Freebies are born of Choice

Check out the Dot Lane, Girl Reporter post (Web) about why the Grid has so many Freebies. She explores some pretty high concepts such as definition of self, market forces, the de-evolution of prize hunts, what our money is really worth, and more. Save it for when you are camping, maybe, because it is a long piece.

But it is quite insightful. It made me think hard about some of my philosophies and feelings:

When I build items for my store I don't think about what the market wants, I think about what I feel like building. If I sell enough to cover my expenses, I'm happy.

I think most Hunts have become less about the fun and more about the accumulation of boxes that are never opened. Recently I tried to discuss the quality of the great prizes from the Solange holiday hunt and quite a number of girls admitted they haven't opened or looked at the prizes from the 2007 hunt, let alone the 2008 one. A large number of people I've asked couldn't tell me what many of the prizes were from my last two hunts. A shame because some of them came to my store and bought the prize that they won.

More prizes from chairs should be transferable but not copyable. Many of you know that I'll bump chairs when I have the time and then try to give the prize to the person that announced it in chat. Right now I have more clothes than should be healthy to own and I can afford to buy most anything I want. My building skills satisfy my needs for the most part and I feel good when I give money to someone more clever and skilled for the work they put into something I want. So I count my time as valuable in the freebie versus paybie war.

At one point in this life I found myself devoting so much time to freebies and the acquisition of treasure that I lost track of what was really valuable. My Friend list was filled with other freebie fanatics and little else. Today I have very few folks in Friends just for the freebies and that is usually just for Crew business. I didn't realize that until Dot's article. We all find a niche to fill. What is yours? How have freebies changed your Second Life?