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Over the past few days, over on World2Worlds, a hot comment-train has started up around a blog entry by Rissa Maidstone about the old issue of "RL vs. SL". Down at the bottom of that comment-train, this morning, was one from resident JetZep Zabelin, which read as follows: Most of the modern world is designed in the "virtual" world: in drawings whether it's pen and ink or sophisticated visualization software. Business in the virtual world deserves the same respect as business in meat space. What is disappointing in SL is the economy doesnt respect me as a designer, people expect me to be paid only a couple thousand L$ for custom designs for the same type of work that I get paid anywhere from $20/hr. to $100/hr. in real life. Ain't that the truth? So ... why is SL still like virtual China as regards compensation for skilled work? Is it simply that the supply of adequately-skilled labor far exceeds demand? Yes, certainly. But that simple statement, though correct, hides some interesting complexity. On the demand side, corporate incursions into SL have slowed by comparison with a year ago -- the initial land-rush (profitable for many creatives) replaced by a more gradual pace of new-market entry, while surviving early entrants consolidate and seek hard ROI. This gives us, I think, something that models the second phase of a colonial economy. Still a plantation economy (i.e., we're still mostly selling 'inworld marketing' in one form or another -- the equivalent of sugarcane or bananas), but one of increased supply/demand diversity (though lower overall demand) in the wake of the passing of the first pulse of hype and the first generation of colonial profiteers. On the supply side, meanwhile, most top talent still has a foot in <quote_fingers>real world</quote_fingers> work, or is managing to subsidize its inworld work to some degree. Which doesn't offer much in the way of pricing traction. If this analogy is meaningful -- what changes the picture? Increase in demand, obviously. But by the colonial analogy, that's like increase in the demand for sugar or bananas -- not the basis for a healthy 'international' economy. I suspect what's required for that is growth both in absolute demand and in demand diversity -- and I think that's what I'm seeing. The projects getting press these days are all over the map: experiments in architecture, in engineering, GIS, new approaches to commerce, communicating about structure and serving communities. Definitely worth a look at the ustream video of Rissa's panel, the other day, at SL5B, on Urbanism, Architecture and Engineering -- some very talented and interesting people there: Keystone Bouchard, Tab Scott, Diva Canto, Hiro Pendragon and Boston Borst -- talking about mind-blowing projects, applying SL to help collaborators and communities visualize structure, solve problems, and achieve concensus. Rissa's post on the panel (with vid) is here.
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I started picking at these issues a while ago (http://sophrosyne-sl.livejournal.com/55651.html), and I'm delighted to see you picking them up with a more sophisticated treatment.
I've played with your ideas a bit here (http://sophtopia.blogspot.com/2008/07/digital-colonialism-and-digital.html) - I'd be interested in your thoughts sometime.