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

Some people make more money than others...

[__aajqwr7439]

Especially in the world's oldest profession.

DN

Re:Sustainable?

[Jesrad]

Well, let me detail my own situation then: I'm an IT engineer in a country where unemployment is in the double digits. In my specific age and education class it's over 25%. I only ever get few-month-long missions for ever-varying employers. I can be laid off in a single day with no compensation, and I know a pay rise won't be happening in years. Social care ensures I get a revenue in between, but only for a few months.

And aside from that, I make about half as much as my salary in Second Life using my programmation and innovation skills. I really consider this additional revenue to be my insurance against misery, should I not manage to get a new job after the current one, mainly because I can work at it from most places in the world, anytime, for almost as long as I want or can afford. That's some significant security in my opinion.

Re:Free Markets = Instant Wealth

[ThosLives]

Ah, you are completely correct there. I wish more people understood the difference between 'wealth' and 'value', and that services such as markets do not create wealth but simply provide a valuable service.

I almost think that 'wealth' is like economic energy: just as energy is "the ability to do work", 'wealth' provides the means to do (economic) work - that is, provide services. Here's an odd example: farming is a service that produces food - wealth - that can be used to perform more farming (by keeping people alive).

Markets are a service in that they distribute wealth, but they do not create it. Markets have value, though, in that people are willing to trade wealth for the presence of the market.

Ah, that seems a little like it could use some further development, but I think it's sufficient for now.

Sounds like Perky Pat to me

[noky]

This all reminds me of the Philip K. Dick story "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch". Space colonists would play "Perky Pat", basically inhabiting dolls in a doll world with the help of a drug. They'd spend all their time and resources creating elaborate "layouts" (ie: doll setups) and would lose themselves in this alternate reality. The company Perky Pat Layouts would sell all this paraphernalia to the colonists and make a ton of money.

Just another example of Dick being ahead of his time. What a crazy world we live in.