Making A Living In Second Life

Wired has an article looking at folks who have dropped out of the whole 'meatspace moneymaking' thing, and are now making their living in Second Life. From the article: "Within a month, Grinnell was making more in Second Life than in her real-world job as a dispatcher. And after three months she realized she could quit her day job altogether. Now Second Life is her primary source of income, and Grinnell, whose avatar answers to the name Janie Marlowe, claims she earns more than four times her previous salary. Grinnell isn't alone. Artists and designers, landowners and currency speculators, are turning the virtual environment of Second Life into a real-world profit center." Interesting, and with a respectability lacking in gold farming.

Comments

Re:Sustainable?

[Zatar]

How is that different than taking a job with any new company? The company could just close down and then you'd be out of work.

Heck, it happens to workers in old companies too (Enron, Worldcom, GM, Ford).

Besides, if she's making 4 times her previous salary it won't take long to be able to afford to have a few years with no income at the same standard of living if she wanted. :)

Re:Sustainable?

[Dr. Eggman]

That's not how you write a resume! Its...

2006-2008, Entrepreneurship in virtual atypical marketing, exchanges, and acquisitions.

It's all BS

[presearch]

Those making money are nothing but sheep farmers, harvesting from n00bs that wanna play with their paper dolls simulating getting laid.
Despite the claims, it's a closed system with a very limited future, a collapsing eternal economy, and more bugs than a bait shop.
The claim of "A user created community" is Linden/Rosedale just playing everyone for suckers, missing it's potential and merely focusing on profit,
while wrapping themselves in a blanket of lazy, scamming altruism. There's a few interesting builds, but for the most part, it's more BigLots than Metaverse.
The quality of the graphics looks like a game from 5 years ago, and they haven't improved on the look in well over a year, other than adding a water shader.

Can't wait for someone to do it right.

Sure, in a world with only wants and no needs

[Valdrax]

This is just an example of how free markets create wealth.

No. This is an example of a free market redistributing wealth earned in another external economy under completely different rules. All it is doing is rewarding someone for the fruits of their labors with the money others have earned elsewhere under different rules. All this is is someone earning a living under our existing non-free market system just like a flea market or yard sale.

It's a fine example of how well a free market economy works when no one has essential needs and every purchase is a luxury purchase. SL characters don't die of starvation if they can't earn money. They don't die of exposure without the ability to afford housing. They don't need medical care. They don't grow old and infirm and require retirement. Not only would you never have to kill to survive, you couldn't kill for money even if you wanted to. Violent crime is impossible. You can't cause serious harm to people deliberately or even indifferently by way of pollution, foreclosure, or anything else.

In other words, SL is nothing like reality. It is a world without disease, aging, or any other infirmity, non-consensual violence, and starvation or deprivation of any other sort. Well sure it works as a free market economy! All the hazards of the free market and human nature don't exist there.

If you think that anything but free markets work, you haven't had much experience in the real world.

If you think that free markets work, you haven't had much experience with reality. People who think free markets solve everything honestly don't understand the ramifications of the non-exclusive nature of public and common goods nor do they understand the net negative effects of the extreme poverty of others on oneself.