Reality check - The Secondlife grid is slowing dying, having it's life force drained by land barons and excessively high tier costs.
Secondlife estates at their best provide community, support, themed environments and good real estate development. But unfortunately some of the biggest estates are nothing more than middlemen, land flippers, parasites sucking the system dry and being rewarded for destroying an emerging and important human technology aided by Linden Lab's antiquated, frigid, pricing model.
DOES THE ATLAS PROGRAM HELP SUPPORT THE WORLD ? NO
Atlas, the Greek Titan was supposed to hold the Heavens up to stop the sky from falling. But it's not the sky that's falling in Secondlife, it's the land that's disappearing. As the grid shrinks, the virtual economy shrinks, concurrency slips, user hours contracts, less to do, less to see, less people to meet, LESS, LESS, LESS. This LESSENING is the death spiral of any social network.
DOES THE ATLAS PROGRAM HELP GROW THE SECONDLIFE GRID ? NO
The virtual world Secondlife is in a downward spiral because Linden Lab are giving the wrong people large discounts on land.
Linden Lab gives discounts to the few (Atlas program members) at the expense of the MANY - their real customers. The REAL customers who actually pay the tier costs. Land Barons are not LL's customers, they are resellers, middlemen, it's the residents that pay the high monthly tier.
Gather too much tier now and you will not be able to gather appropriate tier later, it's like over-fishing the sea.
It's time to drop the set up fees, reduce tier and let anyone buy a Homestead, Be Radical, Be Bold
Secondlife has never recovered from the October 2008 price rise and Linden Lab's current relationship with large estate owners is dysfunctional and bad for Linden Lab's bottom line and the survival and success of Secondlife.
As we can clearly see from the decay in the graph below, the Atlas program and current pricing model do nothing to support the world or encourage growth
Consider the above the 'Confessions of a Vampire' as I make good money from estate rentals. But I am also a content creator, so I see the world through two sets of eyes.
What other estate owner would say lower tier ? Most estate owners 'Want It Now'.
But it's not working, it's a failing business model. I can't grow my estate with these current tier costs. Nobody can. I'm not just interested in making it work today, holding on in a declining market. What of tomorrow ?
You can hold a few more renters, get a minecraft server - which takes people away from the SL product btw, you can chop up your sims in to even smaller plots - go 'Slum Lord'. Get the money now while you can. But come on, this is not the dream of virtual worlds. Tiny plots, expensive land, broken dreams, no wonder it's failing. We really are near tipping point. 10% of the grid lost this year, will it be 20% /30% next year ?
New World Notes Post - SL Forecast to Lose 10% of World's Private Sims This Year
It's a great and terrible shame that an important human technology like shared multi-user spaces, Virtual Worlds, is being cannibalised, eaten alive, by the only company that actually runs a real one.
SHAME ON YOU LINDEN LAB !
Shame on you for losing vision and not believing in your own technology enough to make it affordable and accessible to all.
To Linden Lab :
As an estate owner, I would rather earn less money now and more money later, from my land holdings and see land ownership and the SL economy powered up by a reduction in tier rather than this slow, sad pathetic decline of an awesome technology destroyed by the wrong, pricing model.
LINDEN LAB ARE EATING THE MARSHMALLOW
An evolved business plan for Linden Lab would be to react to the current situation, drop set up fees, reduce tier for ALL and DELAY GRATIFICATION. It's an adult practise. Grow up Linden Lab. Take less now so you can earn more later, rather than acting like a spoilt toddler - ' I want it now, gimme now !!' What kind of business plan is that ???
Let's all stop pretending that everything's ok with Secondlife because it's not.
Linden Lab - Delay gratification - STOP eating the marshmallow now, you will make far more money later.
TED Lecture about marshmallows and the benefits of delayed gratification for future success
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