I Believe The Stink Of Adult Activities And Related Social and Political Issues Hold Back Second Life

[Quistess Alpha]

11 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

LL might also want to do a better job hiding adult things on the SLMarketplace unless explicitly searched for. 

I was bored and inspired by a few earlier posts, I tried refreshing the marketplace homepage a few times while logged out. . . I'm surprised that extremely skimpy swimsuits, and lingerie that leaves the nipples almost entirely exposed class as "general", but merchants have every incentive to push their items' ratings as low as they can get away with

[Ayashe Ninetails]

Hmm. Roblox is filled with scandal, positive and negative social activism, extremism, and drama. 

Mojang/Minecraft teamed up with WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to bring awareness to panda conservation. Minecraft content creators are also some of the most dramatic people on social media with a boatload of sordid controversies.

Blizzard/World of Warcraft held in-game charity events to support humanitarian aid in Ukraine and Doctors Without Borders. It's also filled with VERY adult roleplay and there are plenty of non-adult guilds that support all identities and orientations - same as Guild Wars 2 and other MMOs.

On and on and on.

If anyone thinks MMOs and virtual worlds and their users don't dabble in political/social issues or have their own share of controversies and mature/adult content, they're not paying much attention.

Second Life isn't much different than the rest.

[Sadvhi]

There are transparent girls swimsuits listed under Children's Apparel

[Blush Bravin]

2 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

I was bored and inspired by a few earlier posts, I tried refreshing the marketplace homepage a few times while logged out. . . I'm surprised that extremely skimpy swimsuits, and lingerie that leaves the nipples almost entirely exposed class as "general", but merchants have every incentive to push their items' ratings as low as they can get away with

In the not-so-distant past, I could have skimmed through the Saturday Sale flyer on Seraphim even if my grandkids were in the room and my monitor visible. I can't shop in any event or check any event details in Seraphim when anyone happens to be in the room with me. The level of blatant sexually explicit clothing is just too much. Honestly, I'm tired of what has become the norm for what qualifies as fashion in SL these day. Okay .. go ahead throw rocks at me. I don't care. *puts on extra padding*

[Alwin Alcott]

Since not so long ago  LL finally admitted that SL has a adult side .. perhaps it should be promoted to get more people in.

[Blush Bravin]

Don't take my previous post to indicate I have an issue with SL having an adult side. I don't at all. I just think it's invaded fashion to the point that I have a hard time finding things I'd like to buy. That's all.

[Sid Nagy]

8 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Hmm. Roblox is filled with scandal and drama. 

So a Second Life clone?  

[Ayashe Ninetails]

4 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

So a Second Life clone?  

Reading through some of their stuff...it might be worse in some respects. 👀

[Ceka Cianci]

[Garnet Psaltery]

8 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

Don't take my previous post to indicate I have an issue with SL having an adult side. I don't at all. I just think it's invaded fashion to the point that I have a hard time finding things I'd like to buy. That's all.

It's not easy to search for anything 'Tiny' on the MP without running into something gah (and that's excluding A-rated items).  As for SL generally it's none of my business what adults do with their bits to other adults; I just don't want to see it.

[Arielle Popstar]

16 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

Don't take my previous post to indicate I have an issue with SL having an adult side. I don't at all. I just think it's invaded fashion to the point that I have a hard time finding things I'd like to buy. That's all.

Curious whether the ToS change will have an effect on the sort of styles that are currently popular. I have a suspicion that it will result in more conservative clothing.

[Arielle Popstar]

26 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

Since not so long ago  LL finally admitted that SL has a adult side .. perhaps it should be promoted to get more people in.

But not to teens with raging hormones!

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Second Life doesn't need adult content to succeed, and it may actually be what keeps it from growing into what it could be.

Wrong.

You keep spamming this puritan crap, and it's always wrong.

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Take a look around you

Oh I have.

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Most of this activity and joy are on platforms that have no Adult content

And almost NO adult users..

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

The overwhelming market available out there looks at SL as an unsafe place for children

All, 18+ platforms are not for children, including the GTA franchise,.

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Perhaps it's time that Linden Lab considered a new and fresh approach

It's neither "new" nor "fresh", they tried this in Sansar, a platform that died from having quite literally fewer users than staff., 70 staff, concurrency 15.

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

I am the last of 25 of my personal network that all had a presence on SL at one time or another

And I'd bet that most let in 2008, 2009, or 2010, because they weren't getting rich without working as promised in the Advertising hype of 2006.

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Don't make me point to SL's average concurrent numbers to bring back the reality that their market share is literally miniscule compared to what it could be.

SL's userbase puts it in the top 20 of MMORPG's, and it's concurrency isn't shabby compared to titles listed on Steam.

 

There are platforms with higher concurrencies, but they tend to be adrenalin junkie first person shooters.

SL will NEVER appeal to that demographic in any meaningful way.

 

Then thee is Crabblox, people often say "look it has zillions of users" but those users are KIDS WHO SPEND ALMOST NO MONEY, which is why Crapblox has NEVER made a profiit in it's entire history, and is currently losing over $1,200,000,000 a YEAR.

Meta has apparently dug it's self a 36 BILLION dollar hole, and is not popular.

 

2 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Please respond to the main point, whether you believe SL would succeed or fail over adult content

Fail.

3 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

and more importantly WHY you believe it so...

Because factual evidence says so,

"Go adult fun hating puritan killjoy Moral Minority Bigot Crusaders for Financial Disaster, go broke."

 

[Janet Voxel]

Is Secondlife sexy or hyper sexual? I feel like there is nuance there and it’s not talked about enough.

In other words we talk about it like it’s rated X when it’s really more rated R. Sure you can go to a popular shopping event and see someone shopping in lingerie or a bikini. You are more likely to see someone fully clothed or in a costume…..even at the “sexy” clothing events.

Even if we’re talking about sex sims, more often than not there’s not a whole lot of sex going on.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, JacksonBollock said:

It might be that by leaning more into creating and marketing itself as a truly segmented environment, Second Life could continue to serve its existing adult community without alienating potential new users who seek creative but non-adult interactions.

No, "middle class hippie wannabe co-operative prim pushing" went out of fashion a decade and a half ago, as it's entertainment value was right up there with "flip the rock".

 

1 hour ago, JacksonBollock said:

I just think that perhaps the whole "If SL took away the adult side of things, it'd fail." mantra, sells SL a little short.

It is what it is, make SL puritan friendly, and it loses money and closes down, it's a commercial entertainment platform, not a government funded social health-care service 

 

1 hour ago, JacksonBollock said:

So yeah, focussing on the explicit adult side of things might prolong Second Life's mere survival, but perhaps not its future growth and wellbeing.

It's wellbeing is continuing making enough money that the owners don't shut it down. As for "growth". The founder of SL, after leaving, tried setting up a competitor, it failed. Initially, they couldn't get bank loans to pay for it, because the banks realised that the market for an SL like product, already uses SSL. and that no rival would manage to pull enough of the SL user base away fast enough to stay in business without dropping the kind of sunk cost investment that would ensure the company never made a profit.

Like Crapblox.

 

For 20 years now, SL has had clueless interlopers coming in and telling us that we're crazy people who need therapy, and everything we do is wrong, and only THEY can savve SSL, fom "impending doom" with their "brilliant ideas" which when examined are a) usually something we tried a decade ago and found to be a waste of time effort and money, and/or b) the sort of ideas dreamed up by people with IQ scores comparable to EU Shoe Sizes.

 

Imbeciles always go on about how there's some "vast untapped poorly defined new market, just over that hill, who will spend money like water, if only you get rid of [ things that keep the platform alive ]".

They are always wrong.

 

That's why CrapBlox loses over $1,200,000,000 a YEAR. That's why Meta's metacrap-does-not-and-will-not-exist-ierse is $36 billion in the hole.

 

Lean from reality. Pseudo-intellectual positivity mumbo-jumbo is bad for your brain.

 

[Sid Nagy]

6 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Sure you can go to a popular shopping event and see someone shopping in lingerie or a bikini.

I've seen pictures from inside Walmart in the USA....

Sex is part of life for most people. Looking sexy is part of that habit.

[diamond Marchant]

30 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

All, 18+ platforms are not for children, including the GTA franchise

That's a fact, jack! GTA5 came out in 2013 and, so far, has grossed over $8.5 BILLION in revenue. For comparison, the highest grossing movie of all time is Avatar at around $3 billion.

This suggests to me that being "adult" is not a problem, businesswise.

Yes, SL has a tiny number of users compared to just about any other "game' or "game within a game". My opinion is that this is due to the complex user-interface one must master in order to thrive here.

Not being a Premium Plus resident, I have no idea if the Mobile-Fail Viewer (did I get it right Zali?) addresses any of the UI/ease-of-use issues.

I also think that the current emphasis on building a better wall around "adult content" is motivated by Apple App store restrictions. It's just business.

No clue what's gonna happen. Just gonna eat popcorn and watch. I also realize that SL may be closed without warning and the digital assets sold.

Edited May 11 by diamond Marchant

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

No, "middle class hippie wannabe co-operative prim pushing" went out of fashion a decade and a half ago, as it's entertainment value was right up there with "flip the rock".

 

It is what it is, make SL puritan friendly, and it loses money and closes down, it's a commercial entertainment platform, not a government funded social health-care service 

 

It's wellbeing is continuing making enough money that the owners don't shut it down. As for "growth". The founder of SL, after leaving, tried setting up a competitor, it failed. Initially, they couldn't get bank loans to pay for it, because the banks realised that the market for an SL like product, already uses SSL. and that no rival would manage to pull enough of the SL user base away fast enough to stay in business without dropping the kind of sunk cost investment that would ensure the company never made a profit.

Like Crapblox.

 

For 20 years now, SL has had clueless interlopers coming in and telling us that we're crazy people who need therapy, and everything we do is wrong, and only THEY can savve SSL, fom "impending doom" with their "brilliant ideas" which when examined are a) usually something we tried a decade ago and found to be a waste of time effort and money, and/or b) the sort of ideas dreamed up by people with IQ scores comparable to EU Shoe Sizes.

 

Imbeciles always go on about how there's some "vast untapped poorly defined new market, just over that hill, who will spend money like water, if only you get rid of [ things that keep the platform alive ]".

They are always wrong.

 

That's why CrapBlox loses over $1,200,000,000 a YEAR. That's why Meta's metacrap-does-not-and-will-not-exist-ierse is $36 billion in the hole.

 

Lean from reality. Pseudo-intellectual positivity mumbo-jumbo is bad for your brain.

 

I sooooo want to like a few of the points you made.  They are good ones. Then you lay in with the insults and the good points are buried under the avalanche of negative rock-flipping.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

I sooooo want to like a few of the points you made.  They are good ones. Then you lay in with the insults and the good points are buried under the avalanche of negative rock-flipping.

 

"I'll have the 'Zal Special', can I get it without the Insults?"

"ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSTITUTIONS!"

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

I think having an equal amount of PG and Adult activities is great. As it creates a great diversity of choices amongst it's user base. I mean sure, I try to avoid a lot of it. But I do also think that it is great for people to express themselves, and to have a diverse set of activities to express themselves with. That being said, you are comparing SL to say Minecraft or Roblox, which its primary demographic are kids. Yes, adults can partake in these platforms too. But a lot of adults, mainly partake in these PG activities with their kids. I mean I am all for that than having kids unsupervised on the internet. 

[stlshayne]

VHS beat Betamax for a reason.

[Zidaya Zenovka]

I'd love it if the prudes would quit making it sound like enjoying sex is a bad thing. 

[JeromFranzic]

2 hours ago, stlshayne said:

VHS beat Betamax for a reason.

I used to own both formats... the Betamax tapes have vaporized. I still own some VHS machines and tapes. Anyway...

[JeromFranzic]

4 hours ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

I sooooo want to like a few of the points you made.  They are good ones. Then you lay in with the insults and the good points are buried under the avalanche of negative rock-flipping.

 

I'm OK with some of Zal's takes. I feel like she's channeling some of my favorite classic comedians with strong opinions... George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Judy Tenuta... Yup. I often lose my coffee or beer at times while reading her commentary.

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

I'd love it if the prudes would quit making it sound like enjoying sex is a bad thing. 

Heck, even BAD sex is enjoyable, if approached with the "right" attitude.