Slashdot has covered an article that ran on ValleyWag recently about Second Life, and the viability of transferring SL wealth to real wealth- the idea that it could be compared to a pyramid scheme.
Like the paid promotion infomercials that run on CNBC, sadly SecondLife is a giant magnet for the desperate, uninformed, easily victimized. Its promises of wealth readily ensnare those who can least afford to lose their money or lives to such scam in exactly the same way that real estate investor seminars convince divorcees with low FICO scores to buy houses sight unseen with no money down.
The problem with this logic is, I think, the same problem that everyone had when the Internet was becoming popular- knowledge. You CAN make money on the Internet, but that doesn't mean that you WILL, and history has already proven that traditional business models do not always translate to the online universe. You have to know what it is, how it works, and what effect it has on people as a medium.
Second Life is a whole new forum. It's popular, and many people are using it for many different things. In a way, it epitomizes the 'Web 2.0' era. And the problem with THAT is, a lot of people seem to think Web 2.0 is the next giant cash-cow that's going to make them millionaires. But like with the dawning age of the internet, we can't just copy/paste our usual business practices into SL and expect it to work.
It's not a pyramid scheme, it's a new bandwagon- and if people are going to jump on board without an idea of a viable business model, then they have no one to blame but themselves when they fall off.
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