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My thoughts about IMVU
10 years ago
General
Well, this evening has been a tough one, deciding on how I want to take stand for or against Dragoneers sale of Furaffinity to IMVU.
I think Im through all stages of it now: Amusement about the depiction of Anthros in their Ads; Disbelief about the sale; Worry about the rights of my art, ideas or any other personal Information I may put up here; Sadness because I miss the days where I perceived Furries as a open-minded friendly small community of spiritual/philosohical/artsy people; Panic, where I better want to remove all information from here, just in case.. ESPECIALY after hearing people talk about the commercial gains of "big data" on this years Cebit; And last, but not least: Trust. No, you read that one right, I think Ill try it with trust. For now.
Why?
Let's elaborate on my view on Furries and Enterprises.
Furries are ( for me ) one branch of a common subcommunity of Interest, established in parallel to a few other communities which center on anthromorphic animals during the days where PCs and the Internet were widely made public, and a lot of freedom was given to create public acceptance to all those strange and (for some) surely frightening new possibilities of the virtual domain to humanity.
Back then, the furry mindset, or at least what I experienced from it, inspired very important values in me. Open-mindedness, my values of Individuality and Art, a community where uncomplicated and spontaneous Interaction was actualy possible and accepted. Paired with a huge amount of creativity and understanding.
I was never too much into the whole pornografic aspect of it, even though I openly admit, that some depictations (with a certain amount of tasteful sexual inuendo, and of course Anthros!) were what highly "inspired" me in other ways during my youth as well.
Well, seeing as how I got quite some social resistance to the path I choose for my life, combined with various "furry drama" I had to experience myself, I strongly disconnected from the community. (On an unrelated sidenote: I really dislike the trend of calling human [be they human in soul too or not] interaction "Drama". Its inconsiderate to the actual feelings participants might have.) I still went regularly to the EF and most of my contacts stemmed from the german furry scene, but it was always overshadowed. First by my own spiteful focusation on the sexual aspects ever since then(which in restrospective I believe is a sort of self-hate, I developed due to some traumatic experiences). I knew entirely well, that it was not only about sex, but seriously, considering a community focusing on such "earthbound" topics as the combination of animals with anthromorphic aspects, combined with open-mindedness.. it would be downright surprising if it did not have a popular bit of sexual content.
And then there was that point, that I was worried more and more (since somewhere around EF12), that the furry way of society degenerates more and more into "just another pop culture".
Seriously? I believe that happened quite some years ago, and I don't see a lot of those things which made the community stand out for me anymore.
So.. is that bad now? Dunno, lets go on to Enterprises.
Its no big secret, that I am neither a friend of "motivation by greed", nor of "financial benefit, no matter the price". From that point of view, I do share the common distrust of many voices I read regarding the takeover. Actualy my paranoid self is highly surprised, the decision wasn't connected to those constant digital attacks during those last months more often, and more focused on the fear for personal losses (of copyright).
Well, whatever, I do believe in the sense of economy as basis of reasonably planned interaction with the world. I also hold those same principles of trust and open-mindedness dearly, which the community inspired me to at one point.
I mean.. yes, there is a lot reason to worry, ESPECIALY in some current developments of the IT environment. Heavy production of a synthetic class divide into technological ressources which could (in a better world state) benefit everyone alike (since distribution is only connected to small additional production cost in comparison to physical products, the restriction to some functions only for "better standing" people signs a strong emphasize on segmenting class status, even if that would seem entirely unnecessary). The focus on technology where Users get less and less control on their systems and more and more (personal) information is tracked and stored on company servers, whenever the User isn't highly sensible for data privacy, and without explicitly asking the user if he actualy WANTS to give that data (and giving him the option to decline..). And last but not least, the construction of "digital Status symbols" (digital content, which cannot be understood as fully-fledged, fair-priced program addons, but is rather a segmentation of a program or game in little buyable sub-parts, or even worse, an expendable gaming ressource, pushing "healthy gaming" into the direction of nothing more, but gambling..) which again does not, from my point of view, make sense from a purpose-oriented view on monetary interaction for human development and improvement.
Anyways.. Im getting sidetracked here.
I have good reasons to distrust both fractions, allthough both are actualy a big part of my life, if not to say: a irreplacable defining part of my lives believes and perspective. So why do I still decide to trust, and wait what will happen from the change?
Well, mostly its the basic principle of self-proclaiming prophecy. If we suspect each politician to lie, each company to be consistant of nothing but mindless greed and everyone with non-scientific believes to be either a fanatic or mentaly sick.. well, we create just such an atmosphere socialy. Distrust, fear and Prejudice always breeds nothing but itself.
Thats true for Nationalities, Genders, but also for corporate Identities and Individuality.
They bought it. Alright. They obviously use some of those negative developments of the IT sector like a focus on digital content packed in Micro-transactions for their other product (instead of just giving access to a full environment for everyone and a fair usage price). Other corporations apparently use a lot of not explicitly provided data for their purposes.
But maybe they still just "do what was thought to them to be the current way digital economics work", instead of being the inconsiderate and greedy monsters some of the comments I read apparently fear them to be. And maybe the contact can have actual positive influence in that regard?
Maybe a company can invest into the conservation of a sub-community as much as they could invest in anti-poverty-campaigns or ecologic projects.. just because they think its the right thing, and its something that could or should be preserved and supported? At least its something I would want to believe, because any believe otherwise would suggest that even the positions with power (i.e. money in this social order) CAN not attempt to influence this planet positivly at all. And thats not a truth I would want to support with the strength of my will.
From my personal point of view a good sign for the company (or Dragoneer as their representative) would be to honour the care of this community for intellectual property in actualy altering point 4.1 of the Terms of Conduct in a way that absolutly no doubt can remain about the companies sole intention to gain publicity for their product and not to grab off cheap intellectual property of others. Seeing as how its somewhat blurry even in the actual revision. You just gotta argument that "the mentioned rights to use, host, store, cache, reproduce, publish, display (publicly or otherwise), perform (publicly or otherwise), distribute, transmit, modify, adapt, and create derivative works have been used for marketing purposes to improve the service and develop more services", and voila, the second sentence gives a free ticket for all-purpose rights already. And I didnt even speak about how easy it is to argue that "financial gain" is a major factor for "allowing to provide the services in accordance with their functionality". I mean.. I'm no lawyer and I don't know how much of such an argumentation would actualy stand before a court.. but the logical flaws are obvious.
I think Im through all stages of it now: Amusement about the depiction of Anthros in their Ads; Disbelief about the sale; Worry about the rights of my art, ideas or any other personal Information I may put up here; Sadness because I miss the days where I perceived Furries as a open-minded friendly small community of spiritual/philosohical/artsy people; Panic, where I better want to remove all information from here, just in case.. ESPECIALY after hearing people talk about the commercial gains of "big data" on this years Cebit; And last, but not least: Trust. No, you read that one right, I think Ill try it with trust. For now.
Why?
Let's elaborate on my view on Furries and Enterprises.
Furries are ( for me ) one branch of a common subcommunity of Interest, established in parallel to a few other communities which center on anthromorphic animals during the days where PCs and the Internet were widely made public, and a lot of freedom was given to create public acceptance to all those strange and (for some) surely frightening new possibilities of the virtual domain to humanity.
Back then, the furry mindset, or at least what I experienced from it, inspired very important values in me. Open-mindedness, my values of Individuality and Art, a community where uncomplicated and spontaneous Interaction was actualy possible and accepted. Paired with a huge amount of creativity and understanding.
I was never too much into the whole pornografic aspect of it, even though I openly admit, that some depictations (with a certain amount of tasteful sexual inuendo, and of course Anthros!) were what highly "inspired" me in other ways during my youth as well.
Well, seeing as how I got quite some social resistance to the path I choose for my life, combined with various "furry drama" I had to experience myself, I strongly disconnected from the community. (On an unrelated sidenote: I really dislike the trend of calling human [be they human in soul too or not] interaction "Drama". Its inconsiderate to the actual feelings participants might have.) I still went regularly to the EF and most of my contacts stemmed from the german furry scene, but it was always overshadowed. First by my own spiteful focusation on the sexual aspects ever since then(which in restrospective I believe is a sort of self-hate, I developed due to some traumatic experiences). I knew entirely well, that it was not only about sex, but seriously, considering a community focusing on such "earthbound" topics as the combination of animals with anthromorphic aspects, combined with open-mindedness.. it would be downright surprising if it did not have a popular bit of sexual content.
And then there was that point, that I was worried more and more (since somewhere around EF12), that the furry way of society degenerates more and more into "just another pop culture".
Seriously? I believe that happened quite some years ago, and I don't see a lot of those things which made the community stand out for me anymore.
So.. is that bad now? Dunno, lets go on to Enterprises.
Its no big secret, that I am neither a friend of "motivation by greed", nor of "financial benefit, no matter the price". From that point of view, I do share the common distrust of many voices I read regarding the takeover. Actualy my paranoid self is highly surprised, the decision wasn't connected to those constant digital attacks during those last months more often, and more focused on the fear for personal losses (of copyright).
Well, whatever, I do believe in the sense of economy as basis of reasonably planned interaction with the world. I also hold those same principles of trust and open-mindedness dearly, which the community inspired me to at one point.
I mean.. yes, there is a lot reason to worry, ESPECIALY in some current developments of the IT environment. Heavy production of a synthetic class divide into technological ressources which could (in a better world state) benefit everyone alike (since distribution is only connected to small additional production cost in comparison to physical products, the restriction to some functions only for "better standing" people signs a strong emphasize on segmenting class status, even if that would seem entirely unnecessary). The focus on technology where Users get less and less control on their systems and more and more (personal) information is tracked and stored on company servers, whenever the User isn't highly sensible for data privacy, and without explicitly asking the user if he actualy WANTS to give that data (and giving him the option to decline..). And last but not least, the construction of "digital Status symbols" (digital content, which cannot be understood as fully-fledged, fair-priced program addons, but is rather a segmentation of a program or game in little buyable sub-parts, or even worse, an expendable gaming ressource, pushing "healthy gaming" into the direction of nothing more, but gambling..) which again does not, from my point of view, make sense from a purpose-oriented view on monetary interaction for human development and improvement.
Anyways.. Im getting sidetracked here.
I have good reasons to distrust both fractions, allthough both are actualy a big part of my life, if not to say: a irreplacable defining part of my lives believes and perspective. So why do I still decide to trust, and wait what will happen from the change?
Well, mostly its the basic principle of self-proclaiming prophecy. If we suspect each politician to lie, each company to be consistant of nothing but mindless greed and everyone with non-scientific believes to be either a fanatic or mentaly sick.. well, we create just such an atmosphere socialy. Distrust, fear and Prejudice always breeds nothing but itself.
Thats true for Nationalities, Genders, but also for corporate Identities and Individuality.
They bought it. Alright. They obviously use some of those negative developments of the IT sector like a focus on digital content packed in Micro-transactions for their other product (instead of just giving access to a full environment for everyone and a fair usage price). Other corporations apparently use a lot of not explicitly provided data for their purposes.
But maybe they still just "do what was thought to them to be the current way digital economics work", instead of being the inconsiderate and greedy monsters some of the comments I read apparently fear them to be. And maybe the contact can have actual positive influence in that regard?
Maybe a company can invest into the conservation of a sub-community as much as they could invest in anti-poverty-campaigns or ecologic projects.. just because they think its the right thing, and its something that could or should be preserved and supported? At least its something I would want to believe, because any believe otherwise would suggest that even the positions with power (i.e. money in this social order) CAN not attempt to influence this planet positivly at all. And thats not a truth I would want to support with the strength of my will.
From my personal point of view a good sign for the company (or Dragoneer as their representative) would be to honour the care of this community for intellectual property in actualy altering point 4.1 of the Terms of Conduct in a way that absolutly no doubt can remain about the companies sole intention to gain publicity for their product and not to grab off cheap intellectual property of others. Seeing as how its somewhat blurry even in the actual revision. You just gotta argument that "the mentioned rights to use, host, store, cache, reproduce, publish, display (publicly or otherwise), perform (publicly or otherwise), distribute, transmit, modify, adapt, and create derivative works have been used for marketing purposes to improve the service and develop more services", and voila, the second sentence gives a free ticket for all-purpose rights already. And I didnt even speak about how easy it is to argue that "financial gain" is a major factor for "allowing to provide the services in accordance with their functionality". I mean.. I'm no lawyer and I don't know how much of such an argumentation would actualy stand before a court.. but the logical flaws are obvious.
