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Second Life Business Now Worth $1 Million
Unlike the unfortunate Mr. Wang, discussed this past weekend, the million dollars Anshe Chung has minted selling data in Second Life is unlikely to get her in trouble with the law. Terra Nova has an interview with the tag-teamed Avatar, discussing what being the first online world Millionaire means. There's also some fierce debate in the comments about whether it's an accurate count, and what this could mean for other online traders. You may recall Anshe from 'her' BusinessWeek article in May of this year. From the Terra Nova interview: "TN (RR): How long do you think the SL economy can sustain the level of growth that it has achieved thus far? Anshe: I believe the real growth of SL economy will be sustained for very long time. At least until one strong competitor arrives, which I think is not likely soon. However, the 'explosive growth' with 1.5 million accounts is a little bit of a misleading figure. Our own internal estimate of number of active paying users in SL agrees with Raph [Koster]'s estimate of about 100K. It seems the real growth of SL is about 100% every 6 months, which is still amazing. One must understand that people, once they are really immersed in Second Life and join those who are regular users, don't tend to get bored or to drop out, even not after years of use. This is fundamentally different from MMORPGs."
I feel like the only person in the world who has looked at Second Life and had absolutely zero interest in it.
If anyone has a right to tax Second Life it's its creators. Nobody else has such a right. I don't see what the purpose would be other than to be annoying though. If they're smart they take the real money they collect and put it into a money fund or some similar safe place where it can collect interest for the company. As it is the number one thing that keeps me from developing more stuff in SL is that they charge a monthly fee which I am not going to pay. They're turning away exprienced programmers that would contribute for free if allowed to - a bad choice IMO. They need a special type of account for developers willing to make stuff and not use it for commercial gain - that grants a certain amount of free land and rights to upload textures and stuff without paying. If anything taxes would make people even more likely not to participate. It's just one more hassle. If I want taxes I'll stick to real life.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I don't see why this is a big deal. The fact that a person is making money providing a service using a MMORPG (or MMORLS if you prefer) is really no different from someone making money with any other kind of internet business. I don't see how this is much different from someone selling custom-made clothes for your Sims. Besides we already have in-game advertising, and the SL Reuters "branch office" .. does it surprise anyone that somebody's found a viable business angle? And will it surprise anyone when the new Democratic Congress starts pushing legislation through to tax it?
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
You get taxed when you get money out of second life. You have to report it as income same as any other income. You know, if I hand you $5 on the street, you're legally obligated to report that income, right?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You know, if I hand you $5 on the street, you're legally obligated to report that income, right?
Just like Richard Hatch was- you know, the (naked) guy from Survivor who won $1 million, only to not put it on his tax return?
Here's the Wikipedia article for those who forgot: Richard Hatch (directly pointed at relevant section)
He's in jail now, and has another 3 years or so left. (I'm going to avoid the obvious gay + prison joke for an AC.)
Let's just hope Second Lifer's like Ms. Chung don't forget to put things like this on their tax return.
Have you seen the arrow?
If you hand me $5 on the street for no other reason than you feel like handing me that money then it is a gift and non-taxable (since it's well below the gift tax limits).
If you hand me $5 on the street in return for me shining your shoes, then it becomes taxable income in my hands.
To the chagrin of some, let's get to the point of taxing it. I'm sure there's a condition that would meet that person specifically that could be made generic enough to pass as well.
Apparently some mods are on crack - one small fee seems to be the only real equivalent to a "tax", which can be absorbed easily by that New Yorker who turns it to an equivalent of a one person Housing Committee of a gated area. In other words, what is wrong with just returning a penalty back?
Yes, taxes might be known to be bad, but it's amazing that they listened to objections of business over the regular users in the CopyBot debate over just letting it happen and having people adapt to it.
If you're going to prohibit things like libSL and cloning, you might as well have that in to keep wayward folks in check to keep them busy.
See it in this light and maybe you'll wonder what's wrong with dumping parts of an audience and actually serving it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Look here and you'll find them.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
And will it surprise anyone when the new Democratic Congress starts pushing legislation through to tax it?
Outside some small percentage of the population, is that really a problem? It sure brings out all the free-trade lobbyists, thinktanks and all the other demons to the table in their true form. Right now, they dont care much how they look in terms of PR- they're trying everything just to stuff in as many measures (APEC for more MFN's in Asia, Colombia MFN status) before they no longer have any meaningful pull.
This time, I hope that penalties are made in forms that cannot be passed on to downstream parties so the appropriate signals to Congress and business get sent; the signal being that the government isnt subservient to a "artificially personified entity".
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
SL is not all about netsex. If you that that is all it is about you are missing out on a lot.
Yes, netsex is undeniably a large part of SL, but there is much, much, more out there.
Sadly it is difficult to find the other parts. I run a review site for SL so clearly I am biased, but I started the review site because when I started on SL netsex was all that I found and I knew that there must be more.
Why would you exclude /. and other forums?
You are social in your own way. There is nothing wrong with that. You can be social in your own way is Sl also. Yeah, there are an awful lot of "normal" people in Sl but trust me, your personal preference on how you express your socialability is nothing unusual.
That's the beauty of SL. If you can imagine it (and script it) it can exist.
Uhh, see, most people I know have played SL for a day or two, found it boring and quit. They then asked me why people continue to play it (like I'd know, I only played it for about a year) and so I tell them all the things they may have missed. Netsex is definitely one of the things people don't see in that first two days. Not that I'm saying that is why new players should play or anything, but it is definitely one of the many things that brings players back to it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It was what I found first. You click on "Search" then you click on "Popular Places" and there you have it. Two clicks and you are there.
SL's search function is pretty awful and I found it difficult to find good places to visit.
Well there's that. I was more thinking about the covert, "meet a girl at a party" occurances.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
A thing is worth what somebody will pay for it, and some people are morons.
Strangely, that's a commentary on the valuation of Second Life businesses, and is also the business model of said businesses.
.evom ton seod gis eht
Uh... I installed second life a couple days. Open up the map to find people, the first place i go was so animal fetish "club". Everyones toon looked like an animal and the walls were filled with what looked like college mascot porn. Got the hell out of there, next place i found people was a strip a club which had dance prices posted on wall. I haven't figured out what there is to do in SL besides sex. Is there like games or something? Or is just pimp your toon?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
There is, but they're insanely lame games. Nothing like buying the best computer you can, stocking it out with ram and getting a fast internet connection so you can play games that are worse than board games. BTW, what you described is not what most people would call "netsex", but yes, that is what some people find entertaining.
How we know is more important than what we know.