Have you seen Philip's quotes in the new Reuter's piece?

You might want to take a look at what he thinks makes an SL user.

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/04/21/
new-linden-ceo-could-be-named-within-weeks/

And other funnies.

coco

Edit: Never mind, I see there is already a thread about all of us losers living in oppressive regimes with no money, no life, and a lot of rain.

I like the fact that he's not afraid to speak his mind knowing that we're all going to make fun out of him on the forums the next day.

If I was runninig Linden Lab then I'd probably hide under my desk in the fetal position.

Shakeshead head what else is new from Philip Linden

Philip Linden -“The only thing that SL users have in common is that they have a lot of time.”

Daniel Linden - "It's okay you can say it they (residents of SL) are mostly shut in's."


Feel free to add your own.

I must admit the weather is crap here

I've not met a single Eskimo that plays SL

Believe me, I am not making fun of him.

coco

but he is sure making fun of us

Your forum avatar looks like Jauani Wu's

WTG Phil, insult your customers. Must be up there with the 1001 best business practices

Funny, I [play] SL on my laptop sitting on a lounge chair on the patio of my beachhouse in 80 degree perfect weather.. and I don't mind being a shut-in.

Oh so that's why they had to lower island prices. Because we all are a bunch of losers have no money, and live in an oppressive regime. They are so doing all of us a huge favor here.

I gotta say this bummed me out. He often talks about how SL is so exciting because the users are creating all this cool content, and give people tools and environments to be creative and people will be creative. It made me proud of what I am accomplishing in SL.

This quote was so different from that. Ouch!

Well it's not exactly a Gerald Ratner moment. I'm more concerned that his long term project is based on short term thinking such as waiting for PC's to be retired and not considering the implications of more people purchasing laptops.

He blames our computers, when it's his freaking asset servers that can't handle max concurrency and eat people's hard-earned money worth of stuff? Incredible.

He's admitting they are in beta, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up, while their strange customer, losers are fools enough to pay to be beta testers and get ripped off by scams.

So why isn't there a mass exodus? At least the people who know about the insult could vote with their feet.

Some of what he is quoted as saying is true:-

Generally speaking, people who use SL *do* have a lot of time.

Bad weather is a cause of the internet and computers being used more than in good weather.

For many people, SL really is an escape from reality. It doesn't mean that reality is bad or poor, but for some it really is poor.

Poor economic conditions might well be true for many SL users. SL is certainly a *very* cheap hobby, and is quite entertaining in different ways.

I don't really know what he meant by "oppressive regimes".

Overall, it's not really insulting, although it sounds it.


Me as an example:

I have a lot of time on my hands.

The weather makes a small difference, although computers have been my hobby for a very long time anyway.

SL used to be an good alternative to boredom, because I have a lot of time on my hands and very little to do with it. Now I'm only in SL for the money.

My economic conditions were fine when I started with SL, and they are still fine.

I fit most of what he said about SL users, and I don't find it insulting. I wouldn't find it insulting if my economic conditions were poor either.

Perhaps you might be OK being lumped in with a description like that Phil but I expect many people would not be.

As for the mass exodus - there are bigger issues to leave over than Phil Linden dissing us in public.

Interesting article. I think he's a little optimistic about the growth potential but it is there, as the graphics, versatility and stability improve.

I think he's right about SL appealing to people with a lot of time on their hands. But, using my RL as an example, SL has only really eaten into time that would have been spent doing other stuff on the computer or watching TV.

I wonder how much SL has done to help people with SAD - seasonally affective disorder, or winter blues. I tend to be offline more when the RL weather gets nicer.

if it doubled every year that would be 1,600,000 people on line at anyone time within 5 years

Actually this quote is interesting - it shows a lack of knowledge and foresight on Philip's part concerning hardware trends:



The rise of laptop use was predictable in 1999. WiFi was still quite new in 1999, but pretty much mainstream by around 2001/2, so didn't take much imagination to predict its rise in 1999.

As regards laptops "which couldn't do 3D" - well I remember running Quake on a laptop in 1997! It is true that the really powerful dedicated 3D chips are still the domain of desktops, but laptops have had pretty decent mobile GPUs fully capable of 3D for many years which are capable of running all but the top end games quite adequately. A typical top of the range laptop typically is only 1-2 years behind in capability compared to a top of the range desktop.

Matthew

It is a strange little statement; I'm not even sure what he's on about, w.r.t. WiFi: what's the problem? My whole home network rides a bridged WiFi connection, and I never feel like bandwidth is limited, even to the fat fibre pipe on the other side of that WiFi bridge. Maybe he meant public WiFi, with signal quality problems?

The laptop thing... I don't know anybody who did *not* anticipate in 1999 that notebooks would displace a lot of desktops, and I think Philip is either being disingenuous, or misspoke a bit: As I recall 1999, it might have been unanticipated that at this late date there'd still be a one to two year lag in graphics performance of the average notebook compared to the average desktop. It's not uncommon to overestimate future technology like that. (Gibson's famous line, "the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."

But I'm not even sure what different direction they would have taken had they had a perfect crystal ball in 1999. Make the client 2D? To minimize bandwidth and server processing, they've got about the fattest client possible while still maintaining any consistency across agent views, so what could they do to further reduce the Evil Effects of WiFi, short of dumbing-down the whole application?

I kinda feel he's right. If I had Billions of $$$, high paying job, and so on....

WHY would I be here?

I'd be in Vegas or Climbing Mount Everest, Sailing across the Ocean or many other things that are a bit tough to do for certain income levels.

I think the issue is latency rather than bandwidth - the client assumes a very low latency *and* very reliable network end to end. An awful lot of problems are caused by a network packet either being slower to arrive than expected or getting lost. However latency and packet loss problems are not unique to wifi and are a fact of life on the internet!

Matthew

I guess anyone who has the time for a hobby, be it sports, crafts, reading, tv & movies, woodworking, knitting, gardening, painting, writing, car 'fixing', playing musical instrument, must have a lot of time on their hands... Like any hobby, you learn to manage your time in order to be able to 'play'.

It's true that if you're a single parent, working two jobs, your time would be limited. Or if your job IS your hobby, and you spend over 60 hours a week at the office, take calls at home, you may have less time for hobbies like SL.

As for those in far away 'isolated' places, I would agree that SL is a great way to go 'out' without leaving your home, to meet others. The social aspect of SL appeals to many, but not all. Some enjoy the creative side, others like honing their entrepreneurial skills, etc. Did LL send out a pole asking us what we all did in SL, and tie it up with where we lived? I didn't receive my questionnaire.

No one likes to be pigeon holed. Especially from someone who doesn't identify with them. Does Phil even come to SL to play/create anymore? His comments weren't that insulting, they just seem a little uninformed (?), and general.