Why buy virtual goods?

We, as a society, and by society I mean basically everyone in a developed nation with discretionary income, buy loads of crap. We may complain about the economy of our country or our own personal economic state and how things have gotten so expensive and we can't afford all the stuff we want to buy, but for all that complaining we certainly accumulate a lot of stuff.

Every time we buy a new pair of shoes, a new electronic gadget, or that thing we just HAD to have that we saw on eBay or Craigslist or when we were out running errands and made a few impulse purchases, we are adding to our huge collections of "stuff". Not only can we not possibly use it all, I think most of us are running out of places to put it all.

If we already have more stuff than we can reasonably use (the clothes in your closet that you've never even worn that are now a few years old, that motorcycle you were going to ride every weekend that you take out maybe once a year, the books you bought but never read, all that stuff you bought for your "new" hobby that you never quite got around to starting...) then why do we keep buying and buying? It seems like a a compulsion. We are descended from hunters and gatherers and we find it quite difficult not to keep hunting and gathering every chance we get. It makes us FEEL good and advertisers don't make it any easier, always trying to sell, sell, sell and convince you that you HAVE to have the latest gadget to dust your blinds with or a free extra set of knives with every set you purchase.

What are we supposed to do? We are living in a world of plenty. If we don't always feel like that is so, it may be because our expectations are so much higher now. We don't expect to buy only one pair of shoes (if we're lucky) a year or share a phone with everyone in our house (much less everyone in our little town.) Most people in developed nations have soooo much more discretionary income than even one or two hundred years ago...it's a new development that we are perhaps by nature somewhat unable to deal with.

How many people now have storage sheds out behind their homes to hold all the surplus stuff that they just *had* to have and now may have even forgotten they own? Oh how I envy people with attics and basements, or even just more closets than I have. My solution is sometimes to move and simply don't take all the STUFF to the new location. This technique produces a very managable amount of stuff for a while, but a few years later I am right back to TOO MUCH STUFF. People see me carrying a Whole Foods cloth shopping bag toward them and they just run the other way...they just assume I'm going to try and unload some of my extra stuff on them, and they're probably right.

So, if we have discretionary income, and we don't need to pack our homes until we can't even walk through them and can't seem to stop ourselves from buying way more stuff than we need, why not buy things that take up no space at all? Isn't that the logical next step? Forget just getting a better closet organizer or buying some more shelves, instead switch to things you can store on a computer hard drive...which, by the way, stay the same size as they continue to hold more and more data.

Why not buy a virtual pair of shoes instead of a real one? Fits perfect every time and you can probably buy a few hundred pairs for the same price as that pair of Jimmy Choos or those Manolo Blahniks. Or...a new car. You could buy a new virtual car every day. A new home! Heck, you could buy a certain style of home in a virtual world and it might help you decide if you'd really like that style of home in the real world. Or try painting the (virtual) walls a new color to help you decide if that color is right for you.

In a virtual world, you can shop 'til you drop and not only will you get more for your money than in the real world, but you don't have to worry about where to put your purchases or whether they will fit. Your car won't break down, your shoes won't wear out. I have sold virtual currency since 2003 and I have seen many of my customers get just as much pleasure from virtual world shopping as from real world shopping. I think it fulfills a basic need we have (the hunting and gathering instinct) and yet in a way that is less harmful to your wallet, the planet and your living space.

As the world as a whole becomes more and more affluent, we need to find ways to entertain ourselves and satisfy deep primal (shopping) urges without destroying the planet. So, why not try going virtual?