So here we are.
The other day a lame newbie, his only group a free sex orgy room, tried to get high and mighty with me saying he hadn't made a lame come on after he had. It's something about one in ten or so do, the pretense that the woman who takes offense at their being lame is the crazy bitch. As if guys ran around with their penises hanging out in rl and got laid just by saying "wanna fuck?"
But I am going someplace with this.
One of the most important features of Second Life is that a small percentage of people pay for it, and a large percentage of people do not. In fact, half of the active users of second life don't engage in any linden transactions at all, or only nominal amounts. This is one reason the Second Life community is so often hostile to Linden Lab. We pay their salaries rather directly, and yet, by and large, Linden Lab's employees treat the user base with a condescending air of kindergarden teachers. It is maddening. One Linden told me that this is a reflection of problems in the internal culture. I'll take his word for it. But constantly being lied to by people that we pay, in some cases thousands of dollars a month, is why LL is being carped about.
If you think this is doing good things for their eventual IPO price, then think again.
However, I want to directly deal with the important point. That point is that those of us who are paying are often paying for people who make our lives worse. The cockheads who run around saying "fancy a fuck," aren't just not paying, they are dedicated to not paying. For them, sex, no matter how bad, is only worth while if they scam it for free. Other people can offer explanations, I just know the end product. Which is why I am so harsh on orgy culture: it is promoting sexual harassment and sexism. And I am paying for it.
What I mean by this is that orgy rooms don't run at a loss. Instead, they charge very well, say 1500 for 30 prims, to merchants. Those merchants have to put that cost into the price of their goods, and their competitors can raise prices of goods by a like amount.
Which means every shopping woman on Second Life is paying to be sexually harassed with her clothes purchases and hair purchases.
I am not against the model where the people who want to make second life pay for it, and see if they can get others to pay for it as well. I am against the model where there are perverse incentives created by Linden Lab in favor of behavior which is just plain wrong. You know that picture on this blog post? It looks nice doesn't it. It's also empty. That's because up above is an ugly orgy room that makes lots more money.
You can draw your own conclusions. It isn't that "the free market" wants sex, because the people who are there aren't paying for it. You can't make up in volume selling something for free. They are there because of the traffic system. The traffic system is not a creation of the free market, but a deliberate decisoon by Linden Lab, and an interference in the free flow of information.
I also allows sims to generate "traffic" with camping... way to go LL...
ReplyDeleteWhile I've no doubt you are onto something important here, I am confused. What is/are the relationship/s between my purchase of clothes and hair - and don't forget shoes - and the existence of orgy rooms? Where presumably, the women on the poles are not making the real money.
ReplyDeleteThe merchants who rent space in high traffic orgy rooms pay more for that space, they must build the cost of rent into their prices, which they in turn pass along to you.
ReplyDeleteThe orgy room provider advertises something that they are not, in fact, providing, namely free sex, to get men to camp for free hoping to get free sex from others.
Other outlets, even ones that don't use orgy rooms, must then advertise to offset the traffic advertising. This too is an upfront cost of business, and so they have to build that price into the price of goods.
Which means that those of us who pay for content are directly supporting orgy rooms and monopoly channels of information through classified.