I see tons of newbies just now learning that they can buy things! I see building and scripting and clothing classes that are FULL. I see energy and fun still happening.

What I hear from old timers it that they wanted to make a full time income from SL and they are unhappy with the ebbs and flows of freelance income. Of course I feel sad for them, but no one promised you a steady income. If you want one of those, you have to get a JOB. Retail is for risk takers and entrepreneurs. It’s not an easy road in RL or SL. Just because you see old established businesses closing, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of Sl. It means that they don’t fit into the current fashions and market demands. Sorry. Change or die…that is the mantra of markets.

There is huge opportunity in SL. There is money being made Adapt. Change. Innovate. But please stop wishing for the good old days of easy money. It’s over…move on.

“Muscian will still produce musics because they are what make them known for. However, for videogames… there’s a lot of money riding on those “cd” in order to be successful than some music band.”

That statement gives you the answer to half the choices in Gwyn’s poll.

Music is expensive and time consuming to create. 15 hours days, not weeks, are the norm – and there are few people who can afford to dedicate that much of their productive time into activities they don’t get paid for – no matter what they’re working on.

SL made the same mistakes the music industry did. They’re dependent on a constant stream of innovation from the content creators – but neglected to provide the tools to insure they’d be rewarded for their efforts. The in world business model that depended on selling the same old stuff to a never ending flow of “noobs” was just as flawed.

In short – Second Life is a platform where creativity and innovation have no value.

Thanks for the thoughtful piece …. I do wish you would shorten it.

As a solid member of the 100,000 club, I completely agree that the market is “saturated,” or as James Wagner Au puts it, “plateaued.” However, I don’t think you’ve proved your point that the 100,000 is all that stable.

In RL businesses tend to either grow or die. I suspect the same is true in the virtual world as well. Now, if the Lindens can innovate such that growth resumes, many of us will cheer. On the other hand, if SL dies because we migrate to other VR platforms, most of us will be equally pleased assuming that many of the skills we have learned here are transferable … in my own case, I’ve learned Photoshop as well as the rudiments of scripting, animation and video production as a secondary benefit of growing a business in SL.

In either case, I am still convinced, even as the SL economy follows the RL economy into stagnation or worse, that virtual reality is going to be an increasingly important part of Web 3.0. Those who become articulate in this medium today are likely to find an audience in the future, as the boundary between the virtual and the real continues to disappear.

Charles2 McCaw, Next World Design

* It is December of 2008 and never in the 4 years I’ve been on SL have I seen such dismal sales among my merchant friends at SL. Everyone I know is making the same comment: sales are 1/10 of what they should be this time of year. The RL economy has a lot to do with that of course. But that’s not all.

* Largely to blame is LL’s amazingly stupid timing in announcing markup of Open Space sims. That has everyone on edge and has quite likely cut active grid participation at the worst possible time for merchants.

* FACT: Already more than 800 Open Space sims have shut down. That is MAJOR folks. To Linden Lab that is miniscule (only impacts their current income by $60,000 a month). But as far as the grid is concerned, as far as groups are concerned, as far as their customers are concerned… this is major.

Every single sim that shuts down impacts a number of people. Like the well-known pond-ripple syndrome… the ripples travel out far beyond the shut down sim. The damage to LL image, the damage to their reputation and the eventual, predictable damage to their bottom line is likely to be quite significant.

* FACT: Linden Lab’s price-gouging decision has turned the attention of thousands of customers to alternative platforms on the Open Grid network. As of current reports, OpenLife alone has some 35,000 members (which is almost twice as much as when I first joined SL 4 years ago) and the sim orders are coming in so quickly they are literally flooded and are having trouble keeping up with them. That is NOT good news for Linden Lab. Once a leak in a dam starts… it is likely to get bigger. And it doesn’t seem that LL has the internal smarts to patch up the leak.

Three years ago I stated that SL was already in trouble. I told Linden Lab repeatedly that they were headed on a self-destructive path and I told them what course that path would take. Here we are… and the path is well defined.

If we were to take current SL metrics and remove all the NEW customers, tracking existing customers, businesses and monetary measurements, I have no doubt we would see a RAPDILY declining trend. I believe if we were to take new residents alone and examine their land purchase/spending habits, we would find those alarmingly low per person.

The stability of the SL platform (contrary to corporate propaganda) is declining. Group chat fails on a regular basis. Inventory is lost on a regular basis. Teleports still fail on a regular basis after five years of operation. And textures, simple textures, take 20, 30, 40 seconds to load (surely there is nothing more damaging to the merchant force than slow loading textures). Worst of all, Linden Lab knows what is causing texture load problems… have known for months (years?) and simply HAVE NOT BOTHERED TO FIX IT.

That’s just sad. So when I say that Linden Lab has failed in its goal of “the dream” to become the second WWWeb, this isn’t just personal opinion or the rants of a disgruntled user. It’s the professional opinion of someone who has worked in this field for over two decades. Linden Lab is failing. They are messed up. The company is so user-unfriendly and profiteering that they are alienating their customers and literally driving them to the competition.

And no company-skewed, over-hyped and faked “metrics” is going to alter those simple, observable facts.

That’s what I think about it, I don’t sell myself, make some stuff solely for myself and hate it when transporting to a store and see it’s all crap, sometimes the same crap you saw a 1000 times before… So .. DEMO’s Please, also and certainly for quality shops, cos when dress A and B looks good from a particular shop, doesn’t mean dress C will. In the meanwhile I have a few addresses where I buy frequently, because of good experiences, but it’s still a gamble and therefore I want those demo’s…