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Comment by dirtbox | Hacker News Reader

Dead or not, I still seem to make a pretty good amount of money out of it. A store I made a few years ago still earns me a couple of hundred bucks a week and I haven't added anything new since the day it went up. Certainly not bad for a dead project.

I don't use second life anymore, but it seems to me that the truth of the situation is more to do with it having evolved past the initial stages of media hype and settled into a stable and diverse online community. I'm waiting for a what happened to twitter article in another 5 years.

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Not so diverse- the article indicates almost all activity is porn. Normally new media is initially funded by porn (printing, photography, phonograph, moving pictures, wire recorders, the internet) and evolve into something else. Second Life has done the opposite. Sounds like a dead end to me.

Didn't Linden Labs provide a subsidy for Second Life users who built up areas of the world that attracted lots of users? The idea being to give people interesting things to do in SL without having to build content themselves. Inadvertently this created lots of gambling and strip clubs because this was an easy way of attracting people and earning your subsidy.

The article seems to indicate it created ONLY strip clubs (gambling being quashed).

The subsidy (monthly lot population -> payout/discount) that danw is referring to happened many years ago now (2005? 2004? earlier?), long before they outlawed gambling. The lot-use subsidy DID result in a lot of casinos and 'strip clubs', but it also resulted in shops creating community events - weekly giveaway parties, etc.

While it can be argued that the subsidy resulted in some shady areas of SL, it should be noted that the massive decline in SL's popularity happened after they were removed, gambling was banned, age verification happened, etc etc. So it's hardly arguable that the subsidies killed SL.

Normally new media is initially funded by porn...and evolve into something else. Second Life has done the opposite. Sounds like a dead end to me.

Second Life is only one instance of a new medium. That's too small a sample to declare the whole medium non-viable. MMOs are really another example of the same medium. (Though the structure of most "games" devolves into exploitation of variable reward schedules and everything becomes pretty much a resort-casino.)

As long as Second Life can continue to exist (ie make money) then it won't be a dead end.

It's quite possible that the online world will stop having single hyped winners but a series of semi-successful ventures.

The change might happen once the majority of the human populace is online. Folks online will likely continue the habits they formed initially until something much, much better comes along. This will be higher bar than the online-versus-not-online bar.

That's great. What does the store sell?

Considering that it's Second Life, I'm guessing leopard dildos.

The ambiguity of your quip amuses me. (Color? Shape? Species-specificity?)

If you search for leopard dildos on SL, it asks "Specify type of leopard"

Now the specificity of the search amuses me.

Yes.

Hah, no. Believe it or not it's just regular furniture and fittings for people who like to recreate their dream home on their tropical beach resort. I've got no qualms about taking people's money if they have no imagination.

How much did it make at peak and for how long has it existed? How much work did you put into it?

At it's peak I guess $300 to $400 a week depending on the time of year, it's quite seasonal. Really nowhere near as much work gone into it for the amount of payback I've since received, I almost feel guilty - almost. The only worry is people using a bot to copy your work and sell it on for themselves, or worse, give it out freely.

That's one area where Linden Labs really need to put a lot of work in to make it a viable business opportunity for anyone thinking of a quick buck. Filing a DMCA is far from fun, but where there's money, there's theft.

I do believe that anyone with the will to do so can still easily become successful and make a few dollars if they put a little thought and time in, also knowing most of your market is made up of bored housewives helps.

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