History Repeating Itself ?

[Conifer Dada]

Haven't they heard of Second Life?  I saw this on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-45275461/the-virtual-land-selling-for-millions

This isn't an advert by the way - I can't see it having much to interest me!

[Garnet Psaltery]

They mentioned "other virtual worlds" as being risky in that a user's content can be destroyed if the platform owner goes out of business, but I heard no explanation of how Decentraland expects to put ownership into users' hands.  The only (slim) advantage I can see is the use of VR but what terrible graphics!  This is a bubble waiting to burst.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Garnet Psaltery

[Solar Legion]

As noted across the way and on Decntraland's own web page ... They use the Etherium blockchain.

In short - not worth anyone's time. At all.

[Conifer Dada]

I wonder what would happen to the silly prices if the land rush causes the owners to create more land!  

What they need is for someone to dig up an example of a land bubble in a virtual world in the past. ?

A clue would be any reference to 'scaleable'.

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Conifer Dada

[Phil Deakins]

I followed the link, and then followed another news item from that page, and I read about the decentralised system called 'blockchain', something I'd never heard of until last night. I put it together with the name of the new system - 'Decentraland', and came to mention it, only to find that Solar had beaten me to it.

In other words, I've nothing to say, because I don't pretend to understand yet what blockchain is.

ETA: In view of what Garnet wrote, I'm now wondering if the world is merely, or intended to be, a distributed one, where users host the land. Something like opensim grids.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

I read about the decentralised system called 'blockchain', something I'd never heard of until last night

..wow.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Love Zhaoying

[Blush Bravin]

Ryan Schultz has done many really well written posts on the topic of Decentraland and blockchain. If your interested in learning more I recommend his blog. He is very good in linking his sources for all his facts as well. https://ryanschultz.com/tag/decentraland/

[Phil Deakins]

Interesting blog, Blush. Ty.

In spite of the news items, Decentraland can't yet be visited, and, it appearts that it's just one of a number of 'blockchain' worlds in production. But the worst thing about it is that it costs almost US$450 for a 10m x 10m parcel of land lol. Surely the whole thing is just a practical joke.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

I'm reminded of something that Ebbe wrote in the forum quite a few years ago now. Talking about the next generation of virtual world that they were about to start work on, he said that, "If we don't do it, someone else will". He was right. There are loads of them coming along, and I don't think that Sansar isn't anywhere near ready to be let loose in the wild yet. Maybe LL has taken much too long in developing it.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Callum Meriman]

Ha! Blockchain land and assets.I can see that going well (not)

Quote

"The content that is uploaded by users can not be removed by anyone. Not even ourselves or by the government"

^ is at 5:10-ish

Edited August 27, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Fionalein]

17 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

Ha! Blockchain land and assets.I can see that going well (not)

^ is at 5:10-ish

Once illegal content enters decentraland the only way to remove it is to pull all the plugs? I already begin seeing this thing as the darknet of virtual worlds... with all the dark sides of the darknet (not sure if it will develop some of it's bright sides)

Edited August 28, 2018 by Fionalein

[Vanity Fair]

Thanks for the shout-out, Blush! Yes, I have been blogging about Decentraland since it first attracted my attention early this year. The recent BBC radio item is a good introduction to the project if you've never heard of it before.

Here is my initial take on Decentraland, written back in February, and it explains in detail exactly why I remain such a skeptic on the project:

https://ryanschultz.com/2018/02/13/decentraland-why-i-remain-a-skeptic/

The folks at Decentraland could learn a lot from Second Life's 15-year history, and it would appear that they are going to make many of the same mistakes all over again.

I am afraid that many investors have leapt on board this particular bandwagon, hearing the magic word "blockchain" and bidding up the price of 10m-by-10m plots of virtual land, without doing proper their proper due diligence. The minimum price for each 10m-by-10m parcel of LAND is currently 6,000 MANA each (which works out to US$443.48 per plot). This is much, *much* more expensive than SL land, which you can already do a lot more on, and actually visit! I do believe that Decentraland virtual land is a financial bubble that will hurt a lot of investors when it pops:

https://ryanschultz.com/2018/04/06/the-land-price-insanity-continues-at-decentraland/

https://ryanschultz.com/2018/02/27/decentraland-land-sales-is-this-a-financial-bubble-in-the-making/

Edited August 27, 2018 by Vanity Fair

[Garnet Psaltery]

You can bet those ugly pixels will be banging before the bubble bursts.

[Phil Deakins]

Ty, Vanity. I read those 3 blogs, and the whole thing is absolutely astonishing. Perhaps the victims investors are thinking that, because the value of bitcoins increased the way it did, and bitcoin is underpinned by blockchain, that anything that's associated with blockchain will do likewise.

As you wrote, it's a lot like the tulip bulb bubble - and the south sea island bubble.

[Conifer Dada]

It's possible that there's a whole lot of internet users, even including some who are into virtual reality, who have never heard of Second Life.

Thinking of my own situation, I joined SL in 2006 after seeing a BBC news feature about it.  If I hadn't seen that one short feature, I might never have discovered SL at all, for I can't recall any occasions since then when I saw any other reports or articles that would have pointed me in the direction of SL.   Any SL related articles or publicity I have encountered since then have been as a result of already belonging.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Conifer Dada

[Lara Aulder]

It may be an intriguing project, but you have to have some courage for this type of investment. I particularly never heard of this, so I don't know if could be as much "global" as SL. I can smell a flop. 

[Phorumities]

its pure genius, sell 100 sq m of virtual land that doesnt even exist yet to flippers who will sell it to other flippers. it works fine untill you cant find some one greedier than you to pay you your profit

Edited August 27, 2018 by Phorumities
changed dumber to greedier

[Lucia Nightfire]

Blockchain virtual worlds are currently nothing but disguised, get-rich-quick / money laundering schemes with wishful thinking / hoping that they will eventually reinvigorate the crypto currency market.

[Vanity Fair]

16 hours ago, Phorumities said:

its pure genius, sell 100 sq m of virtual land that doesnt even exist yet to flippers who will sell it to other flippers. it works fine untill you cant find some one greedier than you to pay you your profit

You took the words right out of my mouth...

https://ryanschultz.com/2018/07/09/decentraland-and-the-greater-fool-theory/

[ChinRey]

History is certainly repeating itself over and over again here. It was a very popular way to get rich fast, even long before the internet existed, let alone virtual reality. Here is the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

Edit: on second thought, maybe this is a closer match:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

The basic principle is the same though.

Edited August 28, 2018 by ChinRey

[Blush Bravin]

On 8/27/2018 at 4:25 PM, Phorumities said:

its pure genius, sell 100 sq m of virtual land that doesnt even exist yet to flippers who will sell it to other flippers. it works fine untill you cant find some one greedier than you to pay you your profit

You can see the same mindset here in SL. Just go take a look at Horizons or any of the so-called prime lands on the mainland. We can see the outcome here with many land flippers going belly up, but there are some with large enough pockets that sit on land for a long time waiting to get those exorbitant prices they're asking for the land. The reason land (prime mainland) is so bloody expensive in SL is because the flippers keep the prices artificially high.

[Lindal Kidd]

2 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

...The reason land (prime mainland) is so bloody expensive in SL is because the flippers keep the prices artificially high.

Well...yes, in areas like Horizons, Bay City, and Nautilus City.  People bought into these areas at ridiculously high prices, and then they set their resale asking prices even higher, hoping to make a profit.

But MOST of the Mainland has been insanely LOW priced since about 2010, when LL created a land glut.  The oversupply was due to several actions, including the creation of the Linden Home continents, Bay City, Nautilus City, and the Zindra adult-only continent.  Combined with the rush by Estate owners to buy Homestead regions when they were initially priced very low, SL grew much larger than it needed to be to support the active user base.

The slow, gradual decline in the number of private estate regions, plus LL's actions to lower land prices and maintenance costs and increase prim allowances, has started to bring balance back to the situation.  As a result, I have seen overall Mainland asking prices coming up, and the supply of desirable Mainland parcels is WAY down.

[Blush Bravin]

25 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Well...yes, in areas like Horizons, Bay City, and Nautilus City.  People bought into these areas at ridiculously high prices, and then they set their resale asking prices even higher, hoping to make a profit.

But MOST of the Mainland has been insanely LOW priced since about 2010, when LL created a land glut.  The oversupply was due to several actions, including the creation of the Linden Home continents, Bay City, Nautilus City, and the Zindra adult-only continent.  Combined with the rush by Estate owners to buy Homestead regions when they were initially priced very low, SL grew much larger than it needed to be to support the active user base.

The slow, gradual decline in the number of private estate regions, plus LL's actions to lower land prices and maintenance costs and increase prim allowances, has started to bring balance back to the situation.  As a result, I have seen overall Mainland asking prices coming up, and the supply of desirable Mainland parcels is WAY down.

Those areas (Bay City, Nautilus City, and the Zindra) were bought in auctions initially. I was around at the time and partnered to someone in the land biz. So I'm quite aware of how much those parcels went for, and yes, they were higher than normal auctions. The flippers who bought those parcels set prices by twice or even sometimes as much as four times the amount they paid in the auction. 

I addressed my comments specifically to the "prime mainlands". No one will argue that the glut of undesirable mainland parcels are very low priced. You can't give those away! Flippers don't buy those lands. Land bots might buy them for rentals, where you put boxes in the air, and that's about the only value they have. I really wish the Lab would turn their attention into renovating the bulk of the land locked mainland that is a vast wasteland. I'd volunteer to help do the work even!

I agree that the recent actions of Linden Lab has been a good initial step in the right direction toward revitalizing the mainland. Though, I'm not seeing a huge difference in mainland pricing or availability when it comes to the prime mainland parcels. Prime has always been high priced and hard to find at a price your average resident can afford and still is. Perhaps there has been an increase in purchasing the less than desirable parcels that still have some type of connection to the water either directly or at least visually. 

All that said, I wouldn't live anywhere but on the mainland. I've rented private property and it was fun for a short time. I enjoyed playing with the estate manager tools, but that got boring, and then I quickly ran back to the mainland. So I am very interested in any work toward making the mainlands a vital, affordable, and beautiful place to live.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Blush Bravin

[Fionalein]

I can understand the prices though, despite an initialy higher investment the double prim regions give you double the prims to lag down your neighbours for the same price in tier fee...

While forgetting they also get double the prims to lag down you..

Edited August 30, 2018 by Fionalein

[Blush Bravin]

Just now, Fionalein said:

I can understand the prices though, despite an initialy higher investment the double prim regions give you double the prims to lag down your neighbours for the same price in tier fee...

I love my double prim land. I also love watching what my neighbors do with their additional allotment. I honestly don't have much trouble with lag though. Most of the lag I experience is when I go to private lands to shop or attend concerts.