Will 2023 be the last year for SL?

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

But this continous stretch of land at the moment translates to a lot of servers/virtual machines running all the time, just to produce that landscape. Without doing much else, but still creating big costs due to power consumption.

It is nice to have such a thing, sure. But the way it has been technically solved within Second Life is really bad in terms of cost optimization.

 

[Sid]

Only thing that is helpful for SL to survive in the upcoming economically stormy winter is that SL is mainly their only egg in the basket.
So I guess that LL will indeed make an effort to try and survive.

 

[WolfEyes]

I will stick with SL as long as it lasts/as long as I still like it.
It is my first and my last virtual world that I invest time and effort in.
I will certainly not start something new at the moment.

It's not my first but it is certainly looking like it will be my last. I keep looking but I can't find anything that isn't a game. They're all MMOs and not virtual worlds. Or crammed with teenagers.

The same thing is happening with forums.

This isn't what the internet was supposed to be like. This isn't the Information (Super)Highway that was envisioned.

How innocent we all were back then: The Top 20 ‘Information Highway’ Quotes of 1990-1995 – Imagining the Internet

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Only thing that is helpful for SL to survive in the upcoming economically stormy winter is that SL is mainly their only egg in the basket.
So I guess that LL will indeed make an effort to try and survive.

Well LL laid many other eggs, none of them survived.

 

[Luisa Land]

In contrast to earlier years or decades, I feel that the near future is not easy to predict at the moment.
In real life, in the last few weeks, the supermarket near me and some other shops where I used to shop from time to time have just closed up shop for ever. I never expected something like this to happen. Sure, the factors that determine the economic development of sl are partly different. But also only partially
In the world of the internet, the difficult economic development of the real world also plays a controlling role. In addition, there are changing habits of media use by the users, which are certainly also partly related to the age of the users. I don't know the age structure of the sl-residents. Nor am I clear about what different groups of sl users really appreciate about sl and what they expect from sl (and how big these groups are and what economic potential they have)
So with my limited knowledge of all the factors, I can only speculate wildly and hope that sl - despite all the criticism - will be around for longer.

 

[Sid]

Under normal circumstances I would say that SL has at least a decade of future life to come.
But sadly I personally think the world is on the brink of a deep recession that hasn't been around for a long time.
I know I will dump SL the moment I no longer can justify the expenses.

 

[Tirellia]

I still see people spending a lot of money on computer games and other online activities. No doubt there will be some people who will abandon SL or curtail their spending in SL a lot. But others will probably keep up their SL spending and buy fewer games or fewer subscriptions. My reasoning for this is the perceived value of money in SL. A World of Warcraft subscription costs roughly USD15 per month. That would buy L$3,500. Go to the 25/50/75 L$ sales and that's a lot of stuff for playing dress up. And just as people might decide not to go to the pub or a restaurant but get a takeaway and open a bottle of wine at home, so they might decide against the cinema or theatre and stay at home and play some SL. As everyone else is saying, it's hard to predict.

 

[Monica Dream]

Under normal circumstances I would say that SL has at least a decade of future life to come.
But sadly I personally think the world is on the brink of a deep recession that hasn't been around for a long time.
I know I will dump SL the moment I no longer can justify the expenses.

I'm dumping my homestead, I already have a basic account and am just puttering around on a few parcels scattered around the grid.

No one gives a shit about building anymore -at least not ameteur building ..which means no one gives a shit about MY builds any more which means that I don't honestly need much more space than a place to unpack stuff at.

That may sound like self pity but it isn't ...I think most people are in the same boat and will sooner or later ask themselves the same question I'm asking myself: "what the fuck possible use do I have for this land I'm paying so much money for?" and come to the same conclusion I'm coming to: "none, to be honest".

I'm not "omg leaving sl forever" exactly, but I'm pulling back. Where I live, the price for a 2lb block of cheese doubled in the last three months or so -that's one single example. Prices are rising on everything it seems like.

Who the hell can afford to throw so much money away anymore?

 

[Ayesha]

I barely log in anymore but my land business still does all right. I joined SL in 2007 and got really involved in 2008 in the middle of the recession. Second Life was huge then because it is cheap entertainment. You can enjoy live music and just tip the performer $2, rent a plot of land of decent size for $10-$20 a month, and buy yourself several outfits for the cost of a real-life pair of jeans. I am not confident about the future of SL simply because younger people don’t seem to be joining. But if anything, a recession could bring people back just as they returned at the beginning of the pandemic because they needed something inexpensive for entertainment. If SL dies, it will not be because of a recession.

 

[Sid]

The difference between the 2008 recession and now is the huge inflation. In the US little over 8% in Western Europe 10-12%.
RL living is really getting expensive. And wait until the heating season starts. And the real recession has yet to come IMHO.
That the US barely scratched that mark in the last months, is nothing.

Where I live in NL economy is even still growing a bit at the moment, but last week was on tv that an awful lot of companies don't pay their bills on time any longer. That is no bueno in my book.

My electricity bill has doubled since my old contract expired last May.
People who are at the end of their fixed gas contract (we mainly use gas for heating in NL because we were one of the top global producers in the past) see prices go up with 200 - 300%.

I hope I'm wrong, but the 2023 - 20... will turn out to be a real big one.
And since SL most expensive part is land, people will ditch that first. Land is by far the biggest income source for LL.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I think we need to remember the kind of people who own SL and what kind of investment it represents for them.

They're mostly techies who have become so wealthy that their main money problem is where to put it all and, as I understand it, part of such people's typical investment portfolio comprises shares in a bunch of interesting niche businesses like Linden Lab/Tilia, some of which they know will do well over the next ten years and some of which won't, but that doesn't matter so long as the whole portfolio, taken overall, performs reasonably well.

If one of their companies hits the big time, then great, but I think LL is now the sort of company where you park the odd few million dollars for which you have no other use, and so long as the business continues to be well-managed and doesn't look to be heading for disaster, you don't worry about its short-term performance.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

It's not my first but it is certainly looking like it will be my last. I keep looking but I can't find anything that isn't a game. They're all MMOs and not virtual worlds.

NeosVR

Or crammed with teenagers.

Can't help that.

This isn't what the internet was supposed to be like. This isn't the Information (Super)Highway that was envisioned.

It's almost exactly what the Other Plane was envisioned to be in _True Names_ (1981).

How innocent we all were back then: The Top 20 ‘Information Highway’ Quotes of 1990-1995 – Imagining the Internet

The Internet had already discovered sin by 1985 with the net.suicide takeover.

 

[Khamon]

alt.binaries...

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

That came later, along with alt.sex.binaries... there wasn't nearly enough bandwidth in 1985: there were still 56k links on the backbone.

 

[Noodles]

Under normal circumstances I would say that SL has at least a decade of future life to come.
But sadly I personally think the world is on the brink of a deep recession that hasn't been around for a long time.
I know I will dump SL the moment I no longer can justify the expenses.

The thing to consider.

Basic SL.is relatively cheap, compared to RL. So in the event of this recession, which I agree is coming, people may be more included tondo virtual things they can afford, or for free, versus real world things they cannot. At least for "travel".

 

[Sid]

The thing to consider.

Basic SL.is relatively cheap, compared to RL. So in the event of this recession, which I agree is coming, people may be more included tondo virtual things they can afford, or for free, versus real world things they cannot. At least for "travel".

True, but basic accounts don't pay LL's bills.
Their money has to come from premium, premium plus and land business.
The money exchange is peanuts compared to the above.

 

[Maitimo]

True, but basic accounts don't pay LL's bills.

They will, now they own Caspertech. All the commission from inworld sales and rentals will go to Linden Lab now, instead of to Casper. Basic accounts may not be paying for land but they're certainly still shopping. And thats not counting the fee for purchasing L$.

 

[Sid]

L$ is no money to be made for LL. They can print those tokens themselves.
Only thing that the L$ commissions from the marketplace sales help with, is stabilizing the L$'s value and it creates some extra new demand.
They only make money on the USD they get for premium, premium plus, exchange commissions and most of all land.
From free accounts that hold no land, they only make the exchange commissions. Peanuts realy.

Most merchants (especially the bigger ones) don't pay commissions for sales through Caspervend at the moment, they will use the version they bought from Casper.
Small merchants might use the free but with commission version.

 

[WolfEyes]

NeosVR

Can't help that.


It's almost exactly what the Other Plane was envisioned to be in _True Names_ (1981).


The Internet had already discovered sin by 1985 with the net.suicide takeover.

VR? Who is going to pay for the headset and all the accoutrements?

I have no idea what those other things are or were, so I don't see any relevance.

 

[Monica Dream]

VR? Who is going to pay for the headset and all the accoutrements?

I have no idea what those other things are or were, so I don't see any relevance.

I'm not even worried about cash -tech finds a way. My thing is that I don't want to look like a complete moron waving my arms around or have a heart attack when someone IRL tries to get my attention and shocks me out of vr.

I also suspect I'd be prone to neausea but it's 50/50 so I'll ignore that.

Yeah, I'm giving the whole thing a huge pass as well.