Chapter 8 Reflection
Chapter 8 is all about political economy. Some of the topics covered included money is SL. Real money was the main draw for people to SL during Boellstorff’s field experience. He said people in SL don’t have to work for wages because an account is free and most clothing and building (in sandboxes) can be free. One U.S dollar traded for about 265-300 Linden dollars at the time. This currency rate meant $1 could finance a lot of building and buying in SL. Boellstorff noted a few success stories with people making thousands and tens of thousands a year, but most people in SL didn’t make that kind of money. Most would be able to ‘pay ones tier’, meaning they would make back the money they spent on their business but would not make much of a profit.
Another topic is governance. Many SL residents believed Linden Labs had control over SL and that they didn’t have privacy. RL identities were private since anyone can make an account anonymously. However, SL residents believed LL was able to record all dialogue in SL and place it on their servers. LL has little interaction with SL residents. They occasionally held town hall meetings that didn’t work well because of lag. LL staff members can be seen around SL and they all have the last name Linden.