Every couple of months a new topic, or one revisited, comes up that gets blogged and sends everyone into fits. The most recent is again the Great Debate on Freebies. Prad stirred the pot quite a bit with his post, Entitlement and loads of other bloggers have commented or written on their own blogs about it. I’m not gonna debate the worthiness of freebies with anyone. They have their place and use and if someone works really hard at making something and then decides to just give it away…. Well who am I to tell them they can’t or shouldn’t?
There are many things in the SL economy that annoy me to no end but I’m not going to waste a lot of time complaining to the internet about it. I stopped doing hunts ages ago. If my friends are doing one and want company, sure I’ll hop my way around with them but I don’t feel compelled to continue. I have to say though, I’ve found a few new favorite stores through these things so they aren’t all bad. But saying that, I won’t waste hours and hours going to hundreds of stores for stuff that I may or may not end up keeping. Just as an aside, a list of all the participating stores in a hunt would be great because even if I don’t go on the hunt, I can always visit these stores later when they aren’t as crowded and can do some serious shopping. Just sayin…
The problem isn’t the freebie in my mind. The problem is the people. The consumers who have gotten so engrossed in the ‘hunts’ that they have forgotten that these are actually stores, not just buildings holding a hunt a gift that you have to find. The designers in an effort to improve sales or traffic or both keeping improving the free gift they give out or join more hunts. The quality of some of the free gifts I’ve seen is just stellar so kudos to all of you for the higher standards you’ve set. But when your freebies are so damn good, I don’t need to buy anything! Then there are the bloggers. I use the fashion blogs just like everyone else to see what’s new and for ideas. No, I don’t like seeing something on every single blog and usually those items i’ll avoid. At least for a few months anyway. 
The point I’m making here is that we ALL have contributed to this feeling of "Entitlement" as Prad puts it.
For me, freebies taught me how to build. I took things apart, figured out how they were done and then tried to duplicate them. Once I realized I could make a copy, well then I had to make my ‘own’. I don’t have a store and I don’t sell anything on Xstreet but I do know how to make some stuff. Clothing and shoes and hair escape me mainly because of the amount of photoshop time and patience and frankly skill needed that I just don’t have right now. Right now I’m focusing on making some animations for myself. When I’m happy with them, maybe I’ll sell them or give some away, who knows. The fact is I learned how to do things by pulling other peoples work apart and seeing what made it work or how it was put together. I also spent hours watching Prad build and learned sooo much from him, seeing how he puts something together. So, the freebie served a purpose for me.
All that being said, I’ll still grab a freebie that I see that is amazing or that I just simply have to have. To be honest though, I’d pay for these items if they weren’t free.
Instead of everyone getting angry with each other, designer and consumer alike, or attempting to point fingers or throw the blame around, why don’t you all start the designers consortium as someone suggested in Prad’s comments. Get together and talk about how to increase business or traffic or marketing or PR. Talk this stuff out together, ask your customers what they think, work together rather than against each other. Get some folks together who know how to run a successful business in SL and RL. Come up with new ways of doing things. This is SL, if we can fly then surely there are different ways of marketing your product.
I’ve met quite a few designers in SL and without exception they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They are also incredibly talented and busy and smart. I’d love to see a group of them get together to sort out some of the issues with SL business.
Look what they accomplish for RFL every year….
Imagine what they could do for the SL economy….