Can virtual goods make us more green?
Zynga, the makers of FarmVille, make money by selling virtual goods. Virtual goods are the economic engine behind social media and online entertainment. And the virtual goods market is enormous (an estimated $2 billion and growing).
An article in today’s Science Daily identifies a positive side effect to this massive new form of global consumption: It’s better for the earth.
“In public discourse, spending real money on virtual goods is frequently dismissed as an irrational fad or as a result of abusive marketing. But Lehdonvirta’s thesis suggests that the fundamental drivers of virtual consumption are found in individuals’ social and hedonic motivations.
“People buy virtual goods for the same reasons as they buy material goods. In online spaces, virtual goods can function as markers of status, elements of identity and means towards ends in the same way as material consumer goods do in similarly contrived physical spaces.
“From a macroeconomic perspective, it does not matter what consumers buy, as long as they keep on spending. Virtual consumption might offer an ecological way out of this consumer society’s dilemma…” Read the full article
