What's the value of Second Life?

After hearing lots of buzz about Second Life, I thought I'd give it a try. But within a few minutes, I was being asked to pay real money to do things in this virtual world. Not having any already existing contacts to lure/guide me into Second Life, I bailed.

And that's essentially the question that the Freakonomics guys asked on their blog today. What's the value of a social networking game like Second Life? Here's the discussion -
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/08/07/why-spend-time-on-second-life/#comments.