Soon it will be gone forever
October 20, 2010 4 Comments
So, Philip Rosedale is stepping down from the CEO role at Linden Lab again, if in fact he ever came back. As might be expected this has fuelled the ongoing speculation about the company’s future, with the consensus (based on my entirely unscientific survey of the usual SL blogs) being that the move is a sure sign that the Lab is headed for merger, sale or liquidation.
I have no contacts among the Lindens, nor any inside knowledge of the industry, so I have nothing useful to add to the debate. I don’t usually let that stop me sharing my uninformed opinion of course, but I’m in the middle of a “Second Life? – meh” phase at the moment, so I can’t really summon the energy to think about it.
I’ll have to get interested again soon though, since I have to come to a decision about whether or not to renew my Premium account next month.
How invested am I in Second Life? I have a patch of mainland which cost me about US$16 back in 2007, though I doubt it’s worth that now, and about L$35K in virtual cash, which is, what, US$120? If I shelled out for another US$85 annual membership I would be in for around US$200, which isn’t a huge amount, but it is a sum of money that I could spend on something else.
The obvious solution would be to cash out my Linden dollars and use the proceeds to pay my subs, and I expect that’s what I’ll do. I’ve stuck around this long, I may as well see it out to the end.
Second Life Shrink 
I am struggling with the same question – premium or not? It will be “not” i suspect….
OpenSim will continue to grow. i don’t know if it will replace SL, but it has for me. from 19 sims inSL to no longer having an SL account. i am in virtual worlds just as much as ever (about 20 hours a week), just with my own grid
Do you meet many other people though? The one thing that SL does have going for it is its critical mass of residents. I guess Open Sim will catch up with time though.
no i don’t meet many other people because i am in a private grid only building science things. there are only 6 accounts that can hit this grid atm. i was on the Reaction Grid for about 8 months and there were never more than a few people on
the numbers are not there yet and SL will stay large for a while to come
but there is a shift and i look at linden losing this customer who was paying $2920 per month to them, that will have an effect at some point . . .