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“Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

paulbutler.org

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Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#421

Post by nradov »

thombat wrote: post #230
cardosof wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is what happens with any open world MMO. There's no storyline to finish, there's no ending, and game devs have incentives to keep players playing forever (the more hours a player plays, the more likely he will spend more money). There's only two ways to keep players playing: new content and/or grinding mechanics. Grinding mechanics are way, way easier to create. You can even reuse sprites and just chan…

Now you've made me wonder: those hours I spent mesmerised by watching the colourful display of Windows 95 defragging the disc, would I have paid a monthly subscription for it? What if they'd added achievements, or leveling up? "Congratulations! Your wizard can now restructure directory chains!"

I've seen people watching mesmerized as a Roomba vacuumed the floor. A time saving device indeed!

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#422

Post by shazzdeeds »

gitfan86 wrote: post #379
shazzdeeds wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is addressed in the original white paper. In a world where BTC is valued at 1M USD/coin you’d also expect a decent amount of day to day usage. Miners could still make decent profits based on transaction fees just from confirming blocks even once the Coinbase rewards stop. I’m not saying that’s currently the case, but that is the design. Also if miners are making a profit off let’s say $40k/coin and the price goe…

Miners could make a profit at $1/coin. The issue is that profit comes from somewhere. And that somewhere is new money being put into BTC. Hence, BTC is negative cashflow.

Profit comes when their operating costs are less than the take home from any transaction fees and Coinbase rewards they’ve collected in the same period. It’s not a direct function of liquidity entering the system. It’s true that rising prices from new cash flow means more profit for miners, but that doesn’t imply the opposite. The price could stay constant for the next 100 years and miners that have found a way to remain profitable within that price point would be fine.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#423

Post by chii »

shkkmo wrote: post #396
lotsofpulp wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On one hand, these strategies can save companies many millions of dollars, but on the other, they really produce nothing of value and are just a product of the complexities of a (human designed) tax system Businesses that spend less money on taxes can spend more money on expenses, such as payroll and higher quality materials and land, or it can allow them to sell products/services at a lower price, providing a comp…

Tax avoidance just moves the tax burden around, it doesn't create value. Tax collection and tax compliance does create value, but spending time specifically figuring out how to pay as little taxes as possible creates no value. It see likely that some level of bullshit jobs are an unavoidable side-effects of value producing activities. The interesting part of the idea comes from thinking about how we can structure tho…

> Tax avoidance just moves the tax burden around, it doesn't create value.

only if you believe that taxes paid is automatic value added to society.

> pay as little taxes as possible creates no value

it doesn't create value, it retains value for those who created it.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#424

Post by firekvz »

I didnt read much of the thread but I will assume that most of the people here is aware of how every single NFT game is just a ponzi.

But I've lived myself, what the author mentions as a "way to lift people out of poverty.", from the era before NFT or "play to earn" games existed.

I come from Venezuela, a full 3rd world country and I was "lucky" to play an MMO (lineage 2) during my young days and somehow I was good at it, i invested so many hours on it and managed to get into top tier guilds and worlds 1st event, and somehow, my character and my items were worth thousands of dollars in the market, and suddenly i went from being a 14 y.o boy sitting in pc, to bringing more money in 1 week to my family, than my entire family together for 1 year.

I could understand that, while all other people on the game were playing for fun, it became my job, a job that actually got me and my family out of poverty...

At the time (2007) there were a lot of chinese "farmers", and people used to make fun of them, not only fun but the rest of the players were blantantly denigrating towards them, at 1st I didnt understand but once that I became a non-chinese farmer, I realized how It was a really good thing to do.

Eventually I started botting, I bought more PCs and had a full army of bots, I kept making more and more money, and it helped me and my family leave the country and pretty much bought a house, a car and paid my family expenses for like 4 years out of lineage 2 adena farming.

Also, scripting the bots pretty much got me to learn programming and english, so what I am now it's pretty much the result of some guy from chicago offering me 20$ in paypal for an item i had in my inventory that i got it while killing a monster, it all started there, that litle forbidden transaction in an MMO, changed my life completely

So, even tho it was like a job for me, I never saw it like a job, even tho it gave me a lot of money, i never got into the game as a way to get money, i was just a young kid trying to have some fun..

But now, I get really sad everytime I see those ponzi NFT games, that only sell the idea of getting rich, and I get even more sad when I see tons of venezuelan youngsters fall for it, honestly, they are just playing with their desperation.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#425

Post by iantimothy »

> Since Filipinos are the largest growth market for Axie Infinity, they must also be a major source of money flowing into the system. Instead of being a net provider of jobs and capital, it appears to just be redistributing the same wealth between Filipinos, and collecting a 4.25% cut for the service.

It seems that the source of money flowing into the system are individuals with capital to buy the incoming producing PPE-type assets (i.e., Axies).

Guilds pool capital to buy P2E assets and rent it out to scholars for a % of all income earned by the player (known as scholars in the current P2E nomenclature).

I think there are currently two acceptable ways to earn income in our society: 1. Take relatively less risk, get paid a wage. Owner of incoming producing assets bear the risk of deploying capital in such a manner. 2. Take high risk. Deploy capital to acquire assets and pay wages to others who utilize those assets to produce (unguaranteed) income for you.

P2E introduces a third: deploy capital to acquire assets, loan the assets out, and take a cut of income generated.

P2E in its current form has similarities to serfdom. The owners of Axies (and the AXS tokens) are the lords.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#426

Post by chii »

JCharante wrote: post #329
Animats wrote: post #145

Axie Infinity spokesperson: "It is a little bit dependent on capital inflows." Er, yes. All those players are paying about $1000 to get into the game and then grinding away to get Smooth Love Potion tokens. This is the SLP price graph.[1] Down 92% since the peak. A lot of suckers lost big. Many of them poor people in the Philippines, where Axie is big. Axie is frantically trying to obfuscate this with a second token,…

I can't believe the buy in is $1000, it would have to be a AAAA game to demand that price tag, but it's not so it's just a disguised Ponzi scheme. The way the media have been reporting this as a way for Filipinos to earn income is disgusting, because they're tricking financially challenged people to fall for this Ponzi scheme by making it look legitimate with the media attention.

Just like herbalife or many of those MLM schemes, the initial entry fee does sound like scam.

I wonder how long it takes to earn back the initial entry fee?

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#427

Post by talove »

Axie Infinity isn't interesting as a game, but as a model it is.

The other day I was going through air port security. I had to wait 10 minutes for one of my bags to be screened a second time. I happened to be waiting while some type of manager was doing a huddle for a new shift of employees about to start.

The dumb shit the manager was telling the group of 12-15 TSA workers was abhorrent. Just really vile statements about how to interact with people going through the security lines.

It dawned on me that the only rationale for this completely useless facade of stress inducing security was simply that these were low-income workers who needed a job, and we're subsidizing it through various types of taxes.

I believe Axie Infinity is dumb, but so are much bigger things around us that we talk much less about. However, Axie Infinity is a good model for a way of creating economies to support people who need jobs. What might help society is if, instead of time wasting games, and meaningless security jobs we paid people to learn valuable skills through a gaming like system.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#428

Post by chii »

58x14 wrote: post #91
armchairhacker wrote: post #58

We should create a game like Axie infinity, but instead of making money from useless Axies you make it from writing code. And then since crypto is bad we just pay people with regular money instead. Also maybe have them sign a contract for working fixed hours and/or completing a project in X time. So you know, the project actually gets done.

That sounds great. I'll create a DAO to collect funds so we can create this game. What should we call it? How about Recursion?

Since the name Second Life is taken, how about Third Life?

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#429

Post by [deleted] »

syntheweave wrote: post #340
danShumway wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people have fond memories of this kind of thing, but from a designer perspective, is it good that a game is so boring that players are willing to pay real-world money to skip parts of it? Runescape set up a system that was so grind-heavy that players broke server rules and wrote automated scripts to grind for them, and other players gave them money to do that. Because the minute-to-minute gameplay of…

The reason grinding exists is also economic in nature: the "consumer value for money" equation is often reduced to maximizing hours of playtime. This has led to extremely padded gameplay all throughout when we compare to arcade games, which are premised on "operator value of time" and therefore always endeavor to shuttle players in and out of their session in a few minutes. The other day I visited the local pinball j…

[deleted]

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#430

Post by jollybean »

'Play To Earn' is obviously in a different category of identifiable BS jobs.

If Rich Worlders want to pay Poor Worlders to rank up ahead of time on a game for them, that's weird, but so be it.

'BS Jobs' I think is more a problem with the vast landscape of effete and ineffective White Collar workers.

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