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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.
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.
Especially in the world's oldest profession.
DN
You can make a lot of money from furries. Take an established section of the web market, add the word "fur" to it, and sell it at an inflated price and you're into money.
Ask http://www.furcadia.com/ or http://www.furbid.ws/
Comment of the year
Until she has to go back out into the real world with this at the top of her resume:
2006 - 2008, Played Video Games
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.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
That's not how you write a resume! Its...
2006-2008, Entrepreneurship in virtual atypical marketing, exchanges, and acquisitions.
Demented But Determined.
And working the drivethru at McDonalds is "sales and marketing for a Fortune 500 company." Sounds a lot better, and isn't even a lie!
Just another example of Dick being ahead of his time. What a crazy world we live in.
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.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").