You still can interface with your friends, you dont have to use Home for it.... Home is like a chat room :) You pick and choose who you want to talk to

The whole discussion about "free" is pretty silly. The real cost is our time.

The first bar to pass for any experience is "Is it worth my time?".

The second quesion is "If it is worth my time, am I willing to pay for it?".

If the the answer to the first question is "no, it is not worth my time" then the second question about the payment is irrelevant.

But worst, if you already spent hours under the promise of an exciting experience and you were let down then you have all the rights to complain about the waste of your time (which is not free) and about being misled by the promoters.

If you purchased the $400 product partly under the promise of the exiciting free experiences it will deliver and the product failed to deliver then you really have the right to feel cheated.

Yeah, it's not like everyone with actual social skills is out, you know, socializing in the real world instead of in a "virtual world" or anything.

*sigh* Have people missed the whole point with Home as it stands? IT'S A BETA!!

Those people expecting a smooth experience, full of content etc just have too high expectations.

Sure, have those expectations when it's launched as being fully operational, but sheesh, it's a beta product so cut it some slack.

Home has the potential for being something akin to Second Life and Sony should be applauded for at least being brave enough to push the boundaries and try something new.

Incorrect logic. I am a silver member of live. I do not pay anything to use it and I received the dashboard update.

XBL itself is not something you have to pay for. XBL Gold Members pay money for additional features. No one HAS to pay for XBL. Gold members choose to pay so that they can take advantage of premium features.

That is all. Updates to XBL are available to ALL members..you do not have to pay to receive them.

You are aware the final release is meant to be before the end 08 right? How much do you really expect to change within a few weeks? Seriously there are different levels of Beta for games.  For example Halo 3 beta was very similar to final release. Heroes of might and magic 5 was similar but full of glitches. Oh except with Homm5 they actually pushed the release date back. Beta's are basically a finished product unless the product is then delayed.

Oh and it's kinda funny you saying how home has potential to be like second life (i.e. it's trying but not quite there yet) then say they are pushing boundaries and trying something new! You can't copy something and have it be new. Although I would argue Home can never be akin to second life because of it's lack of customability.

I just have to wonder what exactly Sony has even been doing with it for the last year and a half.

from what ive played of it, home is good..... ive met loads of more online buddies on psn and sony will improve home as time goes on.

plus its a free to use and a free download

Sony just can't buy a break.  A lot of this can be blamed on Sony though.  They once again over promised and under delivered.  They have been hyping this for 2 years and finally a public release is less than what people were expecting. Was this what fans were asking for?

The momentum of the Xbox forced Sony to release this early (wasn't it supposed to be released on the 17th?) and it is obviously unfinished.  The bad word of mouth will hurt Home in the long run.  If you read the official Playstation boards there is tons of complaining. 

It will take a lot of work to turn this around and at some point they will need to decide if this is worth it.  Seriously 2 years and this is all they came out with.  It will take another year to add any significant content and by that point the buzz will be dead.

the gold users subscriptions paid for it all though.