Competition in the Marketplace

Lots of crap flying through the metaverse as of late. Accusations, conspiracy theories, paranoia, and flat out lies being throw about like stale jelly beans being spit out of a kid's mouth. Those hurt btw, I strongly advise never hang out around kids when they are checking their Halloween candy for whatever might still be good!

Something emerged from my brain though through all this mudslinging the last week or two: Competition. That's a double-edged sword, for anyone who tries to make a buck. No matter what business you're in, it revolves around that almighty dollar (or equivalent for whichever country you reside in). Even charities have to have money to continue functioning on a day to day basis. And even charities compete for it. So what am I rambling about competition for?

Well, there are two thoughts on competition. You can either fear it, or embrace it. There's no real middle ground there. You can't embrace and fear something at the same time when it comes to competition. Which direction you choose to go, will make all the difference in how you behave in the marketplace. Now, while I don't stand for anyone outright lying about InWorldz, for the most part, we happen to embrace competition. Look at our largest competitor... we don't fear it. We embrace it.

Competition is not just a one way street where corporations get to make all sorts of moolah. Although, in today's world, you see most corporations trying to clear the field of any competition, which usually signals something bad to me. For example: I recently left my ISP. They  had a stranglehold here in the Chicago area on internet. For years we had been with them. And every year, they hiked our prices up. It got to a point where I had to call every 6 months to get them to discount it, til one day they told me "I'm sorry, but you'll need to move to our "Blah" package" which was buying all three of their services. I didn't go through dismantling them over 5 years from all their services cause I wanted all their services. I did so, because other companies did the same job, or better, for less. So finally, another provider offered the SAME service, much cheaper, without a "discount deal for new customer". Let me state, this company has already been through the mill and at one time was so huge that the government forced them to break up to start competition. This is what Americans can do when they get really irritated... but that's another blog, for another day.

It is by far, one of the most solid principals that we are founded on: Competition is good. It's good for consumers, it's good for companies, it's good for innovation. It's all around a win for everyone... with one caveat: You gotta embrace it! The minute you start to fear it, you're doing something wrong.

We are starting to see some of this in the Metaverse itself now. Changes being made by grids to offer up something new to their residents. Which is excellent. Why do I say this? Well, we stated long ago who our target market is, that has not changed. We're not looking to be the end all be all of grids, we have seen where that leads to. This technology has amazing potential, and it needs to be fostered and developed. This is starting to happen. There are entire groups, we'd much rather send to other grids, because we simply can not try to handle all the varying issues they will bring with them and detract us from our main big picture. And we have done this, without a qualm inside us whatsoever based on those companies track records. Are they competing with us? I suppose, it really depends on your viewpoint really.

What we're seeing is rather interesting developments though. I wouldn't say this is because of InWorldz by any means btw, but because of the entire Metaverse itself. Each grid doing their utmost to offer unique solutions to their residents. We're seeing changes in the Legacy grid, to changes through out the other grids in how they compete. This is a good thing. It offers Metaverse hoppers the opportunity to really explore out there and find what's right for them. And it promotes grids to get on the ball and really do things their residents want. Which should be unique to them. Not every grid can offer everything. It's simply not feasible. And it drives the grids to rise to those challenges and develop that technology they need to better fit their marketbase.

Even in software, competition drives the technology. You can look back to MicroSoft for a primer in that, with Linux. That brings us to another point though in competition. And it's one that utopians hate hearing  ;) Commercialism drives competition. Anyone remember the government looking at MicroSoft for too large a marketshare? Well there was little Linux, plodding along, opensource, and free. Now, it's a $1billion dollar company... RedHat that is. They were competing with a commercial product, a giant in the industry, because they felt they could do it differently and more in tune to their needs. And they did. They laid down solid groundwork, set up policies for commits and worked it right up.

I'm not saying VW techology is on the same par as the above paragraph, but it IS vital to have a commercial product or two in there to compete against. Or else, there's no end goal... no "drive" to finish it. Unless you're just independently wealthy and have this burning obsession to create competition. Which has been done as well.

So, this is like one of those moments where you sort of have to say "gimme some love" or well.. "give em some love", cause in the end, the competition is good. I suspect we'll see quite a bit of it emerge in the Metaverse over the next year.

Til we see ya InWorldz!