Category: Read me

Opinions and views regarding diverse topics and happenings in Second Life and its community of netizens, bystanders and passersby

Neighbor

Active users?

I have a neighbor in SL that I have never met, and something tells me that I never will. I know her name and a few details of her SL past from the items she left behind in a parcel that she hasn’t visited since 2011. It’s a small 512 sq.m. lot on the western coast of Satori. By the date on the land, she claimed it on December 2009. Since then she’s been paying for a plot that gets no use and receiving a weekly stipend she’s not really benefiting from. Based on that 300L fee, her account must have accumulated some 50,000L since the last day she logged inworld, more than four years ago. That’s a small fortune for whenever she decides to come back, if that ever happens. But maybe she no longer remembers SL at all.

There are no sculpts or mesh objects among her forgotten belongings. Her oldest rezzed possession, a sofa, dates back to October 2006, just two months after she was born. It is chronologically followed by a chair and a room divider four months the sofa’s junior, and a Mediterranean pot from early 2007. From that same year are two clumps of golden bamboo that compliment the ensemble. The furniture is suspended above the sandy ground, suggesting a construction of some sort may have housed them sometime in the past.

This lady was last seen inworld the 13th of December of 2011. I know that because we have one group in common, from where it was easy to corroborate that fact. What happened after that day, maybe no one else –but her– knows.

I guess her RL self is still somewhere out there, if there’s a credit card backing up the premium subscription… or else that parcel wouldn’t be on her name this long. That, or the Lab hasn’t taken the time to clear the record even when it’s not getting any money to lock the lease.

How many accounts are there in SL just like hers? To how many disembodied customers LL keep charging a subscription fee for a premium account that is obviously inactive, if that were the case? Or how many parcels are showing a pretended ownership that only tells of a former tenancy? Does LL contact these ghostly residents to inquire what is going on and maybe try to attract them inworld once more? How many ex-residents still populate the ranks of the so-called active users? Are these inert people still holding onto SL expecting to resurface someday? Is my neighbor one of them? What about yours?

Sandwich Mini Yard Sale

Shopkeeper

If you read my previous post (Dispossessed), you know that, if each of us in SL have a part in the general scheme of things (though I think not), mine wasn’t exactly in the virtual real estate arena. It isn’t that, at a personal level, I did terribly bad –I did everything there was to do, except to implement an advertising campaign, but that was intentional. I actually managed to rent a second lot to another friend for a couple of months, and though she recently abandoned it out of inactivity on her part (having too much to do in RL right now), it wasn’t because I failed at the job. There’s not much to do as a landlord anyway, especially when the only thing you have to “worry” about is to run an automated rental system (and there are a few to choose from) to keep everything in check. By the way, that plot is still vacant [click to visit], if anyone is interested.

The next thing I decided to try was to be a shopkeeper.

I’m not that industrious –nor skilled– as to become a content creator, so no: I’m not designing or selling original content of any kind. I’m just reselling my surplus of unwanted or no longer wanted gacha items that have been polluting my inventory for some time.

My “conditional love” to gacha-related affairs ended some time ago when this commercial strategy turned abusive circa last quarter of 2013. Since then I have almost stopped going to those spending orgies (some people insist in calling them events), except when some of my favorite creators decide to participate and come up with nice sets worth dying for (such as those taking part in the promising 6o Republic, starting tomorrow). Yet, even though my “involvement” has come to an (almost) absolute halt, I still have enough tradable goods to fill a warehouse or two. So, instead of renting a table or a booth in one of the many public yard sales, I decided to use another plot I own in Bay City to establish an improvised, and surely temporary, variety store to get rid of everything I can.

Sandwich Mini Yard Sale

For this other enterprise, I’m occupying an area no larger than a 512 sq.m. plot with a double bonus prim allowance, or about 234 LI in all. I’ve been restocking the shelves (and the floor, and the walls, etc.) whenever they look empty, and that’s like two or three times a week sometimes. I’ve been selling the stuff for reasonable prices (usually quite below the original price), but frankly, I never thought I would have to resupply so often. So popular are all things gacha, I guess, that it’s no wonder there are so many resellers grid-wide.

But searching stuff in SL inventory is a burden beyond anyone’s tolerance, so it gives me the creeps every time I have to look for tradable goods to sell. As a result, I’ve been tempted to end this adventure whenever I have to rezz non-copyable items during SL common tantrum states. Yet, by thinking it’s a good way to let other people benefit from things I don’t need anymore, but which are too good to simply throw away, I still persist (for now) in this project. Though these objects are simply representations with not much tangible worth, I still see them as possessing a convincing enough value to refrain from deletion remorselessly.

To visit this little shop, locate the northeastern-most corner of the Sandwich sim in the western part of Bay City. There you’ll find a small warehouse building that goes by the name of Sandwich Mini Yard Sale [click to visit]. Be welcome anytime, but don’t expect to find wondrous items or quite a lot. It’s not the Epic Gacha Market after all.

Dispossessed

In June, I’ll be 8 years old. Sounds like a lot of time, right? This is the oldest online community/social network I’ve been intensely involved with so far. Yet, I think my participation in SL, considering all the possibilities of interaction it offers, has been pretty limited. I haven’t had a job in SL, in none of its commercial/business chances; my clubbing time has been restricted to a very few spots (maybe 3 or 4), and believe it or not I’ve never contemplated the chance of partnering or “enlisting” on a sentimental relationship beyond friendship. Yet, this year I decided to experiment with things a lot of other people have successfully tried before to see what would come out of them.

Just a few months ago, in January, I decided to reform my land holdings to lower my monthly spendings in SL. As a result, I ended up with a 2048 sq.m. protected waterfront parcel I wasn’t using but didn’t want to get rid of. I thought I might be able to rent it out for cheap to at least cover the monthly land use fee I have to pay to the Lab. It was all water of great depth and was located next to a busy sailing route, totally perfect for any maritime endeavor. Since I didn’t intend to get rich but to cover the monthly cost, I set the rent cheaper than other surrounding parcels in the area, in the hopes that someone would see the “For Rent” sign from a distant and jump at the opportunity. Beyond that I didn’t try any other advertising, not wanting to turn this into a big commercial venture.

With such characteristics, I thought the plot would attract the attention of many a passerby, but after several weeks, no one showed any interest on it. Only one of my friends asked me a few questions once, but that was it.

At some point –as would be expected– I decided to declare this a failed experiment. Then I decided to ask a professional landlord with interests in that same sim if he wanted to trade the plot in exchange for an –even smaller– parcel in another sim where I have my main home. We agree on the parcel and some cash as a compensation, and soon the lot was gone.

I guess it took him two minutes to get the parcel ready for rent (at a higher price than the one I was giving it out for), and maybe three minutes more to get the parcel rented. It got a huge WTF!!??? from me, and another much, much bigger one when I found out the renter was actually a neighbor that have lived just a parcel away for more than a year, and could well have seen my huge For Rent sign, bright and clear, from her porch everyday since day one.

My guess is people prefer to enrich well-established land lords and ladies instead of doing business with a newcomer in fear a parvenu like me will run with their money and leave them broke and dispossessed. I can understand that perfectly since in the contemporary world –online and off– we don’t think people are honest by default. I may be one of the few that enjoy giving chances to strangers and go for the best deal. But then, this experience shattered and blew away my micro-enterprise nap and sealed the faith of me the lessor forever.

P.S. Sounds tragic, right?, but it was fun.