Seems like it's that time of the year again for swirling rumors and their resultant controversy to overshadow the relative banality of virtual reality. Naturally like most human drama it's nothing but an echo chamber full of talking heads. I've been both pro and con over the years so I understand what motivates both sides fairly well. Neutrality is a pretty nice place, I suggest all fanatics take a brief break from foaming at the mouth long enough to give it a try, you just might grow to like it! What? Too much alliteration for your liking? Sucks to be you.
I took a moment recently to reflect on not only the status quo of Second Life, but on my long history of commentary regarding its flaws and virtues. I realized that over the years I'd managed to fall into the classic trap of failing to see the forest for the trees. I'd spent a long time thinking of Second Life in a strictly technical sense, as a powerful yet hobbled platform created by oft capricious architects. It wasn't until I'd become seriously active on the SL Marketplace that I came to understand the truth.
Second Life as a virtual world is for the most part totally transparent to the people who participate, it is more like a fish bowl than a platform. Sorry for the slightly opaque analogy, what I mean is that the platform, the infrastructure and the architects who keep everything afloat are effectively invisible to the end user. Hence the majority of the debate concerning these elements is all but meaningless. To really understand the implications of this statement you have to be fully immersed in the social and economic spheres that operate inworld.
The first thing you learn is that in terms of people and things the world is simultaneously empty and stuffed to the gills, likewise business and social relationships are both casual and intimate. Although the most important thing to glean from these apparent contradictions is that 99% of this activity is autonomic. Linden Lab is not pulling the strings behind the scenes; residents are not actively thinking about their relationship to the world and its creators as they go about their business. Which means nothing until you consider that it suggests their operational expectations for the world are approximately zero.
Hard-core residents have unreasonably high expectations, but they want things from Linden Lab when in fact it is the community that is ultimately responsible for fulfilling those expectations. Keep in mind this is a community that is more-or-less content to use Second Life as-is. Remember "Your World. Your Imagination."? That is SL's current catch phrase. So say whatever you want about Second Life's viability just don't forget that as long as the majority of residents are willing to participate in read-only mode the platform remains a success.
