It's not all black and white.

The whole immersion versus augmentation debate is clouded by one trivial little detail. One is not the opposite of the other. The two aren't even mutually exclusive.

Traditionally these two are generally classified like this:

Augmentationists see the virtual world as a simple extension of RL. It's another space in which things can be done. Like IRC, or the Web or Twitter, or the telephone. It extends what is possible to the user, augmenting their abilities. The augmented user remains themselves throughout, and their activities are simply enhanced. The augmented love things that extend and improve their ability to accomplish.

Immersionists are described as those who see the their time in Second Life as an alternative to the real. They take on new appearances and entirely new personae, quite different to their own. Immersonists hate anything that distracts from their sense of a new, alternative universe.

That's how those are usually defined. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call bullshit.

Why the heck would you pay for virtual goods, virtual land and all of that guff? Because it isn't what it appears to be.

That might seem odd, but it cuts to the core of what Second Life actually is - and most people don't consciously 'get it'. Second Life - virtual environments - aren't what they appear to be, and that's sort of the point. It isn't, perhaps, quite the point that it's made out to be, though.

"A currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and services." - Wikipedia.

"'Fictional Currency' is used as game tokens and have no monetary value in and of themselves and as a result are not be taxable as income. In most cases a fictional currency constitutes a limited license right for use by account holders and is subject to the terms of each Fictional Currency provider. The World Stock Exchange supports the "Linden Currency" (Linden Dollar, LND$, L$, Lindens) and the "World Internet Currency" (WIC, WICS, W$)." - LukeConnell Vandeverre, Chairman and CEO, World Stock Exchange.

Vandeverre is right ... and wrong when he says "have no monetary value". You see, as long as he sticks to first party tokens (W$, in this case) he's right. We're just talking game tokens. However, any interaction with Linden Dollars (L$) or other currencies messes up the statement.