Phoney Worlds, Play Money?

In the article "The End of Cash as We Know it?", Patsy Everett forsees mobile phones being used more and more as a means for making payments of an expanding variety of goods and services. In the near-term, such goods and services may be limited to those provided to the phone user through their carrier. As the article states, "The consumer is not interested in the payment mechanism the retailer is going to use...Consumers do not want an interesting experience with an interactive payment product; they wwant it to be quick, easy and secure."
Now this discussion may seem a bit off-topic for the theme of this blog, but it has made me wonder if the electronic payments for goods and services delivered to mobile phones isn't more like MMOG economies than it might first appear. Janet H. Murray, in her book "Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace" describes digital environments as having four main characteristics: they are procedural , participatory, spatial and encyclopedic. Let's see if the mobile phone ecosystem and its members and services fit this description.
Procedural - Phone transactions are highly automated. That is, they follow very specific and often lenghty procedures (steps) in order to accomplish even basic tasks like dialing a phone number, sending a message or announcing an incoming call with a ringtone and caller ID.
Participatory - The purpose of the phone network and the phones themselves is to put us in communication with other phone network "members." Some carriers (e.g. Cingular) even provide status information about other members, like whether a person in you contact list has there phone on or if they would rather not be disturbed.
Spatial - When you call someone, in a way you are "transporting" or "connecting" yourself to their location. It's as if you are right there talking to them. Phone services also include features for seeing your location or someone else's on a map and providing directions to that location from where you are.
Encyclopedic - The phone network and its users have information and provide access to information. The phone remembers your recent calls. Data services like email and web browsing provide access to personal and public information.

With this new perspective of the cellular phone network as a virtual game, we can examine its economy in the same light as MMOGs.
Paying "real" money for "virtual" currency - Prepay phone services take your real-world cash and give you a number of units/minutes/credits, etc. which you can exchanges for goods or services provided by the phone carrier.
Receive free or discounted services in exchange for receiving advertising - Coming soon to a phone near you! See this MarketWatch article regarding Google's efforts in this area.
Be someone different - I can have different status, standing and appearance in my phone "persona" than I do in real life.
Generate and accumulate virutal wealth - Prepaid carrier Tracfone has a referral system that earns 120 minutes. Receiving ads (see above) is a way to earn minutes on Virgin Mobile phones.
Selling accounts for real dollars - Prepaid phone minutes/credits/etc. are associated with a particular physical phone. You could potentially earn a lot of free minutes and then sell the phone. Search "tracfone phone" on eBay and you will see phone with minutes being sold for prices that should at least cover the original cost of the phone - just like MMOG players who sell their accounts when leaving a game so they recoup some of what they spent on playing.