Visions of the future

i was not present at the town hall meeting; however, i just read the transcript in the Announcements forum. as such, i would like to offer the following response:

let me first refer to a small comment Philip had made, "SL will be more like the internet long term, and LL will probably serve as a kind of central host/coordinator."

with this in mind, in conjunction with the current land "shake-up", i can see where LL has a somewhat gelled vision of the future. the private island increases make perfect sense, they had simply mis-gauged the median cost.
the decision to change auctions to mainly whole sim auctions at the $1k base price, while based on the old average closing cost, is reasonable as well.

we all want SL to become more.. more user friendly, more aesthetically pleasing, et al. for this to happen, LL needs to be able to afford to pay for every little thing involved through only a couple means of income. subscription fees + auction + private island fees = total LL income (from residents).

Philip himself mentioned how they are always trying to obtain the most powerful hardware. these things don't grow on trees.. if we want our world to grow, to evolve, we need to be willing to involve ourselves in that process.

this is not Wow or CoH, SL is unique in that it relies on it's user base for content.. for the development of the entire world (excepting the small amounts of LL content). our financial involvement is the life-blood of SLs infrastructure; whereas, with other MMOs much of the money goes into profit.

Second Life is a dream-child of Philip. this simple fact alone leads me to believe our future is in a pair of hands that are more concerned with the development of creative content and a robust world, than with what profit he can make. don't get me wrong, he (and LL as a whole) needs to be concerned with profit to ensure SLs future, but i don't believe it's the driving motivation at all.

Philip is a dreamer. he's akin to Willy Wonka and we're all a bunch of Charlies. he has constructed the factory, but the keys to it's future are in our hands just as firmly.

again, Philip sees what we've all been postulating for the past year.. becoming "more like the internet". which to me sheds light on a future where SL pretty much is the interenet. now, that's the point where allowing users to host their own sims is relative to owning a website and having LL as the host. offering a different set of services for a different future of internet communication.

lastly, in my opinion, SL is very much still in a Beta like stage of development. we're creating an entire world.. it takes time and every now and again a stumble, which gladly, LL usually learns from and responds in a way beneficial to us.

i may be asking for a glut of grief, but i think their current decisions are logically sound and honestly, they have my support.

-

ps - i apologize if this has come across as dis-jointed, but in the process of writing this i've had to answer 3 telephone calls totalling over an hour.. so i may have gotten a bit scatterbrained.

"let me first refer to a small comment Philip had made, 'SL will be more like the internet long term, and LL will probably serve as a kind of central host/coordinator.'"

Second Life can never, ever, be more like the Internet, and will never be, as long as the rule exists where if you get kicked off the forums, you get banned from the game.

I have not heard of people getting kicked off the Internet, particularly not for what they say on a forum discussing the Internet.

That rule only underlines what a closed society this is, and it makes it more closed than ever now. The rule is regressive in nature, and moves LL's dreams for the future a step backwards.

coco

Would you PLEASE stop doing this? I doubt there is a single person who reads this forum that is NOT aware that you're still pissed over this. We get it. It ain't changing. And you dragging every thread you show up in off into rehashing it is just getting fucking OLD.

(ahem)

As to the original post -- agree almost completely and well said.

think further, Coco. i agree that under the current set-up, no.. SL would not be "like the internet"; however, that's now.. not the future.

we're a basically closed environment and it would require much more freedom for the user and less control (and profit) for LL, but when you're possibly changing the face of digital communication it takes a long time to get there.

think about it, under the logic of "this isn't like that, so this couldn't be that" we wouldn't even have the internet. the original construct was military.. what if those rules, regulations and standards had not changed? forget it.. the internet would be like AIM with pages as calling cards and not much more.

progress takes time.. and yes, at times, it looks backwards.. and perhaps sometimes it is, but that's what progress is about.

it would be an extremely difficult move to go from MMO to "Metaverse", but it could happen with time, patience and yes... a few mis-steps along the way.

so under current conditions, you're right. but i wouldn't be so ready to assume that current conditions are long-term truths.. more like small steps on a very long path.

The internet is not basic html.

I agree Coco they have a long long way to go.

I've thought of it that way, Cybin, but it seems to me like they're moving forward with unpopular things like this new land business rather quickly, so why go backwards in unnecessary ways?

And I agree, it is all experimental and who knows and all that. But as I said, with the idea being to get there, then the step backwards seems unreasonable. And I agree, this current condition couldn't possibly be a long-term truth.

If the vision is to be applied as much as possible, it should be applied as consistantly as possible, too. I'm willing to wait another fifteen years or so, though, or whatever it takes, to see how close they do come to the vision.

coco

Catherine,

first.. hello!

second, how do yu mean the internet is not basic HTML? are you talking about the evolution of the internet or the difference between it and SL?

i would simply like to understand your point a little more clearly.

exactly. thank you for throwing a number out there.. when i say long-term, that's what i mean.. years down the road, not simply a couple releases from now.

also, while they're moving ahead quickly with the new land changes, that's not to say it wasn't thought out before-hand, nor that it's ill planned.

after reading through the transcript, it's a move that could work out to everyone's advantage. it sounds logical to me.. easing land transactions, higher pay-out for LL to keep our world moving forward, possibly slightly higher land prices..

let me interrupt myself.. land prices. while everyone is concerned about "Land Barons" gobbling everything up and then forcing ridiculous prices down our throats, i don't see that as a real concern.

why? because it's already been happening. even among the wealthy land realtors, there has to be shrewd business practices.. and that means competitive prices.. which translates into fair land prices (compared to current prices, not what we think they should be).


and.. if it fails and results in a world monopolized by the realtors who then try to impose unreasonable pricing on us, then i imagine LL would reconsider the move and possible either revert to current practices or implement a new version.

i've noticed through time, that LL is concerned about us and when things go bad, they listen, learn and react accordingly.

people do get kicked off the interent.

I'm afraid this is contradictory. While no reasonable person could argue that LL does not have the right and obligation to take measures to insure its own financial viability, by taking these measures without consulting with the user base, LL has explicitly demonstrated that we (users) cannot "involve ourselves in that process". PL's language separating user-influence from company policy-making was very clear in the town hall meeting.



Which is why the non-involvement of users in such measures is so troubling. Arguing that this is LL's world and they can do with it what they like is both true and obvious. But the counterargument is equally true and obvious: we (users) create LL's world/product - and therefore, the relationship between the corporation and the consumer may be intrinsically different than the usual free market model. You cannot have it both ways: either "we" create LL's world and are in a critical partnership with them - with implied rights and privileges - or we are not.



As I said....



Then the critical piece of information that's missing is what PL means by "more like the internet". It's a vague statement, and can actually mean many different things.

But all of this is like "Kremlin Watching" back in the days of the Cold War: trying to discern ideas, motives, and policies from nuances, subtle acts, and filtered statements. What happens when a person simply asks?

btw, after thinking about this for a couple of days, I'm not necessarily against LL's recent policy changes. My issues have to do with the lack of communication, the lack of user-input, and the lack of anything more than vague statements about what is intended.

You ascribe things to a person which you can not possibly know and use them to paint a fantasy world which has little to do with reality. Because it is feel-good rhetoric that strokes the famous and powerful it goes unchallenged. However, it is no different than the fantasy world Coco paints when she speaks of the glory of our dearly departed Prokofy. I have no point other than that.

This has been a random reality check.

~Ulrika~

Yes. They do. Usenet Admins have been dealing with net-kooks since it came online.

Websites have been banning users about as long.

ISPs have been banning people as well.

honestly, i agree that SLers need to be involved intrinsically with LL and the world we're all creating.

as you mentioned, one could say "it's theirs and they can do what they want".. but they really don't. granted the new land changes where sprung on us and we weren't asked about it, but it's not the norm.

some changes are discussed with the community at length.. even the current changes had some roots in SLers voiced opinions, but then there are times when things are decided within the company and that's just the way it is at that point.

i would do the same thing if i were in charge. involve the community as much as possible, but at times decisions need to be made from a business standpoint, and we never had the golden ticket to the business end.

we're involved with Second Life the world, not with Linden Labs the company. it's a thin line that sometimes gets blurred and isn't readily defined, but the control of that line and everything on the LL side is theirs.. we get massive input/control over everything on this side.

it's a tough world to know about, we're striking out into uncharted territory. and it's the difference between SL and the rest of the market that makes us what we are.. even if we're not sure what that is.

Sorry. This came off as crabby but it was not written as such. Sometimes I can be too analytical and dismissive of the emotional interpretation of SL.

I suspect, because of the big changes being proposed, I'm just trying to find security in my analysis much as you are in your emotions. Sorry! (By the way, the planet Vulcan is lovely this time of year.)

~Ulrika~

i wouldn't say i'm completely oblivious to the person that Philip is. it's not like he was a snot-nosed kid with a scheme to make money.

he was working at a well paying job, he had a career (to a degree, digital content doesn't offer much job stability.. hehe), that would afford him to continue as such without worrying about how he would feed himself that night.

but Philip had a dream and he decided to pour himself into that dream. a small group of people created this place out of their imagination, not their wallets.

so yes, i do believe he's a dreamer, because Second Life wouldn't exist in this form if it had simply been a business model... and we wouldn't have as much input as we do.. regardless of if you think we should have more or not. there is NO other game that gives you this type of control over the world. (complete game overhauling mods don't count, they're not the only version of that world.. it's a seperate experience)

i'm not trying to spew forth any "feel-good rhetoric", i'm simply stating what my viewpoint is, via observation and involvement, which has been cultivated for the past 1 1/2 years i've spent in SL.

although i'll concede that i may have better worded my sentiments as "the simple observation" instead of "simple fact".

-

no offense taken. i'm fully aware that your words are your viewpoint and such logic does not go unheeded. thank you for your responses.

and maybe i'll go visit Vulcan...

Nice posts, Cybin.

At this point in time, at the end of the day, SL is still a product (albeit one with a HUGE amount of user-created content) that helps pays LL's bills and Linden salaries.

At the end of a decade of SL, I expect that we users will have much more control over our Second Lives... provided SL makes it that long. And careful guidance and management by Philip and crew will be necessary to get it to this stage.

hey guys.. it's freakin' SL, give it a break already!

things happen, sometimes we don't like them all that much but.. *shrug* ..it's still a great place for everything from big brain debates to yiffing in public.

yay for SL!



..now where'd my golden ticket go?

Two words:

Kevin

Mitnick.


(PS: The current direction Philip's described is more akin to ActiveWorlds than the internet. Only once SL has become a near-fully decentralized model with no apparent center of control would it become like the internet.)


- Newfie

Hiya Cybin

I think after the town hall yesterday LL would like nothing more than to be the main hosting company on a www.3d.com that much is abundantly clear to me. I would say they need much more than the ablity to put a static page on a prim. The internet it's self is much more evolved than that. If they are pushing in that direction then they need the tools in order to make that happen. I see they are working twords that goal but very far from it when 1.7 will only bring us the ablities of firefox without the plug ins. What sl lacks may change in the coming years but today its just a benz with a lawn mower engine. Look pretty but the guts are missing.

Cat

first, thank you. i try..

second, this is a central point you've made. it's a world they've founded and set us free to create a place we ALL can enjoy. it's not easy trying to please all of the people all of the time, but LL tries.. and that's more than i can ask for.

to get this future we're talking about, not only do we need to create a place that will intice new residents, but LL also needs to make sure that it holds together. sometimes that means they have to make decisions without us, but it also means that they'll involve us in whatever ways we can be.

it also means that when the horse fights the reigns consistantly, those reigns will have to be turned back again.
--



and this is where personal hosting of sims comes in to play. it's our first step towards de-centralized operations. on the other hand, LL should remain top dog in my opinion. complete decentralization would mean the complete breakdown of SL as we know it.. worried about commercialism before? just pack your bags if LL loses that lofty position.

and yes, it's dangerous to have one entity at the top, but i trust this one fairly well. not implicitly, but enough that i believe SL would do well to retain "King Philip" as long as is feasible. for what is a dream without the dreamer?

Catherine,

you're quite right. they are simply small steps i believe..

and the integration of the internet isn't what i see as SLs future, i see replacement of the internet. why view a web page on a prim when you could fly to the content and interact with it within the world?

for instance, instead of viewing the World of Warcraft page on a prim for updates/downlaods/etc., one could see a 3D representation of content. new armor? this is what it looks like when you wear it. want it? click the appropraie "clickable" and get that content.

even the Drudge Report could have an interactive map showing where stories originate.

but what of MySpace types where text is heavily relied upon? well, by the point it matters i'm sure we'll have better means of text input. ways to post forums within secondlife, instead of simply linking to it via a prim.

as i've always said.. think as far as you can and you're merely glimpsing the beginning of SLs future.

i agree with ya

Be nice Ulrika - or I'll have to attack you with my warm fuzzy mitts and tickle you until you wet yourself!

YES! I was thinking this exactly when she first said that. hahaha.... true computer geek right here.

Not off the In-ter-net. They don't get kicked off The Internet. My impression has been that the ultimate goal, the ideal, would be for for this to be practically exactly like the Internet, say, existing side by side along the Internet.

I thought about this on the way to the grocery store. I like threads that give me something to think about.

I was thinking about that wheat/chaff and increasing numbers thing. I was thinking, that is how technology advanced in the first place, and in fact, how civilization itself has advanced. And that takes nothing away from, say Leonardo DaVinci.

But, as I no longer believe this to be a sincere thread, I withdraw from it.

coco