Is SL being groomed for investors?

My friend Occam was shaving and thinking about the recent events in SL, and this crazy idea just popped into his head. I thought I'd toss it out here on the table, see if we can put it to rest. Occam comes up with some crazy stuff when he gets that razor in his hand!

Are Linden Labs' recent policies intended to make Second Life look good to potential investors? Were non-paying accounts allowed simply to invite noobs and inflate SL's userbase to more impressive levels? Are the forums now being locked down in an attempt to muffle player criticsms and allow Linden Labs to portray Second Life to potential buyers in a more positive light?

I know Linden Labs is good people. And they're good people who apparently believe strongly in the idea of the Metaverse. They're the last people I would think of as selling out to the Megacorps. But think about it. There are a lot of things in SL that could be done better... but which Linden Labs can not afford to change, because it would break existing content. The ancient Poser 5 models are one good example. It doesn't matter how many times you subdivide them, the topology of the meshes is still middling at best. The crotch-smearing UVmaps are another good example. And the scripting system could be a LOT more intuitive... but not without depreciating every single command.

Maybe Linden Labs would like to wash their hands of SL, and start over with a clean slate? I wouldn't blame them... but I would be deeply disapointed in them for trying to hide it, when in the past they have always been very forthcoming to players about exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it.

So. Is SL being groomed in order to make it more appealing to investors? Or are the policies implemented in the past couple months merely a case of good intentions, poor timing, and a little bad luck?

I like Occam too, I like when he shaves his wife's legs.

Anyway I digress.

It's not new we've had the following message on the Community section of our website for a long time:


I'm not in marketing--I do community, so I can talk about it from my perspective. True to the above, being a global community means expanding to international audiences, and making it easy to get in. Which goes hand in-hand with performance+stability improvements beneficial for all involved, which has LONG been a PITA and by no means new.

So in focusing on that, we hope you don't think we're gonna deprive you of new features, including avatar enhancements, altogether. (Remember, puppeteering is coming.) Some of it is just very architecturally difficult work, and certainly, we don't want to break old content. If anything, it's more likely we'd create bridges.

Constructive criticism, as much as it sounds like a cliche, helps us improve. I think each of us owes it to ourself to be happy. It's a life-well lived, whether Second Life is a part of your first life or not.

If you're asking whether we want to encourage positive behavior, the answer is yes.