Virtual worlds and money makers

well, anybody ready this blog would have guessed that the title of the post attracted me. It's about scams in virtual worlds to get people to sign/buy things they don't really need. It's a technique which builds up on what virtual worlds are made for, earning money, although the technique is in itself quite inadmissible and should be distinguished to the features offered to participants such as additional memberships etc...
But what really is interesting are the comments made after that post. I particularly liked one made by JGM on NOvember 9th, who explained, if I understood him/her well, that virtual goods are a valid business model because it is programmers selling the fruit of their labor in a very competitive market. As such, the sale of virtual goods was completely different from scam/spams which rely on illegal actions to force somebody into spending money (=fraud).

Virtual Goods, Scams, Investigative Reporting And The Media (TechDirt, 9 November 2009)