Sell Out

Yogi Berra once said of a Famous Restaurant: Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded".

But what you did not say was that the restaurant started expanding into neighbouring outside areas and put little food prep areas in and sold the use of them to various other people, who made money by cooking and selling to some of the free loaders who liked the quality they added.

The atmosphere was not the same as it used to be and many of the original paying customers left.

I very seriously doubt this considering I've worked middle managment in a fortune 500 company for over 10 years.



I wouldn't call the edit brilliant, I would call it spot on though. I think the OP would agree.



You think Al Gore did invent the internet. No suprise there. Hate rant?. You're the one trying to give a civics lesson on shit you know nothing about. Internet expierence? Who cares. Dude you're out of touch.



Why, who gives a shit what you think? The OP made a statement and you when into some bullshit about how it should be made.

You seem to have alot of time on your hands fanboi.




um, yeah Mr. Spock, I'll be sure to call you when I need a civics lesson or a block of insturuction on snobbery.

There is always a balance of perspective... I DO remember the 'old days' of SL and I'm no real oldie, there are those older than I in SL. However, without advancement and evolusion to an open framework 'game' like SL, it would be no more than a glorified chatroom. Look around and see what facilities and freedoms we now have in SL compared to back then?
Premium accounts do not support wholly SL, they are but part of a structured revenue path. You only need a Premium Account to buy land direct from LL, many 'free accounts' holders own land via a third party creating a layer of commerce. A lot of Land owners would no longer have a market, if everyone had to be a Premium account and purchase land direct. To use a blanket phrase like 'Free accounts are predominately greifers' is unreal.. there are a huge amount of good people with that same status. LL have many revenue paths, monthly teir, exchange rates for the monopoly money L$'s, upload costs etc..

How many of us would be effected if they withdrew flexi, texture uploads, animation uploads, gesture uploads, media applications, scripts the list goes on. I joinned SL 3 years ago because I could see growth potential, commerce levels, creative freedoms. It was even then more than a 3D chatroom.

I would like to have seen less growth in certain elements, but I don't have the right to decide who can do what with this 'game', nor does anyone else other than the creators LL. What I do aknowledge, like with RL, where their is gain, there is a balance of pain. Would I want to go back to spring of 2004? No way!! For the most part, but what is here today, that wasn't then, is worth the percentage of pain for the gains.

...There are five FIVE CLASSIC RED FLAGS OF FLAWED LOGIC, that indicate clearly that someone's "argument" is designed to keep you from thinking logically/critically. These diversionary strategies are commonly employed to play upon everyone's emotions, thereby (hopefully) circumventing intellectual processes.

This diversionary tactic, being employed here, often works quite well, simply because ANY third party will be hesitant to side with a person already being publicly ridiculed, lest they then become the target themselves. This is frequently the hallmark of a person who knows in advance they cannot win the argument/debate going in. They know, or at least strongly suspect that their point of view is flawed/weak, and will not be likely to
"win" on any valid and logical grounds. Rather than admit to this, they will resort to, and persist in, ad hominem attacks against the opposing advocate (note: it is also conceivable that the attacker simply is venting, as I suspect here, since I have no previous personal history with this "advocate".

Happy Life in mid-level Fortune 500 management robotics, it may be all there is! (Can anyone say "EnroX"?

Wow! Mental picture: small cubicle in branch office in some under-50K population midwestern city (no disrespect to such cities, I've lived in one of these most of my adult life) only visited once a year by some assistant to the vice president of operations, not one monitor on desk, but two, half eaten donut from coffee room three days ago, and calendar on wall with demonic images secretly taped to the backs of all the months (that'll show those guys in the mailroom!), and 8,731 pencil stubs (carefully inventoried) all ground down in the electric pencil sharpener, pencil sharpener sawdust on the desk, on floor, on same "upwardly-mobile" (?) Brooks Bros. tie worn two days ago (nobody will notice I have 2 ties or the jelly stains from the other 5 donuts I had at morning coffee), etc. etc. etc.

Just for the record, in my travels, I've never met even one REAL (effective or relevant) midlevel manager in ANY Fortune 500-calibre company (or any other, for that matter) that had to say they ARE "in a Fortune 500 company" in order to make ANY point, eh? Which company was that, again?

(Sorry, this must be the corporate equivalent of invoking Nazism in formal debate to make a point...point of view undermined, you automatically lose!)

Lost forever to one participant of this conversation (repeatedly, persistently) has been understanding of the values of irony and sarcasm as forms of higher thinking, pleasureable interaction, or reasonable efforts to BE CIVIL.

Not that anyone of this ilk cares(predictable immature-17-year-old response: "Duh, you got that right A**hole!", but I'd value the point of view, if I knew what it was. You know, something beyond just ridiculing everything I say in as illogical and inflammatory a manner as one can achieve using a limited vocabulary.

If you're talking, you want attention, so say SOMETHING of quality and deserving of attention or support from ANYONE over the age of 13...I thought these forums were age-monitored!

And the absurdity is, I agreed with the original poster, which still escapes our friend...

Work at home do ya?

Wow, way to hijack a thread...

It is good to know those fortune 500 companies are really just employing middle management as a socially conscious welfare program, since they are so ineffective and irrelevant.

And you are accusing her of being illogical and inflammatory?

For someone lecturing on being an effective speaker you come off as the most arrogant and offensive personI have heard in a long time. The absurdity is that your agreement with the OP was lost in your irrelevant diatribe.

Unfortunately due to your hi-jack of the thread, it has deteriorated without really addressing the OP's point.

He is correct; SL has betrayed its original vision in order to support its main-stream growth. I don't know that I would have called it "dumbing-down" as much as becoming a lot more politically-correct.

I believe the people who were unwilling to pay the $10 to play originally should never have been allowed in the first place. They were unwilling to invest in the future of SL.

You don't have to care what I think, and I value that, but like I've said elsewhere, thank the pixel-gods there ARE some like you in SL, who HAVE been here for the long haul...!!!

I, too, believe that this issue is not about LL-Fanboi v. LL-Vilification Committee, it is about "realists" v. "staunch traditionalists"...and the pragmatist will tell you to stay with the traditionalist in the short term, but be on the lookout, because you WILL be changing boats at some point, because, over the long haul, reality always wins!

No, sorry, point missed...effective managers dont have to wear their position in an elite company like a coat of arms, they are out there managing events and managing their intereactions with people effectively...my point is that this person's style of managing distasteful (to him/her) points of view, via attacks by vilification, has not been and IS NOT typical of Fortune 500 execs...how could you miss that, or disagree? BTW, the diatribe is a product of the invective, which wasn't mine...no intention to hijack, but also no intention to be hijacked...another plea to cease with the ad hominem attacks, is that all there is?

And I didn't think that the issue of free v. paid WAS the point of the OP, but that what SL had become was less than what it was before...free v. paid was only one in a VERY long list of symptoms of that...

I don't mean to come off as arrogant, and am perplexed. The tools of any discussion are words and language, yet effective use of language is viewed here as a detractor, while the number of times one uses "shit" in a paragraph somehow give the argument weight? Shame, shame, shame on all of us!

So in other words, you closed off your mind to the message of the OP because he called a garbage man a 'garbage man' instead of a 'sanitation engineer'?

Your politically correct euphemism means the exact same thing as "dumbing down". Why must people continue to put more energy into the sugar coating than on actually delivering the pill? Can I take offense to your statement if I equate the term 'layman' to 'simpleton'?

If you really at this point think that anyone using the term 'dumbing down' is calling you stupid personally, then I guess I'll rethink my decision to ask you to take a chill pill : -D

I noticed you mentioned "explaining treatment options in layman's terms". Does that mean you work in the medical or psychology field? Do you not wonder what the term "bedside manner" is all about? Or the fact that one of the things most often associated with bad bedside manner is a condescending attitude from a medical professional towards a patient? It happens all the time, and the very existence of that term tells me that there are plenty of medical professionals who don't feel the need to sugar coat anything, including in some cases their outright disdain for their patients.

On the other hand, do you think it's any less insulting to be baby talked in the manner you have described? I COULD see that as a nice way of calling me an inept idiot, and take offense to the fact that you thought I was too dense to realize it.

I'm not trying to attack you. I'm simply saying that it is not always possible to appease everyone and still get a point across. And also that trying to redirect attention from the point of a message to it's politeness is a great way to get labeled part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

You just undermined your entire argument. As one of 'the masses' whose dignity you hold so dear, I see this section as a blatant attempt to belittle the person you're talking to, coming from a viewpoint of perceived superiority. How is this better than using the term 'dumbing down' as you define it? Have you not shown the same contempt?



And lost to you apparently is the definition and intent of sarcasm, which on its face is possibly the worst technique available to someone in pursuit of civility during a discussion with someone whom the speaker does not wish to insult.



The only real absurdity here is that with all of your higher learning and alleged understanding of the human condition you completely and totally whiffed on the fact that the only sentence you've said so far that did not come from a sense of entitlement and haughty superiority was this last one. Why didn't you just say you agreed in the first place instead of claiming his message wasn't worthy of being read beyond the appearance of the phrase 'dumbing down'? As Grand Puba of mass communications, how did you manage to, as a poster above pointed out, completely bury the only point you made that was relevant to the original topic so completely? And at the end, you are the one alienating the masses. What was the point?

Those that resist change, are still using betamax and think landlines are the best thing. If you don't evolve with the computer/electronics arena before you, you are leaving the human race. SL is but the door openning to what will become/is the future. My interests in SL is the same as it was when computers first came out... potential. I shudder at the thought of learning how to use a keyboard or connect to the internet some 30 years after it all started, at my age (undisclosed).

This entire Thread reminds me of the times of the BBSs. (bulletin board systems)

** For those too young to have experienced the BBSs of the 80s and early 90s, in nutshell was basically some dude with a PC in his garage that people would dial into and leave forum posts or upload/download content.
(THIS was Years before Internet we know of today!)
Well, the second the Internet hit the world, these thousands of BBSs found themselves with a serious problem!

Almost every argument I read about SLs growth sounds SO MUCH like the gripes and Groans of the BBS runners.
“The internet is commercialized.”
“Its not Friendly.”
“You don’t get the customer support you get from Larry’s BBS.”… Etc..

Well you know what? THINGS PROGRESS!
Some that owned BBS either got out of the business or did the smarter thing and see the GREATER possibilities of this change called the Internet!
Those wise enough to embrace this ever changing “new technology” had some of the first websites on the internet and are perhaps LOADED ($) now.

Op, with all due respect, there is a GREATER purpose outside of the Box and I guarantee you LL ($$$) has master counsel on business running that surpasses our understanding.
I doubt they are shooting from the Hips here Folks..
Think about it, a Multi million dollar business that emerging Virtual WORLDs are all using at its model!

Yes the Heat is on ONCE again, Change.. Wow go figure.. (sarcastic tone)

OK, so SL, go by way of BBSs or look into the future and make changes accordingly…

-Big

Keep in mind that "Linden" is pretty much a reserved word. You can't use LL's logo's without their permission. IANAL... but whether "Linden's Most Wanted" counts as 'fair use' of their name. (Would you complain if someone created a group called "Akari Armitage's Cyberplaymates" without your permission or consent?) Of course you can't force them to change but you could likely get LL to change it considering it's using your name....

Anyway. Awkwardly put, but I hope that gets the point across that they were likely very much within their rights, and it was reasonable for them to change the name... even without contacting the owner.



Getting off the off-topic issue of trying to make a technical world more palatable to non-techies and the pointlessness of pointing out that non-techies that can't be bothered to attempt to educate themselves will always be handicapped in this world to some degree and it's no one's responsibility but their own to resolve it. After all.. horses, water drinking and all that.

Given a few days to reflect on things, I can't disagree with anything said to me (or about my posting behaviors) since my last post in this thread.

Thank you to everyone for this opportunity to look within.

On-topic (I think) questions:

1. Does Linden Lab want to bring SL into the commercial mainstream? (yes)

2. Do each of you/us/I want SL to be brought into the mainstream?

3. Is "mainstreaming" inevitable? (yes)

4. Will we all go kicking-and-screaming into the night?

5. If "mainstream" internet is where the future of SL resides (like it or not), doesn't the "total package" need to accomodate that audience, as well?

Like it or not, the FINANCIAL future of SL probably relies on continuing to serve and satisfy its ever-changing client base, while continuing to exploit its grassroots development base? (can you say free labor?)

Just not sure that a Plug-N-Play world is ready (or willing) to accept its (any!) technical responsibility...and SL is not likely to change the expectation that things you pay for will work, as you've been told they will, whenever you turn them on...and expecting to be able to realize the reported benefits of participating without needing more than casual understanding of underlying engineering.

What do you think?