up, up UP...I'm away!!! (who's coming?)

I joined with about a Million users, anything over 10,000 users at once and linden lags.

Do you know, I missed the mythical Free First land. Oh bummer, they stopped that soon after I signed up.
I kept hoping for a little chunk to play with, but it never happened, then - it was gone.
Then I felt sorry for all the people who had invested in Gambling empires, gone, overnight.
Oddly enough, I was in consultation with a gaming company and recommending they move into SL, oh boy was I glad they changed their mind before they spent a lot of cash. Not much of a gamble, eh? I nearly ended up with some serious egg on my face, whew!

VAT, yes, some of the Americans I spoke to held me in disdain for living in Europe where we pay an extra 17.5% (and more some places) for land. How can we compete? There is your profit margin... gone overnight, done deal, no conferring. Maybe we could have had some kind of movement to lobby our governments to promote international trade on a level playing field? Too late. Too bad.

I looked at open space and thought, hmmm, nice idea, I would like a large chunk for just me and a select few friends, so glad I didn't invest a lot of time building it up, or buying new stuff to put out!, there it was .. gone.

Well, seems like a lot of bankers lent a lot of money to a lot of losers and there it is.. gone! (btw, scuse my ignorance, but what happened to that banking thingy in-world? Ginkho(?))
I had a nice job, now that is gone too.
Guess what is gone now?
... me, from Second Life, I gave away my land, downgraded from Premier to basic.
I might pop in to explore for free, maybe create some free alts for fun, squat out on any sandbox I can find, rez a familiar old building for the few hours I am online - just to get the use out of it.
A real shame they didn't give us what we need to have fun and earn cash, something we can continue to feel confident in, instead, they make decisions like some kind of cruel Diety. It doesn't matter what you put in the blogs, there are too many to read anyway.
But, what else is gone?
My loyalty to SL. I spent the last two years promoting its 'virtues' to friends, colleagues and business associates. This weekend, for example, I have been invited to the local University to talk about Second Life - a whole new generation of budding builders and programmers - can I tell them their prospective business plans are safe in SL? I don't think so.
I must tell them the place is full of griefers, perverts and tricksters, false alts and deceivers. That the land they buy could be worthless tomorrow and any business plan could be yanked right out from under them at any moment. I need to explain that the servers could go down, or it could get laggy - just when they want to do a demo to their own clients. That their inventory items might go missing, or scripts disappear from their products after months of development. That Premier members pay for the freeloader's alts with no real perks. That prims are limited in number and size - just painfully below a threshold that would vastly improve the detail of builds. That the editing system is actually very basic. That we cannot import from serious Cad packages without the slothful sculpties that hang like haemaroids around the place, refusing to rez. That there is no real way to police the community so we are to self-police. That the core support people are distant and sometimes unreachable.

... but, maybe I can tell them about a brighter day.. when someone somewhere is going to come up with a real competitor for SL, something with better texturing, lighting, shadows, uploading and functionality, and have better features, and maybe, just maybe, keep running long enough to enjoy. Something that is indeed owned and built by its members.
Anyone want to form a co-operative and go into competition? If 15,000,000 of us got together and spent one dollar each, we could surely get MS or IBM or maybe a Jap company or a European company to make a better product and provide a better service.
Shit, I bet we must have the expertise between us anyway!!! Third Life? Who's up for it?

I live in a mixture of hope and despair. Is it worth investing my time and money in this thing any more? I simply cannot afford it in the current climate. The choice is a no brainer. With REAL land prices and houses falling drastically who needs virtual land prices to go up?

Sorry Lindy's, this time you really got my dander up. I haven't felt it worthwhile complaining about all the previous disappointments. I used to think you guys were, well, just like us, good-humoured casual friendly down to earth people who went out and banged on the grid till it fell to working, now the corporation has taken over, the behemoth has a new life of its own. I am sure you could make just as fat a profit by providing a better service and reviewing the way you work.

Even in two years, I wonder what my time in-world would be worth? Even at minimum wages, I helped a lot of people get to grips with the stupid unworkable Orientation island. I showed loads of people how to cope in-world and learn the necessary skills. I befriended many a hopeless noob who didn't even understand what "The Game" was about. I mucked in and really helped you guys to build something good, something cool, a whole new world, now it reads like Animal Farm where they changed the writing on the wall, but the chickens were not sure about it.
I was a free distribution line for freebies. I was a marketing tool. I was a Trainer, a Tutor, a Mentor, a friend. I was a builder, a creator, a programmer, each little prim adding something unique to a work of art. Probably THE biggest man made object or project collaboratively built.
Well, here's the thing, it ain't what it used to be. Sad really. Unnecessary too.

Anyway, I need to do something to keep a real roof over my head, can't use Second life from a cardboard box under a bridge!

byeeeeeee!!!! COL (Crying out loud)

This is by far and away the best post on what is happening here, and what will happen, that I have seen. Yes people need a real roof over their head, and if SL can't help deliver that, it needs to die.

Reads like my own story, Alexa.

Where do I send my dollar?

Great thread. Sign me up and I'll even contribute more than a $ -- afterall, that'll mean I'm saving hundreds a month.

Pfft, sign me up too - I'm there with dollar in hand.

Excellent post.

Um I haven't got any dollars but I definately have some Euros going spare............me too....sign me up

Great Post

i felt every line of this post ... kind of sums up EXACTELY my time in SL to the letter .

Heres $50 .... i would rather put it to some use than to something useless .


LL wtf have you done here ?... can you not see that this goes way beyond hurting peoples pockets ?

If you find somewhere to go, let me know... I can spare a few dollars...