Will SL take over the world?

"SL will totally take over the world." - Philip Linden

I was surprised by Philip's statement.

Other reactions, thoughts?

Hm, was it a figure of speech or meant more seriously than a Vulcan undergoing Pon Farr? In any case, I like the optimism behind it.

My reaction is "Did you ever doubt it?"

Okay, so technically speaking, it's the end of a quote. But LL intends to expand SL to the world, so yes, it seems Philip meant what he said.

For some reason whenever I hear someone say they will take over the world, no matter the context, in the back of my mind an old scratchy record starts playing Deutchland Deutchland Uber Alles...

Dunno why, I'm just strange like that I guess.

Siggy.

This is a very gross concept/statement he is making which makes it troublesome to comment on. Given the changing nature of SL, we can speculate til we're blue, no?

Pirkko has a point, you can't really tell if it'll happen or not.

I wouldn't mind having SL take over the world though, as long as it stays with Philip and keeps doing mostly what its doing now (some slight changes wouldn't hurt! ).

I'm not sure if people would ever fully move over to a virtual world replacement of the internet. Concepts like the Metaverse are interisting, but you never really know if everyone would really use it.

If however the total transition is made, or even if a virtual world just runs along side the "flat land" internet in popularity, I would be pretty pleased with it being SL.

Only time will tell!

SL will take over the world around the same time 3D interfaces take over operating systems.
Fact of the matter is, people prefer 2D. Can't do much about that, other than waiting for the general populace to change their mind, which could take a generation or two.

That's why 99% of video games are 3-D?
You'll notice Windows already is moving toward 3-D. Examples:
- The fact that windows means overlapping stuff
- Alpha fading windows & pull down menus
- The 3-D contoured look of buttons. Take a look at this forum, even. The text area appears to be sunk in, buttons appear to be raised.
- Default backgrounds of Windows have gone from the standard flying windows image to 3-D rendered backgrounds.
- Default screensavers are 3-D.
- Internet content more and more has embedded video, flash graphics.

The bottom line is that people love things familiar, like real life. Real life is 3-D. Immersion is natural to people, so it's something they will move towards.

But this is still besides the point. Sometimes 2-D is more practical. Many aspects of an operating system are more practical in 2-D.

Though, I've seen a preview of a 3-D version of windows. It was very very friggin' cool. You could hide windows, roll them around, flip stuff over, etc. I seem to recall it still was impractical because of hardware limitations. My personal opinion is that Gates will market something like this once it doesn't become a total dredge on system resources.

If we are to have more immersive, 3D GUIs, then surely we are to have improved control interfaces to correspond with that. Current keyboard are loaded with old baggage dating back many years. Even arguments for Dvorak over QWERTY aside (I don't type home row so who am I kiddin' ): most mice right now have a lot more buttons and smoothness in velocity tracking than a decade or two decades ago, but they lack a real third axis. Yes, scroll wheel can be used to zoom in and out for camera, but paired with the 2D display of a monitor which is not a real, futuristic, three-dimensional visual -- like, hologram, whoa! -- you end up stunting what you can intuitively do with technology that you can so dead-simply do with Play-Doh. Sure, we can simulate three-dee on here, but as for interactivity, it can be akin to using baking mitts to sew a quilt.

I was helping a nice person adjust some stuff earlier today. Needless to say, it was awkward having to repeatedly spin around the camera to make sure the stuff was "right in place". It what we have in present-day but future generations will laugh their heads off.

No doubt, someday we'll really be in a virtual environment that will fully immerse us, and perhaps by then, the word "virtual" won't even be used anymore.

The first thing I thought was Pinky And The Brain. I'm not quite sure what that says about me

Taking over the world is a good thing, but of course we'll have to deal with the damn kids.

I love sl.

Secks Saito

Was gonna post here some other national anthems that have some form of "rule the world" line in them, but I think most of them have that in some way. Like banners waving over the land of the free.

At least "Deutschland Ueber alles" limits itself "from Maas to Memel, from Etsch to Belt"

(no, I'm not German)

It will take over eventually, but only if the lowest common denominator is catered to.

This is happening already, so I think we're on track. Of course, I use 'we' in a collective sense excluding some of the top artists/designers, because lets face it, SL existing for just creativity alone died the moment profit became viable.

This doesn't change the motivations of those that create for the sake of creation, but it creates an environment where given enough of an investment (in real currency), change is feared by the users and to some extent Linden Lab, even if it is needed. (No, I'm not talking about patches here, the societal implications of the system is what I'm aiming at.)

Need an example?

Lets look at ratings. We all know it is a broken system, that isn't my point. What my point has to do with is the protected manner in which changes *aren't* made to this system. What should be happening is a total decoupling of linden payments based on ratings. Why? Because the system has failed, its fundamentally flawed. By allowing it to exist, the message being sent is that Linden Lab can't be bothered to examine the issue, *or* it is so low on the list of things to resolve (can't have the money stop flowing in, can we?) that it will persist in its grotesque inelegance forever.

Does this make the userbase care? Some ignore it, others defend it as 'status quo', and a few that want to voice changes to be made to the system are summarily ignored. Or at least the net effect of nearly zero feedback and no published timeline to implement any changes only reinforces this belief.

So coming back round, my main points are:

SL is becoming like the internet was post 1990's - where commercial factors drive the acceptance of LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) developed services and products.
This isn't a screed against capitalism, its an essay about how the 'system' promotes this kind of behavior. L$ is king, dwell is king. Other considerations are secondary.

Remember how indignant you felt when you saw your first web-ad? Too late, its inevitable that the increasing motivation for development is now driven by what people will pay for. Your massive library full of poetry, your gallery filled with non-XXX pictures (I embrace adult sexuality, but at the same time tire of the 'festoon everything with skin' just to get dwell and compensation reinforced by the flawed system in place) will just have to suffer, because the masses will not reward you within the confines of the system, ie, ratings and dwell, which is what the system uses to send a message, loud and clear:

DON'T have a niche interest.
(ironic, since networked environments encourage this, or at least ones that don't rely on dwell do. By using dwell as a metric, you are saying - one person liking your work isn't enough, you must cater to the LCD to have any true impact. I rail against this, because anyone appreciating what you do *counts*, in my opinion. The system is geared to not reward niches or the many small contributions that MAKE Secondlife what it IS. Or used to.)

DON'T spend time being unique.
(Motivation for profit will spur the desire to 'embrace and extend' ideas, not create your own spin or borrow elements to fuse into another totally unique artistic idea. This commonly happens among artists and designers. The key difference here is that in a L$ for profit world, the implementation of ideas is parroting at best, not a true attempt to differentiate yourself from the orignal creators idea. Pretty sad when this occurs.)

DON'T appeal to the 'system' to alleviate your woes.
(Unless said woes directly conflict with the money flowing in, which is coincidentally fueled by the richest players dead-set against any changes, in a majority sense.)

SL is rapidly becoming suburbia, not an artists enclave.

You happy with this?

I must confess, I'm not.

Very good points Maxx.

I concur.

I've heard CEO's crack that joke before.

*edit, i'm gonna be late for work now but, I totally agree with Maxx. And also, the "game" of suburbia should be a download on some other website, that lets you download a small client (which is just the SL client with new artwork). That's right, "Anshe Chung's Estate Game" or something. Players should be able to sell custom SL clients. You could totally remake the SIM's 2 only multiplayer for example, if the dev's were supported more. They could have it all but it does seem SL wants to be the multiplayers sim's 2 instead of letting a dev do that.

Perhaps, one day we'll have the move from a desktop enhancement product, to an actual virtual reality. I mean truely virtual reality. Obviously that's the wave of the future, the technology is here to do that but hasn't been fully realized.

Now that would be interesting, actually talking instead of typing(besides using a headset)
Now that will take over the world!

Maybe Second Life will turn into Second Schism and spawn virtual babies from there, all competing for their mother's attention? Or maybe the child will eat the parent?

Of course, some say "the Internet" is ubiquitous, and there are certain interoperable standards... but heck, in a world where Microsoft can buck the W3, I'm keeping my bets open.

I'd like taste sensors in the future, so I can eat virtual key lime pie!

Sturgeon's Law says that 99% of everything is crap. This is a huge force to be reckoned with around here. I am not pointing fingers, and god knows there are definitely a lot of talented people in Second Life. But one cannot argue that most of the stuff that gets created is lame. Those are your new and intresting ideas. You can write off 'embrace and extend' as something driven completely by profit if you like, but 'embrace and extend' does something besides make money.... it makes Second Life better.

Capitalism is 'the great devil' and it's the root of all evil. But it works, and it works well. It makes things better for everyone, even in SL. I'd bet anything that things are working just as the Lindens want.

I understand, by the way, that the rating system doesn't really do what the docs say it's supposed to do. But I would ask what harm it does. It brings money into the world for people to spend, rewards you for being social, and provides a decent income for people who can't/won't learn how to create content. And without consumers, out hard work would be for nothing.

Having said all that....

DAMN THE MAN! lol

We can put them in boxes, and sell them.

maxx yer emotions are raw, and true, but yer argument doesn really hold water in regards to ll holding features... theres easily 50 people who want 50 different things working better... should every single one of those 50 people then assume that LL is specifically ignoring them as 'intent' or 'policy' just because their specific issue isn't #1 on the todo list?

that'd be probably 49 people then unhappy, and assuming somethin thats probably incorrect.

Yes SL has changed, and alot of the original things aren holding up well (dwell for instance, or ratings, or any number of other things) but to assume thats some kinda personal vision change on LL's part is kinda... silly

you can just say 'well then if its not why don they fix it?'

well okay why don they fix it, and fix all of the outstanding ati incompatabilities, and fix dwell to be less gamey, and fix the sit problems with gestures and noscript areas and fix the lsl scripting loopholes and long standing bugs and fix the abuse system so its more responsive and fix the vehicle on sim crossing problems and fix ghosting etc

the answer is they *ARE* fixing these things.. but LL isn't some omnipotent entity that can snap its fingers and have bugs dissapear... it takes dev time and before even that it takes adminstration time to figure out what to change things too.

LL has expressed interest, in very clear language, in changing the way ratings work. But to do so just to appease you, or appease me, or appease any other person with a vested interest in it is foolish and short sighted.. and will create more problems than it solves.

One of the biggest outstanding issues of dwell was the fact groups didn't get any incentive credit for it. It meant personal casino's got PAID by LL, while group focused non commercial builds got nothing. It took NINE months to work out a system that was basically equitable and mostly fair, with plenty of user feedback.

And lo and behold... the system has recieved a tweak for that, and it works, and doesn CREATE more problems than it solves.

To expect an even MORE ingrained system like ratings, to simply change over night... in some way that while 'better' in many of our views *WILL* screw lots of other people.. thats pretty arrogant... to view the 'failure' of ll to change it by now to the way we see fit.. thats down right silly.



basically to sum stuff up... there are feelings out there, on many peoples parts about many issues.. and they're valid feelings i mean seein a gaudy laggy casino spring up in what was formerly a peacable residential area, that sucks. But blaming LL for every one of those things and saying its willful, thats too much of a reach.

Its not inevitable maxx... Luskwood has slowly but surely spread out over almost an entire sim and 'restored' it from fragmented abandoned commercial buils to a more naturalistic hangout kinda low key unified build.

We're not alone... we're jus quiet... where as the clusinall's (club+casino+mall) out there tend to spam ya every other minute if yer unfortunately enogh to have a callin card they picked up sometime

Very good points eltee.

I concur with this also.

I also would like to say, Jellin if you need a partner in that business I would be more than happy to start Jellin and Oz's Children In A Box.

Completely agree with you, Mike

You're right.

The sound you hear in phobos will be a few hundred prims being deleted.

The system wins.