there's no answer, just surrender, send all your barriers into the fire

Just to start things off--I am selling or trading my section of Caledon Penzance; I have a notecard I am more than willing to give out in world, and you can leave me comments on the Steamlander boards or send notecards on the grid. At this point, sale is likely the better option, as we might have lined up a better shop location--if I can raise the funds.

Here's hoping.

Instead of treating the web as a platform of possibilities, it recasts it as a tool for mass theft.

A collection of astronomical clocks from Dark Roasted Blend.

Zombie MMO? HELL, ye--wait.

Console MMO?

Bastards.

Peter Strindberg costs out the new XStreet changes.

I've heard a lot of folks proposing even higher changes; I've heard folks wondering what the big deal is in the first place. "Well, it's all advertising, isn't it?" "It's not like that's even the price of a latte, come on." "I spend more than than in world in half an hour. Get real."

Let me tell you about the bottom of the barrel, then. For everyone who doesn't get why I--and so many others--are pulling from XStreet now and trying to find alternatives.

I no longer work in SL. Right now I could work--if I went back to escorting and dedicated a certain number of work hours per day to voice clients. Right now I could work if I wanted to join a modeling group and get the rights to "camp" in a certain spot for tips plus L$1 to L$2 every fifteen minutes I "worked". Right now I could work in SL if I wanted to go back to stripping, which means going back to being human most of the time, with larger tits and smaller (visible) intelligence, and likely emoting licking the pole I'm dancing around and writhing with what was starting to feel like entirely manufactured lust the last time around.

I haven't yet found that offer that doesn't involve sleeping with people, and while I have no ethical objection to going horizontal for money, it's a little depressing at this point.

So, right now, I am borrowing from friends and loves to make rent at all.

Rent, currently, is $1425 per week, $5700 per month, $74,100 per year. In case that doesn't make an impression, that works out to roughly $285.00 US I pay every year for the privilege of living in Caledon. I could live elsewhere; so far I'm gritting my teeth and trying to make the business pay for more of my expenses. But SL is not a cheap game for me.

At present, I have a L$50 listing fee I pay just to be listed as a business every week in the main SL classifieds. So a search for my business name will pop up at all. That's L$200 per month, L$2600 per year, or $10.00 US per year to list my business.

Total so far: $295.00 US, each and every year I operate.

Total salary in SL currently: L$0.00.

Does it start to make sense? Note, now, I am not laying all this out so the 'woe, pity me' chorus can start up in the background. I'm fine if you want to support me; personally, I don't care if you do or don't. If I'm working for someone, I tend toward scattered but resiliant loyalty; if I'm working for me, then I'm putting out there what I want to see in world, and if it's used by the one person I want it for (me), I'm good. Anything else is lovely and helps to pay rent, but is not required, in that sense of "this is my RL job and my future hangs in the balance".

In all seriousness, I am going to start looking for ways to maybe pick up income on the side, blog-wise--not in terms of ads placed here for in-world stores--though, honestly, if someone has a good offer, IM me, we can work something out--but in terms of a little sidebar something from Amazon and the like. I have decided that I am profoundly against selling my Twitter stream, so if I advertise products there, it's because I like them, not because I'm getting paid to pimp them.

[Late insert from the Editrix: FINALLY I get the Amazon widget working. HONESTLY. Rotating list of seventy-odd (depending on revisions) books comprising my constant book companions, these days, plus some amusing flash drives and odd movies. If you feel like perusing, feel free. If you don't, I'm very cool with that. But it's there for the option.]

How'ver, as far as SL currency goes, I have to find a way to increase income there, so likely will break down and sell surveys to people, or dance in some club or other, or join some in-world modeling group for ten to fifteen hours of work per week standing in someone's shop corner--just to possibly break even and stop borrowing so much from other people to pay in-world costs and fees. XStreet's proposed fees, on top of things? I literally, cannot, in any way, afford.

We pound our fists or flow around the rocks--depending on past experiences and temperament--and we enjoy our lives as best we can.

Hotspur O'Toole finds the timing of all this especially dubious. I do too, when linked in with MutantPink's "VIP survey" and the disbanding of the Mentor group--considering the bulk of what Mentors do is to help newcomers to the grid out with full-perm clothing, notecards, and landmarks of places to go to get more help.

And Rock leaves OpenSim. He makes genuine points.

In the end, all that's recoverable from this BBC story is the by-now trivial observation that Second Life has high barriers to entry; but then that's not exactly news.

Lastly, I am now registered on Cariama. We'll see how that goes; they still have yet to launch.