Alternate Universe: Second Life is more popular than it is in our reality.

[Gopi Passiflora]

Its use is so widespread, you can consider it the fabled "Metaverse" that everyone in this universe is talking about these days.

What do you think the world would be like with Second Life as the Metaverse in widespread use?

[Istelathis]

If it were SL that was embraced by the masses rather than social media, I imagine the world would be a lot better of a place and less divided over petty things.  Most people would be far less political.  At the very least, Thanksgivings around the US would have probably been a lot more peaceful today🙃 .  That is if we are talking about SL in its current iteration, with no changes.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Istelathis

[EliseAnne85]

29 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

If it were SL that was embraced by the masses rather than social media, I imagine the world would be a lot better of a place and less divided over petty things.  Most people would be far less political.  At the very least, Thanksgivings around the US would have probably been a lot more peaceful today🙃 .  That is if we are talking about SL in its current iteration, with no changes.

Yes!

   But, the problem is the differing devices of today, so that would have to change to machines that are more in common.  When I started with SL back many years ago the machines were pretty much all the same.  They were desktops plus there was dial-up all those year ago.  They were all kind of similar.  SL was started as a 3D chat room as well as a virtual world of creating whatever you could imagine, if it could become possible to make it.  

If we could get to a common ground again as far as machines/devices, SL as the main metaverse would be great!  

I don't want a metaverse on a phone as it's too small a screen to see let alone really enjoy.

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

What do you think the world would be like with Second Life as the Metaverse in widespread use?

I think the "world" would not be the planet earth of the 21st century as we have an existence proof that the Second Life of today draws in a tiny percentage of the human population. An accurate summary of SL would be a "sandbox game with high barriers to entry". That said, I believe Second Life is very useful for learning the problems one must solve in constructing a successful virtual world (whatever that is). Meta is also useful in this regard in that it illustrates some apparent dead ends.

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

Its use is so widespread, you can consider it the fabled "Metaverse" that everyone in this universe is talking about these days.

What do you think the world would be like with Second Life as the Metaverse in widespread use?

I wouldn't know because I would have left the internet 2/3 years before SL was opened to the public.

[Harloxzz]

I wonder if Facebook Metaverse will become successful and create a new hype for Metaverses i dont know but for now Second Life is still the best Metaverse that the world can offer

Edited November 25, 2022 by Harloxzz

[Bree Giffen]

If Second Life became super popular back in the 2000s I believe the entire pandemic would not have taken place. Everyone would already be working at home and socializing in-world. There was an outbreak in China? Oh well, I guess that's bad but lets get back to our virtual office meeting. 

[Nick0678]

It would have much more tortoise looking avatars having sex at SL beaches

[cunomar]

Presumption because i never used facebook , but it seems to me that FB and therefore any metaverse it creates is based on some lunatic belief that people would be better off without privacy .

Public CCTV in every room of your rl  house . A digital diary of your every action . A commercial study of the human race in order to herd and sell according to analysed data . Inhuman .

The more people withdraw from real life in favour of virtual then the more real life will suffer . Already young people who grew up glued to a computer fail to understand the very concept of work , so who will collect the bins and keep toilets flushing ? two simple but absolutely vital ingredients of a functional society .

Good luck with feeding the world on pixels .

The monetary system has already failed , all worldly assets have been sold thrice and increasingly young people think that they can make a living by creating stuff that doesn't materially exist .

Too late governments will intervene banning recreational gaming during set working hours .

[EliseAnne85]

I don't understand why some wouldn't want SL more popular in this thread?  But, that's them, not me.  I'd love it!  

I visited a friend's sim yesterday and his mall, and it's fairly empty.  I remember how it used to be, not empty.  His sim mall is beautiful, one of the best I've ever seen.  His trees with snow are gorgeous that he made and every little detail so pretty.  But, I felt sadness that it was so dead.  He had put a message through to me and his group a few months ago to be positive and help keep the sim going.  But, something else is taking over and it's the economy failing, I'd presume.  We are in stagflation and we are stagnating.  It's a bit dystopian on some sims in SL and I wish there was something I could do.  I just didn't have the money right now to start renting again plus not sure if I'd even sell at this time as I don't have Christmas items to sell.

One other shopping mall I know of is doing fairly well.  Why the two differences, I'm not so sure.  The other mall has good traffic but not sure on what it's selling, however.

Generations of today, the majority, grew up on the phone and know little about computers for the home.

I've often thought what if SL could stream somehow and we all plug into their graphics chip for it to run.  Or what if SL could stream on the TV.  

If there was some universal way to be able to plug into SL like thru the TV, I think SL would be more popular than it is now.  These "games" on the phone are way too simplistic and SL is said to be way too complicated.   But, with the new mesh avatars coming out, it could curb some of the initial difficulty but we still need a more universal device other than a phone and I wish LL knew of a way.   

I'm not paranoid about governments knowing about my data, because, for the most part, they already do, but I still want to live my life the way I want to live it whether they collect data on me or not.  

Edited November 25, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I don't understand why some wouldn't want SL more popular in this thread?  But, that's them, not me.  I'd love it!  

I visited a friend's sim yesterday and his mall, and it's fairly empty.  I remember how it used to be, not empty.  His sim mall is beautiful, one of the best I've ever seen.  His trees with snow are gorgeous that he made and every little detail so pretty.  But, I felt sadness that it was so dead.  He had put a message through to me and his group a few months ago to be positive and help keep the sim going.  But, something else is taking over and it's the economy failing, I'd presume.  We are in stagflation and we are stagnating.  It's a bit dystopian on some sims in SL and I wish there was something I could do.  I just didn't have the money right now to start renting again plus not sure if I'd even sell at this time as I don't have Christmas items to sell.

One other shopping mall I know of is doing fairly well.  Why the two differences, I'm not so sure.  The other mall has good traffic but not sure on what it's selling, however.

Generations of today, the majority, grew up on the phone and know little about computers for the home.

I've often thought what if SL could stream somehow and we all plug into their graphics chip for it to run.  Or what if SL could stream on the TV.  

If there was some universal way to be able to plug into SL like thru the TV, I think SL would be more popular than it is now.  These "games" on the phone are way too simplistic and SL is said to be way too complicated.   But, with the new mesh avatars coming out, it could curb some of the initial difficulty but we still need a more universal device other than a phone and I wish LL knew of a way.   

I'm not paranoid about governments knowing about my data, because, for the most part, they already do, but I still want to live my life the way I want to live it whether they collect data on me or not.  

Malls in SL have gone the way of malls in RL.  3 malls near me have closed over the past 10 or so years.  People just shop differently now.  A store isn't going to pay rent in SL when they already have a mainstore that most people shop at or an MP store.  

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Malls in SL have gone the way of malls in RL.  3 malls near me have closed over the past 10 or so years.  People just shop differently now.  A store isn't going to pay rent in SL when they already have a mainstore that most people shop at or an MP store.  

That's your main experience but you don't know all of SL.  There are successful malls because they are more than a mall, they are a community.   There is a mall, homes to rent, sky platforms to rent, and parties plus live events and some even have rides.  The malls with communities I've done well at for five years.  Gacha was like that too.  Rent just a store, no not really, it was a community who got to know each other and have some fun too.  Private parties, all kinds of stuff.  What is cool about most malls with communities it's usually inworld exclusives, at least that's the way I played it and people like that.  

As far as shopping overall in SL.  I just got done in Addam's right now and am trying on what I bought.  There was no wait to get in this year and Addam's is usually madness for days.  I know some of us oldbies may be getting a little tired of Addam's but some of their stuff suits me as a casual business woman when I need it.  But, business is down overall from what I've noticed.  

[animats]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Malls in SL have gone the way of malls in RL.  3 malls near me have closed over the past 10 or so years.  People just shop differently now.  A store isn't going to pay rent in SL when they already have a mainstore that most people shop at or an MP store.  

Stores in SL are useful if they let customers *do* something. You need objects rezzed in world, demo rezzers, and pose stands. House stores which have a big space where you can rez a house let you explore the house full-sized before you buy. Vehicle stores are often at racetracks or on roads, and have demo rezzers so you can take a test drive. Animation stores often have pose stands that let you try all the anims.

A wall of vendors isn't that useful.

[EliseAnne85]

8 minutes ago, animats said:

Stores in SL are useful if they let customers *do* something. You need objects rezzed in world, demo rezzers, and pose stands. House stores which have a big space where you can rez a house let you explore the house full-sized before you buy. Vehicle stores are often at racetracks or on roads, and have demo rezzers so you can take a test drive. Animation stores often have pose stands that let you try all the anims.

A wall of vendors isn't that useful.

The way I do malls Animats is I rez everything that is furniture.  I put up demos for other items like tiaras for example.  I need a demo rezzer probably but one needs to remember that with the Gacha malls everything was rezzed and we did fine.  The mall of my friend I am speaking about is not a Gacha mall, and it's not just a mall, it's a whole community of things to do.

Edited November 25, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Rowan Amore]

19 minutes ago, animats said:

Stores in SL are useful if they let customers *do* something. You need objects rezzed in world, demo rezzers, and pose stands. House stores which have a big space where you can rez a house let you explore the house full-sized before you buy. Vehicle stores are often at racetracks or on roads, and have demo rezzers so you can take a test drive. Animation stores often have pose stands that let you try all the anims.

A wall of vendors isn't that useful.

Exactly my point.  Why would a store pay rent to only be able to display a fraction of their products when they already have a mainstore?  Malls might be ok for stores with a very limited number of products.   I'd always prefer to shop at the mainstore and see everything they have to offer.   I think it's often why you see some malls with fishing games and such, just to attracts people who, I'm guessing, really aren't there to shop.

[StarlanderGoods]

7 hours ago, cunomar said:

 

The more people withdraw from real life in favour of virtual then the more real life will suffer . Already young people who grew up glued to a computer fail to understand the very concept of work , so who will collect the bins and keep toilets flushing ? two simple but absolutely vital ingredients of a functional society .

Good luck with feeding the world on pixels .

The monetary system has already failed , all worldly assets have been sold thrice and increasingly young people think that they can make a living by creating stuff that doesn't materially exist .

Too late governments will intervene banning recreational gaming during set working hours .

This is crazy, have you ever even seen "young person" in your liife?

 

[Rowan Amore]

7 hours ago, cunomar said:

Presumption because i never used facebook , but it seems to me that FB and therefore any metaverse it creates is based on some lunatic belief that people would be better off without privacy .

Public CCTV in every room of your rl  house . A digital diary of your every action . A commercial study of the human race in order to herd and sell according to analysed data . Inhuman .

The more people withdraw from real life in favour of virtual then the more real life will suffer . Already young people who grew up glued to a computer fail to understand the very concept of work , so who will collect the bins and keep toilets flushing ? two simple but absolutely vital ingredients of a functional society .

Good luck with feeding the world on pixels .

The monetary system has already failed , all worldly assets have been sold thrice and increasingly young people think that they can make a living by creating stuff that doesn't materially exist .

Too late governments will intervene banning recreational gaming during set working hours .

My son, who is 23, grew up with all manner of electronics.  He works 40 hour weeks.  He's actually working an 11 hour day today.  He works sales @ Verizon.  You know who most of his clients are?  People over 40.  All of his friends work 40 hour weeks.  Not sure why you feel younger people aren't working.  That's not what I see at all.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, EliseAnne85 said:

That's your main experience but you don't know all of SL.  There are successful malls because they are more than a mall, they are a community.   There is a mall, homes to rent, sky platforms to rent, and parties plus live events and some even have rides.  The malls with communities I've done well at for five years.  Gacha was like that too.  Rent just a store, no not really, it was a community who got to know each other and have some fun too.  Private parties, all kinds of stuff.  What is cool about most malls with communities it's usually inworld exclusives, at least that's the way I played it and people like that.  

As far as shopping overall in SL.  I just got done in Addam's right now and am trying on what I bought.  There was no wait to get in this year and Addam's is usually madness for days.  I know some of us oldbies may be getting a little tired of Addam's but some of their stuff suits me as a casual business woman when I need it.  But, business is down overall from what I've noticed.  

There might be some, but the popularity of them has gone way down compared to what there used to be.. Now the new malls are the events..

Malls used to be, you had some main draw upper tier stores that would usually get their spot for free, to draw in  as many other stores to fill the rest of it up..

In groups you would hear the same things going on about sales or this store doing this or that, where that's switched over more to whats going on at events or main stores..

A lot of the structures were, you had a club a mall and a bunch of places to rent or a mall with a club in the middle of it.. 

Honestly, the biggest impact on malls was probably the Market place and people doing less shopping in world.. A good indicator is, look at how many clubs there are now compared to years ago.. There are still clubs, but nowhere near as many as there used to be.

Also, look at where many of the new users are guided to.. It's usually a main store or events..

I actually miss all the malls and clubs.. They both meshed very well and made shopping much more fun of a time..

[Kathlen Onyx]

I personally hate to shop inworld unless it's like @animatsstates where you can rez a demo or see it in use such as landscaping. I abhor that when I see things on Flickr and I go to their marketplace store it's not there and I have to go in-world to get it. Mos likely I won't go to the store to buy it and It will quickly leave my mind that I ever wanted it. I don't get the hype that people have in going to a sim and walking or camming around to see things. Just put it on the darn MP so I can buy it there.

[Rolig Loon]

5 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

I personally hate to shop inworld unless it's like @animatsstates where you can rez a demo or see it in use such as landscaping. I abhor that when I see things on Flickr and I go to their marketplace store it's not there and I have to go in-world to get it. Mos likely I won't go to the store to buy it and It will quickly leave my mind that I ever wanted it. I don't get the hype that people have in going to a sim and walking or camming around to see things. Just put it on the darn MP so I can buy it there.

I'm glad that we have both options. Some people (like me) prefer the in-world experience, especially (as you said) for large-scale things like buildings and landscaping items. It's hard for me to appreciate the 3D feel of a house, a rocky hillside, or a copse of trees by viewing 2D photos in a MP ad. I like to be able to wander around, opening doors and looking at scenery from different angles.  Yes, I know you can sometimes get demo items, but not always. And demos often have important features disabled or simplified.  I feel the same way about textures and animations, which I rarely buy in MP. Clothes are different. I do browse MP stores for wearable things, because merchants often update those stores with new items more often than they update in-world stores.  They also usually offer demos that I can try on immediately instead of having to grab them in world and then TP home to try on.  Still, I find that I frequently use MP as a catalog and then go in world to see what special items a merchant may be highlighting or might have in a discount area. 

[EliseAnne85]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Exactly my point.  Why would a store pay rent to only be able to display a fraction of their products when they already have a mainstore?  Malls might be ok for stores with a very limited number of products.   I'd always prefer to shop at the mainstore and see everything they have to offer.   I think it's often why you see some malls with fishing games and such, just to attracts people who, I'm guessing, really aren't there to shop.

Malls aren't about the big stores though.  It's about off the beaten path stuff *and* a community and not all people put vendors up.  Malls for the past few years have been like you live there and it's your home and town and you can go shopping there or grab a coffee.   It makes it sort of realistic.  

It's not all vendors.  However, the tinies of the shire live with vendors.  Tinies have a few sims and if people come to visit, they want to know where to get stuff, so tinies have vendor center malls on their sims.  It's just easier to send them there to the vendor area to start because they ask 'where do I get this kind of stuff' for example.

Sorry this wasn't about vendor and malls.  It was how SL is stagnating right now and how I wish we could think of a way that has a more universal device so more people could visit and enjoy SL or that SL could be the main metaverse - but not on a phone.  

Edited November 25, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Qie Niangao]

20 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

What do you think the world would be like with Second Life as the Metaverse in widespread use?

I'm curious what @Gopi Passiflora had in mind with this question. As stated, it seems to anticipate responses such as @Bree Giffen's, that "the entire pandemic would not have taken place" in such a world, and @Istelathis's "a lot better of a place and less divided over petty things" without such attention to social media. That is, if SL were the metaverse, how would that make the real world a different place?

In these parts we often see the different but related question: what would need to be different about SL, for it to be the Metaverse? (Answers range from banline reform to mobile clients, from in-world mesh creation to a less sucky Marketplace—a whole forum-full of such possibilities.)

Another related question that sometimes gets asked: How would a different world make SL become the Metaverse? The pandemic was a practical example: if people simply can't do RL, enough will resort to SL that concurrency rises and there's an upturn in the SL economy. That's a pretty common scenario for widespread adoption of any metaverse: RL dystopia makes even a virtual alternative appealing. (But only for a particular class of dystopia, where hiding from the dystopian elements is still possible. Great for pandemic lockdowns, but no amount of VR will provide escape from post-agricultural climate famine.) But there are more tech-positive scenarios too: a world where GPUs are practically free, computing uses no energy, and networks have unlimited bandwidth.

And maybe some of it is up to us, to create a virtual world that's a compelling, sustainable alternative to material consumption, where the real world becomes a more livable place because it's augmented by an infinitely perfectible virtual world.

[Sid Nagy]

SL never became the Metaverse. There is a reason for that.
Only a small portion of the worlds Internet users is interested. SL is the right tool for a certain niche market: We.
The rest didn't give it a second thought or quit after a short while.
An attempt to modernize / restyle our world (Sansar) was delivered dead in the water: Nobody wanted it.
So there is or was no 'what if' situation.

Metaverse is just a buzz word. The general public doesn't want it (at least not during these generations).

Edited November 26, 2022 by Sid Nagy
Added some.

[Katherine Heartsong]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

1. lot better of a place and less divided over petty things" without such attention to social media. That is, if SL were the metaverse, how would that make the real world a different place?
2. In these parts we often see the different but related question: what would need to be different about SL, for it to be the Metaverse?
3. How would a different world make SL become the Metaverse?

1. There's an underlying assumption that social media will be a positive force. While it has benefits, it also has negatives that we, as a human species, won't ever overcome. It's tribal, isolating (read Sherry Turkel's Alone Together) and there's never been a point in out history where more information makes things more fair and balanced. Increased noise actually drowns out fact. The RL world would be different perhaps in exactly the same Twitter is right now. Some mix of good and insane stupid.

2. Again, that assume the metaverse is a thing. I've always imagined it as nothing more than a whole slew of technical specifications and standard architectures for instances of "worlds" to connect together, much like the W3C specifications make the WWW interoperable. SL would need to be more open ... allowing anyone who follows the basic "world specifications" to wander in and out, bringing their stuff with them (if the instance of a world, i.e., SL, allowed those things). Attributes for each world instance would cover everything from gravity and physics, to maturity rating etc. Like a website. In other words, SL is simply one instance of a world experience within the metaverse. Each instance would set the ground rules for what goes on or is allowed, but I can travel from instance to instance with whatever avatar I want.

A good example ... in a true metaverse I should be able to take my avatar and all my stuff from SL to and OpenSim "instance" and back. Seemlessly. Or go visit world someone else is "hosting" much like a website. What I bring with me might or might not work ... i.e., maybe my human avatar doesn't render because the world's owner only wants incorporeal thought bubbles ... in which case, I couldn't go to that specific world. I don't know. But my avatar shhould move from world to world in a metaverse as easily as I can jump from website to website in a browser.

3. SL isn't the metaverse and never will be. The metaverse is an over-arching concept for interacting, not a destination. As Sid and others have said, it's a small little niche instance, almost irrelevant in terms of traffic and popularity, among many other places to be on the Internet.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Katherine Heartsong

[Claireschen Hesten]

On 11/25/2022 at 1:13 AM, Gopi Passiflora said:

What do you think the world would be like with Second Life as the Metaverse in widespread use?

It could be sooner than we think maybe not just with second life. I saw this clip the other day where the threatened nation of Tuvalu is turning to the metaverse in order to keep it's existence. Other nations who are also threatened by rising seas could do the same in the future