I've been in SL for almost three weeks. Seeing the Q2 2011 stats and reading all the comments has been eye opening. Probably no one cares about the opinion of a "noob" like me, but perhaps a newbie's perspective is useful.
Much like in RL, there seems to be a class distinction between the old timers who own land, have lots of toys & lots of $L to spend, and the rest of us who are homeless & broke. The "elite" class don't seem to spend much time inworld but when they do login, they have wonderful private parties with the best DJs, their avis are superb and they control them expertly. Can't really blame them for not wanting newbies who haven't figured things out very well yet bumping into them and disturbing their fun. So what is the newbie to do? Hang out in clubs with tasteless music & vampires wanting to bite them? I don't think so. No wonder so many join but don't settle. And when we don't know how to build or design anything to sell, what are we supposed to do for $L? The cut-throat capitalism of SL forces many into prostitution!
I'd like to learn to build, so I could build a shrine to Freyja, who I believe led me to SL, but where am I going to build it at? I don't have any land. With a surface area 55x the size of Earth's & a population of <1million, land ought to be free! I wish that the creators of SL had more of a Marxist perspective, you know: "From each according to ability, to each according to need," but I guess this is just dreaming. The bottom line is that as the RL economy continues to tank, this reality is going to be reflected in SL.
Thanks for allowing me to express my opinions. Best wishes & no offense intended to anyone.
Jeanne
EDIT: Oh, and one other thing. When I first joined SL I used Viewer 2 and had ALL kinds of trouble with it. I was very frustrated and almost decided to just forget the whole thing. But then I downloaded Firestorm and it worked fine! Why does a third party viewer work and the viewer offered by LL does not? This makes no sense.
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The Second Life Economy in Q2 2011
in Featured News
A group blog by Secondlife in General
Posted
I've been in SL for almost three weeks. Seeing the Q2 2011 stats and reading all the comments has been eye opening. Probably no one cares about the opinion of a "noob" like me, but perhaps a newbie's perspective is useful.
Much like in RL, there seems to be a class distinction between the old timers who own land, have lots of toys & lots of $L to spend, and the rest of us who are homeless & broke. The "elite" class don't seem to spend much time inworld but when they do login, they have wonderful private parties with the best DJs, their avis are superb and they control them expertly. Can't really blame them for not wanting newbies who haven't figured things out very well yet bumping into them and disturbing their fun. So what is the newbie to do? Hang out in clubs with tasteless music & vampires wanting to bite them? I don't think so. No wonder so many join but don't settle. And when we don't know how to build or design anything to sell, what are we supposed to do for $L? The cut-throat capitalism of SL forces many into prostitution!
I'd like to learn to build, so I could build a shrine to Freyja, who I believe led me to SL, but where am I going to build it at? I don't have any land. With a surface area 55x the size of Earth's & a population of <1million, land ought to be free! I wish that the creators of SL had more of a Marxist perspective, you know: "From each according to ability, to each according to need," but I guess this is just dreaming. The bottom line is that as the RL economy continues to tank, this reality is going to be reflected in SL.
Thanks for allowing me to express my opinions. Best wishes & no offense intended to anyone.
Jeanne
EDIT: Oh, and one other thing. When I first joined SL I used Viewer 2 and had ALL kinds of trouble with it. I was very frustrated and almost decided to just forget the whole thing. But then I downloaded Firestorm and it worked fine! Why does a third party viewer work and the viewer offered by LL does not? This makes no sense.