Wow. It amazes me how quickly people can jump to personally attack someone on their own blog. Yesterday two blogs, Ana’s and Prad’s started a discussion about freebies in SL. Now I don’t know Ana other than what I read on her blog. I do know Prad though. If he takes up a serious topic on his blog, it’s because he has an opinion he wants to share.
After reading his post and Ana’s I added one of my own. You can read it here . After following the comments all day and then catching up on Plurk when I got home, what is amazing to me is how quick some people were to jump to attack Ana and Prad for starting a discussion about a topic that in my mind needs to be discussed. It doesn’t mean everyone needs to agree. In fact, it would be sad if we did all agree on everything. I enjoy a good honest debate, but when people start making personal attacks, that’s wrong. Is it that they have nothing to say but want to *participate*? Or are they simply seeking attention for themselves? I don’t know. Maybe a bit of both.
I resisted starting a blog for a long time. Reason… I didn’t want to subject myself to either having no one read the blog or to having the personal attacks. It occurred to me though, I write it for myself. If someone reads, great! As far as personal attacks, no one has yet. If they do, I stand behind what I write here. If you disagree with me, tell me. Argue your point. Hey, you may even change my mind!
So, to get back to yesterday and the freebie discussion. A few things occur to me.
1. Most people like getting freebies in one way or another. Well who doesn’t really, especially if it’s something well done and given to you by the creator for one reason or another. I certainly don’t turn down group gifts. Nor do I refuse gifts from my friends who are content creators.
2. Most store owners want to increase traffic AND sales. Well this is really a no-brainer. Announcing a freebie will increase traffic. Will it increase sales? Don’t know. I think there is a 50/50 shot here. The theory is that the more people who come to the store, the more chance you have to make a sale. I’d really love to see a test to see if works. Not hard to do either. Would take 3 weeks in total. One week of normal operations. One week of a freebie. One week of no freebie but other *advertising*.
3. Store owners/content creators don’t like the folks who walk around like they are *entitled* to something. Well really, who does? I agree it has gotten way out of control. Whether it’s RL society issues or not, i’m not sure. I have noticed though an entire generation of young people who feel they are *owed* something. I could write an entire blog post on this subject alone, and maybe I will. My suggestion here, if you have people like this, mute them and ban them. I know someone(sorry can’t remember where I saw it) already mentioned this. I think in the comments of Ana’s post. You aren’t going to lose a good customer because this person won’t pay for anything in the first place.
So, those are the 3 main things I’ve seen/heard/noted from the discussions yesterday. Instead of attacking each other, why not get together and do something to try to change what you don’t like and promote what you do? Run some experiments/tests to see what really improves sales. I put some suggestions on my post yesterday.
I may not have a store or be a content creator myself, but I am a consumer. I spend my $L like a lot of people, pay tier(own a sim and 3 open spaces), and run a bar(The Crown and Pearl) so I do have some knowledge of how things work. I’d love to see several store owners come together and try something different. 
That’s my 2 cents worth.
Good and interesting post as usual Bailey. It’s always good to see posts that not only raise a problem but offer up possible solutions too.
I am amazed (or disappointed?) that people think a topic like freebies could even ground personal attacks. Maybe it’s just the difference between a poorly worded “your idea sucks” turned into a “you suck”, which is a rather silly logical error that does happen but usually only for very passionate topics like politics, sex and violence. Yet again you’ve inspired me to write my own post on a related topic, thank you
Thank you Lands. I think it’s important to always offer some kind of solution, otherwise you end up with the personal attacks instead of attacking the problem. I don’t profess to have all if any of the answers. I’m not a store owner. I am a blogger, and a consumer and a friend to store owners though. If I can help the cause, then i’m all in for the revolution! lol
Glad to know I’m inspirational.
I don’t think it’s the freebies that make people act like entitled jerks. They come by that naturally. They would act like that no matter what.
Thanks, Bailey! Luckily I only got one personal attack on my blog but Prad got more. I published it.
When people start a topic it’s supposedly to people disagree and share new ideas. I had some interesting conversations about this in Plurk and in-world that me realized other issues of the problem.