Let's step forward for a moment to a time a few
years from now when virtual spaces are almost completely integrated into
the lives of anyone with a computer. Second Life is but one of many
platforms and sim hosters, and there is no 'novelty' value to owning
virtual property or having your virtual 'stuff' accessible by the
public. What values, then would a virtual presence have, and what sort
of economy could these values support?
The thoughts in this post concern virtual land and its value. Land
is not the only fundamental in an economy, but I would submit that it is
the signature point of distinction between a 'real' and a 'virtual'
economy. Who, what, where, when and why: although each of these
undergoes some interesting tweaks in passing through to a virtual world,
it is really the 'where' that is the defining factor. Of course, the
metaverse is more than a "mirrorworld" in that many cultural and
cognitive patterns of spaciality are open to significant transformation
here, but its status as a place or places is still central.
Of course, there is a class of people who have their own private uses
for virtual real estate, and are unconcerned with the problem we are
looking at, i.e. valuing virtual property. They and their friends or
visitors already know what, where and why, and they just show up and get
on with it. I think as the metaverse expands, this group will shrink,
or in any case will continue to be unconcerned with the 'value' of their
properties, and if the cost to provide these backwater places is close
to nothing, they will perform an important marginal function in the
larger system.
It is easy to suggest that Linden Labs or other hosters can just mint
new land like paper money, and that we will be awash in cheap places
with no value. We already know our way around this issue -- blogs too
are free and easy, but we only read ones with a certain critical
momentum. Virtual real estate, (much like RL real estate, in truth) has
little inherent value, but is made valuable by context and by the
networks of people that come to visit.
It is also easy to suggest that one can just search for what one
wants and visit it with a click, making context and proximity
irrelevant. Certainly we have experienced this on the Second Life grid
and indeed with the internet generally. But when we look closer, and
especially considering the exponential scaling coming to us in the near
future, this a-topic idea falls apart and reveals some significant
values that successful virtual properties must hold. We know about this
from Google. Earlier search engines bogged down under the weight of
simple keyword searching, and Google pioneered searches based on
context, proximity and reputation. These turn out to be reliable for
searching purposes because they are real, inherent values held by the
sites being searched.
It has become common recently for people to arrive in Second Life and
set up shop, often at a grand scale, and assume that we will all rush
toward their islands for the sake of the experience or the products.
Skipping from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0, they fail loudly and blame the
platform. When we look at YouTube, Myspace, Twitter and company, the
attraction isn't the interactive features in themselves, but the
open-ended possibility that it might actually be fun, and that
user-created content and relationships will surpass the original
functional values of the site.
Virtual land, then, has some basic values, like being findable,
accessible, and useable for the intended purpose. Almost any or all
immersive digital destinations will have these values in some measure,
and it is likely that they will be commonplace and nearly free in the
near future. But virtual land will have a second tier of values,
including community, proximity, and reputation. These higher values
will vary widely and will be the basis of an economy that can be studied
and nurtured in mostly conventional ways. But I must insist, in
response to Robert Bloomfield's comment during his Metanomics 101
presentation, that this will not be an economy based on scarcity. (We
have to move past the cold war 'opposites' of Marxism/Capitalism. I
would look to Ivan Illich and the appropriate technology and sustainable
community movements for some leads here.)
In short, I believe that certain virtual properties in the near
future will be immensely more valuable than others. Whether held as
common values, supporting stakeholder communities, or whether
commodified and held by stockholders, the value of these properties will
be a fundamental of our 'blended reality' economy.
Community.
In community, in social interactions, in rituals of obligation and
generosity, people satisfy needs and desires of a spiritual depth than
economics cannot reach. In virtual worlds, social interactions bring
value and meaning to places that is irreplaceable by any other means.
The metaverse is a symbolic space where objects 'function' at a
semiotic and psychological level, and meaning is overwhelmingly
dependent on social context. The balance of power between space and
time has been adjusted here; values are much more ephemeral and
event-based, but place still has the role of holding the memory of past
events and holding open the occasion for events in the future. 'User
created content' is an awkward phrase covering the idea that 'places' in
virtual worlds are really defined by the living now of creative
activity, whether it is building, acting, writing, or simply enacting
the fabric of the everyday. And creative acts in a virtual world are
fundamentally generous acts -- contributions to the richness of the
other's experience.
Proximity.
Geographic proximity still matters in virtual worlds. There is still a
spillover effect, where visitors to adjoining properties walk or fly
around to satisfy their curiosity. There are also intact cultural
patterns such as courtship walks, rituals of escape and return, and
demonstrating one's worthiness reflected in the neighborhood. And
colocation is a straightforward way of representing network proximity.
Network proximity groups things in clusters by affinity, and is
organized by a searchable indexes and group affiliations. A valued
destination will be 'near' other similarly valued properties in the
'space of appearance' of group listings, advertisements, sponsorships
and publications, even if it is not geographically near.
Reputation.
Reputation covers a group of values that help us find and choose among
places to go among the millions of alternatives we will soon scale up
to. Highly valued places will not only be characterized by the quality
of their neighbors and affiliations, but also by their contacts in the
'vertical' supply chain. A club, for instance will be valued not just
by the class of other clubs it belongs to, but by the quality and
reputation of the photographers, furniture suppliers, DJs, designers and
scripters it uses, and by the quality and social networks of its
clientele, the businesspeople who use it for events, and the penniless
writers who reference it in tommorrow's bestsellers.
I've avoided specifying land values as communal, commercial, or
private, because the values underly the specifics of who uses a place
and to what end. Virtual worlds will only further blur these
distinctions, in that the lower frictional costs make virtual worlds
more ephemeral, and the connection of place to use will depend much more
critically on the interactions of private and common activities. For
instance, I think very few corporate sites will be able to survive
without the active participation and user generated content of an
affiliated 'residential' community.
It will take much more anthropology to create and maintain an
effective corporate presence in a virtual world, or indeed to monetize
or commodify any aspect of the 'life' of a virtual world. Our virtual
lives are light-footed and light-hearted, and can more easily shift to
new locations and alliances. Business models will have to follow suite,
and will always lag a bit behind the creative evolutions of our values.
But we will adjust to this world, and find ways to standardize,
risk-assess, and commodify the enduring values of community, proximity
and reputation. We will arrive at a balance between the untrammelled
creativity of a community based on generosity, and the necessary and
stabilizing influence of capital.
