Thought: Online Equivalent of Homes?
Valerie and I were looking at several real estate listings last night, both in California and Missouri. A house with 4 bedrooms was for $329,700, while another one with 5 bedrooms was for $2.7 million. One house with two garages was for around $495,990, while another one with multiple garages was for around $19 million. For a certain price, you could buy an area on this earth that could hopefully belong to your name forever, unless a meteor comes along and changes things.
Valerie and I wondered if everyone who could afford those multi-million dollar homes was a drug lord. I know some of them are, for when you go out drinking with people, some of them will reveal the things they do to make their first million. It can indeed be a good thing to go out drinking with different people; you’ll learn how people do things like dealing with illegal drugs, even in counties and cities considered the safest in the country.
Today, I am thinking about the homes and the future of the online world, and not drugs. What I am thinking about is the online equivalent of homes. What are they? What is it in the online world, that you consider as important as your house?
What the feelings about homes could be all about
Before one can think about having something as precious as a home in the online world, one needs to figure out what kinds of things are considered important on similar levels in both the online and the offline world. A home is considered by most people to be the most important, personal and valuable property someone can have. You rarely see people respecting and getting close to homeless people right away; many people assume that if you do not have a home, you are to be less respected. It is as if the homeless people have done something wrong by not having a home: a home is an essential thing for you to have, if you want to live a life where the society does not loathe you every minute of the day.
A home is also what you cry for when you are sick, the way many people cry “Mommy! Mommy! WHERE ARE YOU MOMMY!?!” when they get sick. In fact, you cry for Mommy after you have cried for and gone back to your home, from wherever you were. Also you hear people say “I wanna go home, I don’t feel so good.” You do not hear people say “I wanna go to an internet cafe, because I don’t feel so good.”
Thus, considering such things, can we have similar feelings for something in the online world?
What is the online equivalent of a home?
What is the online equivalent of a home? Is it a website? Is it the popularity of a website? Is it the money a website owner makes from the website? Is it the identity of a person? Is it our presence on different channels of online communication? Is it the value of our contacts? Could it be the celebrity status of a blogger? Is it our e-mail address: “Hey, nice to meet you. Why don’t you come over to my e-mail address, though your e-mail address, and we can chat? Hmm, you can e-mail me this Thursday, say, at 7 pm?“? Ever hear that on a regular basis?
Could it be a combination of all of these, or is it something completely different? What is it that can be considered a universal form of a “home” in the online world?
The elements are everywhere, and I have identified the relevant reasons. I guess being in my home, among the many other places, helps me make simple things more complicated and vice versa, than what they are, for myself.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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( June 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm )
Hehe, I’m always amazed how you can take such an “offline” thing and turn it into an “online” one.
My issue is that it blows my mind not only that so much money can be spent on such a small thing (relatively small in terms of the world) but that there are actually that many people out there who can afford such things. The prices of homes just floor me, everywhere. Man, I know people who bought their first house in the 50’s for around $10k and today those houses with next to no land are worth over $100k. Inflation annoys me.
( June 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm )
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( June 21st, 2007 at 7:43 pm )
Valerie, thanks! Our conversation prompted me to think of this idea, actually.
The real estate prices are indeed, and the story of houses being cheap before is what I encounter regularly also. Many times, the landmarks and the areas haven’t changed, but the concept of owning lands has caused people to start something similar to a gold-rush, and the bubble keeps popping slowly and forming repeatedly at the moment.
I wonder if we can have something similar online, where something equivalent of a home is also considered important or dear in the online world. Do you think there is such a possibility, and what it could be?
( January 16th, 2008 at 12:53 am )
I’ve heard that there is people making big money selling virtual real estate online. These are properties that exist exclusively in the virtual realm. One gal makes over a hundred grand a year selling these virtual properties.
I sell real estate for living in the real world, and heck, maybe I should get in the selling real estate online, virtual real estate, that is…
Eventually, mankind will become digitized and live in “the matrix” anyway.
( February 12th, 2008 at 10:48 pm )
Thank you for sharing that thought and information MN Home Investors [may I ask if there is something else I can refer you with, please, if that is ok?].
I see from the url you listed that it is a website related to investing in the real estate arena: do you invest yourself also? Does it make money? What kind of virtual realm are we considering here, by the way? Do you mean selling offline real estate through the online world, or something like in games similar to the Sims?
Since January, have the prices or value in MN area gone up or down, in your view? Can someone make a good living by selling real estate offline, or is the online world taking over that job sector also by combining it with the online job counterpart?
Thanks.
( April 30th, 2008 at 10:51 am )
i have read somewhere about what you said here… it is happening now… having your own online property has become a reality… or better call it a virtual reality… this is because of online games like second life, an online graphic RPG… where you can have a virtual representation of yourself… where you build civilizations, interact with other people, and basically do whatever it is you do in the real world, online… and yes, some large portions of property that bears a resemblance to a real world property are selling for hundreds of dollars an acre… the idea is, you buy a property and do whatever you want to do with it… even your very own, precious home…
( May 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm )
Hi Mike, and thanks for the comment.
Like you mentioned, many games are actually charging people money for different online things like properties, objects like clothes and armor, and more. People pay actual money through their debit or credit cards online to get online credit to have stuff in the game. We are entering a phase where our money is being spent on online stuff that resides only in our mind, and our monitors. Maybe what the mind thinks and see is real?