Where to Go?

Let's face it. Volumes on SL Capital Exchanges (all of them) are dismal, and liquidity is a major concern for investors. "Why should I plunk down several thousand of my hard-earn Linden Dollars if it'll take me months just to sell at a break-even price, and that's if I'm lucky?" With liquidity locked up, major investors will have a hard time realizing a profit on their investments, even if the market values of the particular stocks rise. So how do we fix this?

It seems that whenever a SL company goes belly-up, the CEO simply throws their hands in the air and walks away. That's because it's a possibility in Second Life. There is no chain connecting the CEO to the viewer which makes him or her responsible. Threats of legal action are simply idle talk, as even recovering something like $20,000 USD (about L$5.4 million) would be silly in the context of lawyers' and courts' fees (not to mention your time) to get it.

Certain exchanges have made progress in the realm of removing the complete anonymity of CEOs by requesting IDs for IPO clearance. Nevertheless, even if you know their ID, what good does it do you? Again, legal fees are too prohibitive.

I hesitate to say it, but I think it may be time to tie some more legal strings around the CEOs of SL companies. Some have suggested using promissory notes, but it sounds more like a fidelity bond issue to me, if there was an insurer who would ever cover it. The point remains the same, though: sending a message to CEOs that this is more than a game (in spite of the hypocritical boilerplate language at most exchanges), it is a responsibility which will reach out and slap you in real life if needed.

Before I let this tirade go too far, I do realize that this is not always something that a CEO wants to take on. I daresay that the salaries earned by most SL CEOs are nowhere near enough to compensate for the trouble which these legal ties could cause in real life. Maybe that's the answer, but I hope not.

I'd love to know how to restore investor confidence, but I'm just not seeing a way of doing it without giving investors some sort of recourse for CEO inadequacy or fraudulant activity.

Anyone else have other ideas? Comments?