Back when I was a wee newblet (the second time around), Secondcast was the Second Life podcast to listen to. Since that time, almost two years ago, they've recorded 63 total episodes, of which only about 13 of them were in the last nine months. One fifth of the cast, Lordfly Digeridoo, recently pronounced Secondcast dead, after months of inactivity.

While I can't speak for them, I can speak as someone who has been on the show four or five times, with the latest being an episode that never aired in July. I heard the tone of the program change before me. What was once a fun project ended up taking a backseat to their own personal projects. Walker Spaight wrote a book, Johnny Ming and Torrid Midnight went to work for the Electric Sheep Company, Lordfly Digeridoo for Millions of Us, among others, and Cristiano Midnight busy as ever with SL Universe.

Instead of focusing on the fact that it's gone, though, I'd rather relate a happy memory I have from the show. After having been on a couple of times, Johnny asked me to make an episode into a Machinima. It turned into a total disaster. The rest of the cast was really bored and did not hide that fact. They goofed off when I needed screenshots, then got cranky before they were to watch all the Machinima.

Read on for the rest of the story ...

This isn't about Linden Lab billing, though you might have thought so from the title. Lordfly Digeridoo has an excellent point about the whole MDC business (that's Metaverse Development Companies). Basically that the whole shebang can fall down because a percentage indulge in poor payment practices.

That is, they pay like money-juggling startups, or impenetrable behemoths. Either way you get paid late or never, which drives the creators away from the problem MDCs (because creators talk to each other), who have to fall back on more inexperienced creators, clients get bad experiences, and the MDCs who do do the right thing start starving for clients too (because clients talk to each-other too).

Granted, I've yet to see someone like Australia's Telstra, who have always paid my invoices promptly (in 4 to 8 years - I have no love for them and stopped doing work for them years ago. Still waiting on payments, however) - but when I've signed a contract which clearly states 30 day payment terms, and I'm told 3, 6, 12 months later "Oh, it takes time. that's how we do things here. There's a process." - Well, why did you give me a contract that said 30 days?

I'm comforted endlessly by the fact that there is a process, of course. As it happens I have a process too, which is to mention your payment policies to anyone I know who might be considering signing up with you.

At the end, maybe one third of the contract jobs that I've taken on have paid up, and exactly one of them has paid on time. Many of the rest are in the 30-day rinse-repeat cycle of "Golly. I can't seem to find your invoice. Could you send it to me again?" which alone can string things out for many months.

And to contrast, there's blogging. It pays. It pays regularly. It pays on time, every time. What should I spend my time on? Tough call, huh?

How many of you are in the content creation MDC-subcontracting business and have been paid late? Or paid never?