Jump to content

The future of SecondLife


You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 3747 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 99
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic


MasterJedi Nayar wrote:

Online education is growing.  The old fashion textbook take years to make and get printed.  By that time the information could be out of date before the students get a hold of it.  Most importantly, we learn more than what is in a textbook.  If students have a great instructor, the textbook is a supliment to what is being taught in the classroom.  SeclondLife is another medium that instructors can use.  It is a tool and nothing more.  It does not tools cannot be used when it is needed of them.

is some high schools where i live they going onto all digital. no printed textbooks at all now. every student has a laptop and they do most everything on them. course work and internal exams as well. they still doing manual stuff as well bc some classes u have to do that way. but where is not necessary then they doing digital

 for some students who not able to afford a laptop they getting companies and foundations to be part the school programme to help with that

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright! Some real numbers, for once. Thanks Rene!

So there's about 478K account holders spending real money on SL, and only about 40% of those spending >~$8. So you have roughly 200K ppl providing substantial financial support to LL. This out of 21.3 million accounts, or about 1million per month logins. That looks to me like it's a little less than 1% of SL users supporting the other 99%. Even going with the monthly login figure, that's more like 4% supporting the other 96%. You say:

Bottom line, if people had not contributed financially or spent creative time generating content (need Land for that)...there wouldn't be a Second Life.

Given LL's business model, you're correct to point this out, of course. I have to ask, though, why this 1 - 4% (or even an inflated 20%, if you prefer) of people put up with paying the other 99 - 96%'s (80%'s) way? Do you think this is fair? Do you support the corporation exploiting the few for the sake of the many this way? Do you think that it's right for the creative people who actually support the corporation to have to pay in order to generate content? Shouldn't they be paid for doing so? Where in RL do people have to pay their employer for the opportunity to make their employer rich? This is the point I'm trying to make. Not that SL ought to be "free" for everyone. I'm just wondering why the people who actually generate revenue for LL put up with being exploited by their corporate overlords, while the "vast majority" play for free.

I also wonder why LL stopped making these figures available. Could it be that they don't want content creators seeing numbers used to show how they're being ripped off?

Jeanne

Link to comment
Share on other sites


JeanneAnne wrote: Where in RL do people have to pay their employer for the opportunity to make their employer rich?

Jeanne

 

Everywhere. Though most of it is not obvious. But anything where you are buying in would be an example of where that is obvious. And the 99% making the 1% rich is nothing new either lol. This is why people are occupying EVERYTHING right now in the US.

I do have to say it's hard for numbers like that to show all. Many have alts, even several. Maybe some are farming them, maybe some are spoiling them from monies bought or earned on their main. There's also folks like myself who never ever cash out and work here (along with premiums and tier) so while some may be investing in the thousands but cashing out even more, who actually contributed more to SL? Even then it's not a clear answer because everyone deserves to be paid for the time and effort they put in, so if someone makes 100K but they did it by providing a product or service many of us love, don't they deserve that money. I think they do.

But I'm with you on the people that will not spend a dime ever yet they seem to be running a top of the line machine from wherever it is they claim to be from in the Puruvian Alps in a little leantue because they are so poor they can't afford to buy their own linden, lmao

Link to comment
Share on other sites


JeanneAnne wrote:

Alright! Some real numbers, for once. Thanks Rene!

So there's about 478K account holders spending real money on SL, and only about 40% of those spending >~$8. So you have roughly 200K ppl providing substantial financial support to LL.
This out of 21.3 million accounts, or about 1million per month logins.
That looks to me like it's a little less than 1% of SL users supporting the other 99%. Even going with the monthly login figure, that's more like 4% supporting the other 96%. You say:

Bottom line, if people had not contributed financially or spent creative time generating content (need Land for that)...there wouldn't be a Second Life.

Given LL's business model, you're correct to point this out, of course. I have to ask, though, why this 1 - 4% (or even an inflated 20%, if you prefer) of people put up with paying the other 99 - 96%'s (80%'s) way? Do you think this is fair? Do you support the corporation exploiting the few for the sake of the many this way? Do you think that it's right for the creative people who actually support the corporation to have to pay in order to generate content? Shouldn't they
be paid
for doing so? Where in RL do people have to pay their employer for the opportunity to make their employer rich? This is the point I'm trying to make. Not that SL ought to be "free" for everyone. I'm just wondering why the people who actually generate revenue for LL put up with being exploited by their corporate overlords, while the "vast majority" play for free.

I also wonder why LL stopped making these figures available. Could it be that they don't want content creators seeing numbers used to show how they're being ripped off?

Jeanne

The 21 million accounts are those created from Day 1 of  Second Life i.e 2003....so more than 8 years back. That  figure includes people that might have tried Second Life once and then decided it's not for them......it's actually a huge percentage as Second Life noob retention rates are historically...very very low.!!

The current run rate of around 20,000 new sign-ups with Second Life each day ( new accounts, as well as new ALT a/c's created)....only a few percent will be here in 6 months time (I think it's around 3/ 4%) The churn rate is very high....and for those 3-4% that make it through the first 6 months and become a regular logins (a fully fledged resident).....there's probably an equal number of Residents leaving SL for good or taking long sabaticals.

Hence the net growth of Second Life over last 3 years is virtually non-existant.....in fact average daily concurrency are slowly but declining gradually!

The 1 million unique avatar logins per month....as you can see from the graph below...not much difference between Dec 2008 to Sept 2010.....its been running around 1 Million monthly logins for quite some time. Repeat Logins per month run at about 800,000 mark..which suggests around 20% new accounts try Second Life once and then leave.

Don't foget a large percentage of SL residents part of  Dec 2011's million logins..might also be included in say June 2011's million logins.....i.e same avatars.

Not all content providers are in SL to make real money from their creations......many enjoy the creativity side of things and not the business side. I would say the goal for many content providers....would be to break-even. i.e sales pays for the Land Tiers/ rent

Monthlyogins.png

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On top of the above graph...are 2 more important graphs

A) The number of repeat Logins per month

B) SL residents who spend 1 Linden dollar or more

I would suggest that 2011 data would be pretty much the same....maybe slightly less since daily concurrencies have tapered off.

 

average+monthly+repeat+logins.jpg

 

average+monthly+economic+participants.jpg

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

JeanneAnne wrote: Where in RL do people have to pay their employer for the opportunity to make their employer rich?





Eileen Fellstein wrote:


Everywhere.

There's a difference between exploitation and hyperexploitation. Most employees are merely exploited, in that their employer pays them less than the value of their work and pockets the difference. SL content creators are hyperexploited by LL in that they must pay LL upload fees and rental on server space (tier) in order to provide the content without which SL would be worthless. What I'm saying is that talented & practiced content creators ought to be paid for their efforts rather than have to pay for the dubious privilege of creating stuff that enriches a sociopathic corporation. Content creators should be exploited by LL rather than hyperexploited, in other words.

And the 99% making the 1% rich is nothing new either lol. This is why people are occupying EVERYTHING right now in the US.

I call for an Occupy Second Life! I say that those of us who enjoy SL and hangout there need to wrest control of our world from the clutches of a rapacious corporation mandated by law to care for nothing whatsoever besides their bottom line. SL could be so much better if decisions were made by residents according to what we feel would make SL more fun, rather than by a greedy corporation according to what they think will make them richer. OSL in 2012!!!

I do have to say it's hard for numbers like that to show all. Many have alts, even several.

Yes, and this can work both ways. Someone may make money with one alt while playing for free with his or her others. Or, one person may have several alts doing different things for money. Most people probably have several alts and plays all of them for free. Since it would be pretty difficult to sort all of this out, even the hard numbers given must be interpreted with caution. Still, some things are clear. A minority of content creators support the corporation that hyperexploits them while the majority enjoy SL for free.

...everyone deserves to be paid for the time and effort they put in...

Instead of paying for the time and effort they put in... Yup, I agree.

Jeanne


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks again Rene, for the numbers & graphs you've provided and for your intelligent comments. I appreciate what you're saying.

I wonder why noobie retention rates are so "very, very low." How could SL be managed to improve retention rates? Actually, how do we even know the rates are so low? I have this theory that "Noobies Have More Fun." I know that the "Oh! Wow!!" feeling that I often got from SL at first rapidly wore off. The very fact that I could fly in SL made my first few days way fun. I wonder if people don't create accounts then abandon them, just in order to remain the perpetual noob. Even if this isn't too common, I wonder what could be done to keep the newness of SL from wearing off so quickly.

Likewise, I wonder what could be done to keep long-term players from burning out & moving on. If we ever do manage to take control of SL away from LL and run it as a user owned & operated virtual utopia, we're going to have to consider these issues & come up with some suggestions to try. I figure that the elimination of upload fees & tier would go a long way towards motivating people to stay. Experienced content creators must get awfully tired of having to come up with all that money all the time.

Do resident logins include re-logins after crashes? If LL wants to impress potential investors with inflated login numbers, then they have no incentive for making crashes less frequent. Quite the contrary, in fact. Maybe this is why their viewer is so inferior to third party viewers. As a brand noobie I crashed like every five minutes with Viewer2. If I hadn't discovered Firestorm in my first week or so, I'd be one of those poor retention rate statistics.

Not all content providers are in SL to make real money from their creations......many enjoy the creativity side of things and not the business side. I would say the goal for many content providers....would be to break-even. i.e sales pays for the Land Tiers/ rent

I agree. Many who I talk to inworld say they are content just breaking even on tier from DJing or selling stuff. I admire & respect the creativity that goes into DJing a good set or making something that's attractive. I understand that SL can be an outlet for creativity and that this goes a long way towards explaining why content creators put up with LL's hyperexploitation of their efforts. But... sheesh... Talented DJs making a dollar per hour or less in tips? Artists creating works they're lucky to sell for enough to break even after paying LL upload fees & tier, which they must do in order to create it, when they could probably be making a lot of money putting the equivalent time & talent into tangible media? Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? And it must just add insult to injury to realize that LL allows those who contribute nothing to play for free!

What gets me is the way I'm attacked by the hyperexploited for pointing out their hyperexploitation! LoL It's as if... if they admitted the obvious facts to themselves & others, they'd have to admit how crazy it is to have allowed themselves to be treated so poorly.

If average daily concurrency is in decline, how much time do you think SL has left? We may not have much time in which to wrest control of our beloved virtual world from the stranglehold of villians, if we want SL to survive.

Jeanne

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Second Life notoriously has bad retention rates for umpteen different reasons.....including the Viewer and all it's options being too difficult to use.....many new accounts not realising it's not a "Game" with a end result e.g WOW.....lack of guidance ("holding hands") and being softly introduced to SL and all it has to offer. It doesn't help LL ditched the Mentor's program......add griefing at the Welcome areas putting new players off. These are a few reasons......you could add having a low-end PC with graphics not being able to get the best from the CPU chewing SL Viewer.

Nope, crashes are not regarded as repeat logins.....i think its more to do with logging in on 2 different days and spending x amount time in SL as a qualifying avatar in those graphs.

SL Land can never be free....the software is loaded onto Servers. Those Servers cost real dollars to lease or buy, so does the software implimentation, plus maintenance, licenses, server storage, insurance, networking costs. Imagine Linden Lab having 5000 or so Servers!!

 

I can't really make any prediction about Second Life.....the decline is very very slow but gradual. At the current run rate, it would still have life for a several years yet!l Second Life does have a significant hardcore user base, that are dedicated to the platform come rain or sunshine. !!

Linden Lab have announced they will be involved in creating other products and not solely focusing on Second Life in the future........maybe they know, something we dont!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread has been wonderful to read and sadly I don't have your talents but I'll give it a go anyway.

I stay because when I run out of ideas to play with RL, SL provides them

I remember being scared, intimidated and actually RL tearful in my first day in SL. I stayed though and I'm glad I did, as did you.

Don't underestimate newbs. They're the current past you.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yea, I wouldn't even know where to begin to calculate the amount of revenue from upload fees. Has to be astronomical. I understand server space and perhaps the need to prevent people from uploading 65 pictures of their cat Fluffie in one day or several pieces of xerox butt-art, but that charge has an impact on residents at any stage. In fact, it's probably the most common thing I have seen new people ask for help with.

"I want to do my profile but I don't have 10 L for the upload"

and mostly they are stuck for 2 weeks unless someone helps because it takes a few days for the approval to upload money and the vast majority of clubs want even a beginning dancing girl to have two weeks in and have her avatar looking good.

Seems like there should be a package deal or something

Link to comment
Share on other sites


JeanneAnne wrote:

I also wonder why LL stopped making these figures available. Could it be that they don't want content creators seeing numbers used to show how they're being ripped off?

I think they stopped showing the numbers because concurrency had been on the decline for a long time, showed no signs of even bottoming out, and they decided to stop showing that information. Just my opinion though.

As to the rest of your post; I really can't see any reason for you to continue the debate. It's been made obvious that LL never intended SL to be used for free by everyone and your thinking about LL's business model was wrong. There's no argument against that. It's also been made obvious that "everything in SL should be free" simply cannot work. There's no argument against that either. So why continue?

And if that's not enough, LL didn't make SL tgo be used for free. It cost real money to create an account in the early days. Additional accounts cost less than the first, but they still cost real money. It was only later that, to get more people into SL, LL changed to free accounts.

One more thing. All those numbers that have been mentioned - don't rely on them. I have over 70 avatar accounts and I'm just one person. Those numbers don't say anything about the number of people using SL. They only say something about the number of avatars, which is quite different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Phil Deakins wrote:

As to the rest of your post; I really can't see any reason for you to continue the debate. It's been made obvious that LL never intended SL to be used for free by everyone and your thinking about LL's business model was wrong. There's no argument against that. It's also been made obvious that "
everything in SL should be free
" simply cannot work. There's no argument against that either. So why continue?

The answer to this is quite simple... JeanneAnne believes what she believes and anything that anyone can say in opposition to her beliefs will force her to twist their words to conform to her own very limited belief system. Call me crazy, but I believe anyone trying to convince her of anything else is just wasting their time.

...Dres

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Dresden Ceriano wrote:


Phil Deakins wrote:

As to the rest of your post; I really can't see any reason for you to continue the debate. It's been made obvious that LL never intended SL to be used for free by everyone and your thinking about LL's business model was wrong. There's no argument against that. It's also been made obvious that "
everything in SL should be free
" simply cannot work. There's no argument against that either. So why continue?

The answer to this is quite simple... JeanneAnne believes what she believes and anything that anyone can say in opposition to her beliefs will force her to twist their words to conform to her own very limited belief system. Call me crazy, but I believe anyone trying to convince her of anything else is just wasting their time.

...Dres

You're pretty much correct Dres. I think that most of you people posting on these fora have grown up in a system ruled by greed and that the corporate greedmeisters have used your schooling & the media to very effectively program you with the memeplex  that greed is good, that greed makes the world go round, and that any economy not based on greed won't work. Hence, you mindlessly run your programming any time your inculcated greed based worldview is challenged. People call themselves Christians yet would crucify Christ all over again if he showed up saying "Sell all that ye have and give to the poor." People say that they like John Lennon and the Beatles yet scoff when he says "Imagine no possessions... nothing to kill or die for." He had to be shot for saying things like that, too, didn't he? You people who defend LL's greedy business model all must bank at a corporate for-profit bank, rather than at a member owned nonprofit credit union, don't you? If not, you should. Otherwise you're being quite hypocritical. After all, it's your duty to make corporate executives and shareholders rich, isn't it? No way that SL could be owned & operated by its Residents, either, right? A corporation simply has to be making a profit off all you content creators and premium account holders for SL to work, right? Cool! then. Keep on paying while I play for free. Thanks!

Yeah... I do think you're.. not exactly crazy but rather brainwashed by the system you grew up in and can't think beyond. But anyhow... thanks guys for 'splaining stuff to me. If not for guys 'splaining what other old dead guys said, and how it's all spozed to be, and how my way of thinkings all wrong, and how I should think... I might get outuv line. Couldn't have that now could we, guys?

Jeanne

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Phil Deakins wrote:


JeanneAnne wrote:

I also wonder why LL stopped making these figures available. Could it be that they don't want content creators seeing numbers used to show how they're being ripped off?

I think they stopped showing the numbers because concurrency had been on the decline for a long time, showed no signs of even bottoming out, and they decided to stop showing that information. Just my opinion though.


Okay, but why did they decide to stop showing that information? Why do they feel the necessity to hide the fact that "concurrency had been on the decline for a long time?" Who are they hiding this information from? SL residents? Potential corporate investors? Are the Lindens in denial about how poorly they've run their business? Are they trying to hide this information from themselves, so that they don't have to admit what a failure their business model is?

It's been made obvious that LL never intended SL to be used for free by everyone...

Of course LL never intended SL to be used for free! They intended to make themselves rich off SL, at first by making everyone pay and when this didn't work out, by making only a select few who could be snookered into paying for everyone else shoulder the burden. Nice guys, aren't they?

...and your thinking about LL's business model was wrong.

No it isn't. My thinking about LL's business model is right on the money! :womanlol: They want to make a profit so they make content creators pay upload fees & tier, while everyone else gets to play for free. They hyperexploit creative people while providing everyone else with a free gaming platform to enjoy. They tried to make everyone pay, as you point out, but once they realized that the "vast majority" weren't about to, they shifted the entire financial burden onto the minority willing to carry it. This is "wrong" alrite but how is it inaccurate? You may not like seeing things spelled out this clearly, you may want me to be wrong, but this doesn't make it so. As far as I can see, I'm the only one in these fora able or willing to describe LL's business model as the scam it is.

One more thing. All those numbers that have been mentioned - don't rely on them.

Yeah, no kidding Phil...

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not going to discuss with you. Your last two posts have shown me that you are argue for the sake arguing rather than as someone who is interested in a proper dicussion, and I prefer more normal discussions in which people put genuine points rather than spewing all sorts of rubbish just for the sake of it. To put it another way, you blew any interest I had in discussing anything with you right out of the water when you posted the rubbish in your last two posts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm not going to discuss with you. Your last two posts have shown me that you are argue for the sake arguing rather than as someone who is interested in a proper dicussion, and I prefer more normal discussions in which people put genuine points rather than spewing all sorts of rubbish just for the sake of it. To put it another way, you blew any interest I had in discussing anything with you right out of the water when you posted the rubbish in your last two posts.

Translation: You can't refute the verity of anything I've said and can't bring yourself to admit that I'm correct and you're wrong. That's fine. Nice of you to show your true colors Phil. Peace!

Jeanne

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I already showed where you were wrong, and I showed it in detail. I even posted the detail twice because you didn't seem to grasp it the first time. I don't have any desire to respond to the rubbish you wrote in those two posts though, as I can envisage it going on forever, following sidetrack after sidetrack, ad infinitum. You may find that enjoyable but I don't. I prefer reasoned and sensible discussions rather than the sort you seem to like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The correct quotation was, "I don't have any desire to respond to the rubbish you wrote in those two posts though".

See the difference? The bit you cherry-picked to quote implied that I've no desire to respond at all and you asked a question based on that contrived understanding. But what I actually wrote was that I've no wish to respond to the rubbish you wrote those two posts, which is quite different, as I'm sure you realise now that I've pointed it out.

That's the second time in this thread that you've cherry-picked and quoted a bit of something I wrote to give it it completely different meaning. Dresden wrote very well about you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Phil Deakins wrote:

The correct quotation was, "
I don't have any desire to respond to the rubbish you wrote in those two posts though
".

See the difference? The bit you cherry-picked to quote implied that I've no desire to respond
at all
and you asked a question based on that contrived understanding. But what I actually wrote was that I've no wish to respond
to the rubbish you wrote those two posts
, which is quite different, as I'm sure you realise now that I've pointed it out.

That's the second time in this thread that you've cherry-picked and quoted a bit of something I wrote to give it it completely different meaning. Dresden wrote very well about you.

Sheesh! Just drop it already, why don'tcha??

What are you, obsessed or something...??

Jeanne

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sheesh! Just drop it already, why don'tcha??

What are you, obsessed or something...??

------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is precisely what everyone is saying about you. In a previous thread, I offered you a clear and helpful explanation of Marxism, which you promptly ignored. Instead of showing any interest in learning about the very philosophy you preach, you continue to spout nonsense, much to the annoyance of everyone on the forum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 3747 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...