SecondLife economy is 'a pyramid scheme'
Valleywag claims that Second Life is a pyramid scheme. The article, which consists mostly of selections from the report of financial consultant Randolph Harrison, suggests that not only are most people deceived about the amount of money they can make in Second Life.
The private exchanges, however, are owned by the businesses which sit at the top of the SecondLife economic pyramid. The “Virtual Land Baroness” owns the largest such exchange. So it is not surprising that our attempts to trade our L$ for $ USD were met with confiscatory market reflectivity. Or, put simply, every time we attempted to transact more than a couple hundred dollars, the SLL/USD rate would spike to levels approaching or even greater than 500. Example: mid July 2006 SLL/USD was 293.0/279.2 bid/ask on the primary open exchange. Our attempts to trade L$650,000 resulted in settlement bids of 350-450. Interestingly, these trades tended to net returns of right around 4%, which was the prevailing dollar deposit rate.
As we scratched our heads trying to figure out if there weren’t a more clever way of disguising our trades, or perhaps creating our own in-game banks and exchanges in order to arbitrage the other direction, it suddenly dawned upon me.
This game was just a pyramid scheme.
SecondLife is not a dramatic taste of our future, in which markets are virtual, currency is free from government control, taxes are non-existent, and normal people can become real millionaires simply by clicking their mouse a few times.
SecondLife isn’t even a simple virtual economy, with legitimate buying and selling, and opportunity for those who would compete.
No, SecondLife is a classic pyramid scheme. Or, more of an Amway-like pyramid: partially legitimate, partially ponzi. Sure, there are plenty of legitimate SecondLife customers who just like to go there to get their kicks, spend a couple dollars, and be on their way.
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