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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'd love you more if you just gave me the money...
... 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.
Like purchasing a square on the moon. Whats the point.
A fool and their money are soon parted.
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
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?
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.
I have one of those. It's called a dog.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
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.
I just bought them some pictures of food.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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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?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
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!
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!'"
Yeah, sure. Diamonds are real scarce.