:Status symbols

[jkabbe]

I suppose a real diamond ring is a status symbol

Agreed. Buying a diamond is saying "here DeBeers, have some money" just so other people can see that you gave DeBeers lots of money. It's simply a more socially accepted method of throwing your money away.

Re:Status symbols

[Ryan Amos]

No, the perfect woman would accept a pearl necklace. On a nightly basis.

Re:Status symbols

[evilad]

Lots of people find other, cheaper things prettier, but still insist on diamonds as a token of fidelity.

The Royal Ontario Museum had a display on gemstones for a while, with a placard over the diamond display anwering the FAQ: "Why are diamonds so valuable?" with a simple "Scarcity and excellent marketing."

Re:Status symbols

[Tim Browse]

Yeah, sure. Diamonds are real scarce.

Re:Status symbols

[neurojab]

>This may surprise you but some people actually think diamonds are nice to look at and that's why they buy them. It has nothing to do with status symbols.

Yeah right. Diamonds look nice, but so do countless other less expensive gemstones. Diamonds do have status associated with them, and that status and "tradition" is due to being propped up by DeBeers. If people just wanted to buy something that looked nice, why do wedding rings always have to have diamonds in them? Surely a few people must think a ring looks just fine without having to be diamond-encrusted, or perhaps prefer emeralds, opals, or rubies.

The previous poster is quite right about the diamond cartel, your positive feelings about diamonds are in no small part due to their propoganda.

>Then again, you've probably never even spoken to a girl so you have no idea.

It's possible the previous poster has never spoken to a girl. It's also possible he talks to intelligent women instead of wasting his time on materialistic girls.

Re:Status symbols

[hanssprudel]

a) Cubic zirconium looks just as good. Many other gems that cost less actually look better.

b) Even if you have specially trained eyes that can actually tell the difference, and you have some strange need for the diamonds, then modern industrially produced diamonds are actually more pure then mined ones. You need a microscope to tell the difference, and when you do, you rule out the man made one because it is too perfect. Yet the gemstones that DeBeer's has managed to manipulate you into buying are all mined - simply because they are about status rather than beauty.

Re:Status symbols

[the_consumer]

Actually, a nerd is more likely to test a purported diamond's hardness against softer materials in order to prove its authenticity.

Re:Status symbols

[el_gordo101]

a) Cubic zirconium looks just as good. Many other gems that cost less actually look better.

Try to explain that to a real-world, emotion-having, concerned-about-what-her-friends-think woman and see how far you get. "But honey, the Cubic zirconium is just as good as a diamond, plus we aren't supporting DeBeers! Hey wait, where are you going? Honey? Baby?"

Re:Status symbols

[BlackFoliage]

Or you could find a real-world, emotion-having, NOT-concerned-about-what-idiots-think women who shares your values. Do you really want to spend your life with someone who throws ethics out the window for a sparkly piece of junk?

Re:Status symbols

[aussersterne]

Thank God my real-world, emotion-having girlfriend is more concerned about feeding the hungry and stopping de-facro slavery and international economic imperalism than about impressing her friends with carbon rocks.

And she's not only ethical, she's hot!

Re:Status symbols

[__aanebg9627]

Really, most of what we in the developed world spend money on is status symbols. The value in a Mercedes or a Rolex isn't in the actual car, it's in the status they provide. Why do people buy new cars? Status. Lights inside your case, to wow your friends at the LAN party? Status. A neatly mowed front lawn? Status. (Seriously! Read Thorstein Veblen's seminal _Theory of the Leisure Class_.) Martha Stewart housewares? Status.

The key to value and status is scarcity. Period. If something is useful, beautiful or cool, and scarce because it's programmed into the MMPORG, it's valuable. That scarcity value is no different than the scarcity value that comes from being stamped by a trademark (Rolex, Mercedes), artificial scarcity from a cartel (diamonds), or actual scarcity (land in Tokyo).

Outside of monopolies and cartels, what makes something scarce (and therefore valuable) is the time it takes to make or get. Stuff is valuable in MMPORGs because it takes time to get. This is no different than what makes some physical object valuable.

If you think about it, a deed or patent is just as virtual as that leet EQ weapon. There is no physical reality there, just ideas in peoples' heads (and laws to back them up, which are also virtual). The value is only in the usefulness and scarcity.

Which raises the question; How long until governments start trying to tax the online economies in MMPORGs?

Personally...

[pubjames]

I'd love you more if you just gave me the money...

On the plus side...

[Channard]

... maybe the people who are prepared to pay out cash for virtual items will be so busy trading their nonexistent gifts they won't have time to breed, and the average IQ will go up. At the very least, it should keep the terminally gullible out of circulation.

Re:On the plus side...

[Lord_Dweomer]

And perhaps this will drain their coffers so they can't spend this money on spam. God, just wait till the spammers catch onto this......

"Buy an animated gif of a penis up to 3" longer than yours! Guaranteed! $50"

Like....

[bitchell]

Like purchasing a square on the moon. Whats the point.

A fool and their money are soon parted.

Re:Like....

[strictnein]

It probably won't, but it could - especially if you buy it for a child and they keep it into adulthood.

Except for the people who are "selling" land on the moon, have no legal right to do so, and therefore you are just giving money to them as an example of your own stupidity.

Amazing

[mr.henry]

This reminds me of a line from Larouche in Adaptation:

I'm training myself on the internet. It's fascinating. I'm doing pornography. It's amazing how much these suckers will pay for photographs of chicks. And it doesn't matter if they're fat or ugly or what.

Paying for crappy porn.. that's bad. But paying 30 bucks for a stupid icon? These people are dumber than that guy that loves his spam.

It's kind of like having a real life tamagotchi

[bl4nk]

That you spend real life money on..

Re:It's kind of like having a real life tamagotchi

[Chess_the_cat]

I have one of those. It's called a dog.

More proof that...

[Omestes]

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.

Re:More proof that...

[Blue Stone]

I find myself wondering what will happen if the recipient of the icon of the diamond ring starts copying and distributing those icons.

Suddenly, fake diamond-ring-icons will threaten the natural diamond-ring-icon cartel, and FunHi will have to spend millions researching and building devices for distinguishing between the natural and fake icons; millions more advertising that only "Natural Diamond-Ring-Icons" show real love.

You see ... you cynics ... ripping off the gullible is not just the fast-track to the gravy train. Getting a sustainable revenue channel by scamming the soft-of-the-brain is harder than it looks.

Looks like they ripped their rating system...

[MadAnthony02]

Their buzz system (scroll down) is a direct ripoff of eBay's feedback system. Wonder how long they get sued for that?

Much ado about nothing...

[bc90021]

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".

Re:Much ado about nothing...

[DR SoB]

But it's a great way to make your stock go up and get out early!!

1. Invent dumb idea
2. Have rich investor modify the stock price
3. Profit!
4. RUN!

People will pay a lot for esteem and attention

[Trespass]

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.

Popularity

[gid13]

The article mentions that the most popular members are invariably attractive females whose pictures show them scantily clad and in sexy poses.

Seeing as this "buying nothing" idea is a capitalist's dream, I think it's only a matter of time before these attractive females rise up above their alleged vapidity to realize that they can control the world. As much as I hate to admit it, think about it: who would you vote for between George W. and Britney Spears?

Re:Popularity

[lukewarmfusion]

Yeah, I'm sure that they're all very attractive. Just like in real life.

Deception. The Internet's full of it.

Excellent!

[Mysticalfruit]

It's good to know that there are plenty of suckers left in the world, I was getting worried that my combo hair brush, vegetable peeler and ice skate sharpener wasn't going to sell!

Hmmm

[cca93014]

Just as well there aren't 2 billion starving people in the...

Oh, wait.

Test for them?

[grub]

Their domain expires 09-apr-2007. I guess the short term domain "lease" suggests this was an experiment for them, which seems to have paid off. Now I'm wondering what else they've done or had planned.

a digital diamond ring for my gf

[WormholeFiend]

gf: LIKEOMGWTF!!!!11

me: but it's the thought that counts, right?

no different from diamonds

[hak1du]

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.

Re:no different from diamonds

[GoofyBoy]

>males are supposed to demonstrate their wealth and prowess by not having to care about expending costly resources on useless pursuits.

So are you saying that all the slashdot trolls are demonstrating their mating suitability?

Re:no different from diamonds

[general_re]

The real value of diamonds is a small fraction of what they cost in the market.

The "real value" of any good or service is whatever you can get in exchange for it - any notion of intrinsic worth is a specious concept, as is any valuation other than exchange value. If people didn't value diamonds as highly as DeBeers does, they simply wouldn't buy them.

The FunHI Corporation is a division...

[Anonymous Coward]

...of P.T. Barnum global holdings.

Not to worry

[SuperKendall]

I just bought them some pictures of food.

Oh, hush.

[cduffy]

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.

Re:Way too much.

[BasharTeg]

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.

Pimp

[Mateito]

From the article:

Of course, being a young good-looking female doesn't hurt, as the members with the most fans are all women whose pictures show them in sexy, alluring poses.

&

The service aims, according to what might be called its bylaws, to foster purely positive and friendly interactions.

Sheesh. Why not just call it "FunHo" and be done with it?

US$30 != FunHi$30, and why its brilliant

[salmo]

See real money gets changed for fake money. I think it's like US$10=FUnHi$30. Plus some of the gifts give the recipient even more fake money. All in all, most "gifts" cost just a few cents.

The thing is that they're tapping an already existing culture- racing and souping up import cars. It serves as a fan-club kind of thing for these import models, and then expands from there.

I really have to hand it to the guys who started it. They tapped a culture well, provided a means for them to play on the internet together and found a way to make a tidy profit off of it. Besides, you don't even need to pay to use it. You don't have to buy "gifts" for people. It's just a nice way to say "I like you" or whatever that backed up by a little bit more.

I'll admit, I accidently ran into this early on in its development and started playing along for mostly 2 reasons: 1) I was newly single so having cute asian girls give me compliments boosted my ego 2) I'm horrible with internet culture (IMing and other sorts of things where you speak with abbreviations and smileys) so I thought it would be funny to see how well I do (and how well "they" do) with my paragraphs and thinking.

It was fun for a while, but now it's getting really dull. Next!

Golden Rule? Shieat?

[HomeGroove]

From the site:

The FunHi Goldunn Rule: If ya can't say sumtin' nice, then don't say shieat!

I find it hard to call something a "company" when they have the non-word "shieat" and "sumtin'" on their site.

teen entertainment

[Blue Master]

I live in Norway, and here teenagers have for many years spent big money on ringtones, logos, screensavers etc for their mobile phones. Now, with the new phones, people have started paying for mms messages, games etc as well.

Also, there are tons of tv programs where you can pay for having your sms shown on the screen for a brief moment. Sort of like using IRC, but spending $1-2 each time you press enter.

My point, I guess, is that the way young people spend their money doesn't really amaze me anymore...

A double standard?

[abh]

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".

Yet there's quite a bit of the /. 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.

Re:Before you go off on FunHi people being stupid.

[statusbar]

This is all good.

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++

Re:Golden Rule? Shieat?

[megan_of_wutai]

This place is a horrific written image of pain.

I quote:

FunHi is your friendly gangsta, playa pimp, banging hunie community. Haters and lamers shall be dealt with to the FULL extent of da law

My eyes, they bleed!

My brain, it bleeds!

What are you doing

[KalvinB]

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

Re:Why would I pay for this?

[dasmegabyte]

YOU wouldn't pay for this.

But somebody who didn't understand technology and didn't want to MIGHT pay for it because they thought it was a cute idea. These are the same people who buy new Sims add-ons for the additional wallpaper and landscaping. These are the people keeing Pier 1, Tuesday Morning and the Christmas Tree Shop in business. These are the same people who keep buying me candles, picture frames and other tchotchkes when what I really need is a new fucking laptop.

In short, women will pay for this, because it is useless but kind of cute and not too expensive.

Horrible

[megan_of_wutai]

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.

Not, brittany,

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

She's too obvious. Now a contest between liv tyler and George bush.... Thats got more of a dilema.

Re:Status symbols - $6k piece of rock

[nxs212]

mod up!
Excellent article about DeBeers scumbags
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82feb/ 8202diamon d1.htm

Wired had an article about artificial/cultured diamonds; decent read.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/di amond.h tml

Also, if you care about exploited children in Africa, watch Child Soldiers. It's really depressing; Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, etc. use diamond money to buy weapons and send kids to war.
I guess DeBeers' would defend themselves by saying that those kids would otherwise have too much free time on their hands and get in trouble hanging out at schools, playgrounds and working on their families' farms.

Deep discount here!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I just saved those people a ton of cash:

http://www.funhi.com//images/gifts/46.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/20.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/33.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/1.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/3.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/30.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/35.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/39.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/22.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/17.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/11.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/23.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/14.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/49.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/25.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/41.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/27.gif
http://www.funhi.com/images/gifts/51.gif

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