The Second Life Freebie Shop Experience

Looking for Second Life freebies was an eye opening experience. I learned many things including that not all freebie shops are giving from the goodness of their heart. As an experienced SL resident, I thought the most annoying thing about freebie shops would be that small contingent of noobs who are just out to make trouble. You know the ones that walk up to everything with curves and ask "Do you like sex?" or the one wandering around with his attachments out—basically the ones you strongly suspect as being 12 year old boys. The worst thing however was the commercialism. There are only one or two places out there that seem to be genuinely giving to the community or giving anything of decent quality. The majority is in it to make money and give as little to the noob as possible.
The most striking thing about my experience is that basically most of the Second Life freebie places are offering the same old junk. Once upon a time someone set out a bunch of stuff for free and with copy/transfer rights, and now everyone is giving out the same crap. Some of it is decent stuff but my point is: if you find one decent freebie place then you have seen them all barring a small handful with unique contributions.
When evaluating Second Life freebie shops based on content, I discovered three types:
• The places that have the same stuff you see everywhere else and are basically just using the freebies as an easy way to get a large number of people to come to their location, because somehow they are making money off of the traffic (i.e. – ads, ATMs/surveys, "almost freebies", other full price stores nearby etc.)
• The places with similar motivations as above but which were making a little more effort to actually provide the noobs they draw in with something of value
• The places that were just giving to noobs and the SL community and not trying to make any money out of the venture.
I saw "shifty" things while out looking for Second Life freebies. Some places claimed to have freebies but had instead "almost freebies." Before you spend 1L or 5L on a "freebie" look at other freebie places. Most likely you will find it for 0L elsewhere. Some places had notecards that said "We do it for the Noobs!!" or "Everything here is free!!" and this was just a bunch of BS.
If you are looking for good Second Life freebies find a place that is attached to a store or and is giving away some of their own products as well as the usual line up of freebies. Find one that is not too spammy and not constantly trying to get you to complete surveys and make sure the stuff is actually 0L—remember you’re looking for freebies!

Hottie Something,
Reviewer in Chief for Second Life Review