How much is an object worth in Second Life? If you're Anshe Chung, L$10. And that's making a great number of content creators pretty angry.
When the "metaverse millionaire launched a range of furniture costing no more than L$10 per item, she claimed it was an effort to allow more people to afford to live in Second Life:
"In IMVU the average margin of content creators for items they sell is about 10-15 L$, while in Second Life content prices are still at almost the same levels as 3 years ago when the population was only a fraction of what it is now. We think this is one reason why IMVU is growing much faster than Second Life now. Therefore we decided to make Second Life more competitive and more accessible to players by providing high quality products at prices that allow Second Life to remain competitive in the long run. Our plan for the end of this year is to have between 50 and 100 internal designers and scripters working on 10 LINDENS, plus a network of local partners we are currently training here. We plan to create a full range catalog of decent SL content."
Unsurprisingly, this didn't go down well with content creators who typically price their products much higher than this. And, while Anshe is starting with furniture first (a natural fit to her land/homes business), there's little doubt that she'll move on to any and all content eventually. You don't need "50 [to] 100 internal designers and scripters" to build just furniture.
But ultimately, why the surprise? In a world where distribution and manufacture costs are zero, countries which have low costs of living - and thus, lower wages - will have an acute advantage. Anshe, if you believe her statements, pays well for China, but that still means her designers can be employed for a fraction of the cost of someone in the US or Europe.
In a flat market, where there are no international tariffs and no barriers to trade, countries which have low costs of living will have massive advantages. This is simply the first expression of that. Expect prices on goods to plummet as more people get the message.
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