Meridia.

I wish I had time to add to what you have said and to clarify a few points … That will have to come later as a thunderstorm approaches.

— I have heard a few people say they would rather go play something else, but they have this going concern here, with their business here, so they keep on keeping on. (Me, I wouldn’t keep on keeping on unless I also enjoyed it.)

I don’t think that is the same, though, as saying they have put in more than they can afford to lose. When you say that, I think more of someone buying 20 sims with grandiose ideas that may or may not work out, in which case I would say they had better be prepared to lose it.

But for most people, it’s a day-to-day, month-by-month thing, their bottom line. And thus they will not be out much of anything, really, if the whole thing folded tomorrow, except that month’s investment, if any.

(Unless, of course, they happen to be unlucky enough to have their profit-turning point occur at the same time as the SL shutting its doors point!)

——

2. If you are unable to see the clearest examples of this point (anyone that states they ‘live’ in Second Life), you really should consider taking a break.

—— We may not be using the terms “live” in SL the same way. (Though I don’t recall using it in this thread.)

People can tell the difference between RL and SL.

As for “living,” when I am in SL, I am living in SL. When I watch TV, I’m living as a couch potato. When I read a book, I’m “living” in the book. Life is wherever you happen to be living it.

I don’t think anyone seriously thinks they live ONLY in one game. But when they are in it, they are IN it, and – depending on individual personality and goals – they are living it as fully as they live anything else they do.

That is true of me, anyway.

—–

3. It is a computer program originally designed to be an escape from the real world. such escapes are not to be taken seriously …

You are wrong in another part of that as well. Not all art requires total involvement, concentration …. Well, to put it bluntly Coco some art simply comes to you without having to concentrate so much on it.

—– Well, I’m not going to argue with you much about art, since I have spent my whole life at it. I’m sure artists (verbal or visual, auditory, or whatever combination) have various methods.

But the fact is, most art is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. And for most successful artists, yes, it is by nature a very involving thing, not something you could do without putting your all into it. It just INVOLVES that involvement, know what I’m saying?

Very little art happens without concentration and intensity, because even though the original idea might just “come to you,” the actual execution of it – making it everything it wants and needs to be – requires full involvement and time in order to be done as it deserves.

As to your first comment, I would also say that people tend to take SL more seriously than other fantasy escapes (and get more upset at having various rugs pulled out from under them, without their input) when they have their money and businesses here.

—–

4. Of course the users have a misguided notion of their value to Linden Lab. How many SIMs do you own Coco? Are you the CEO of a large real life company? Can you provide them with a salary above $5,000 a month?

The first one is not as important as the rest of those. If the answer to any of those questions is no … Well, Linden Lab will treat you the same way it treats everyone else. as a matter of fact Coco, corporates and the like pay far more into their salaries than you or I do, therefore they live off of them more than they live off of you or I. Yes, without the general populace Second Life would be empty – big deal. They do not care so it is academic.

—– I don’t believe I ever said I, as an individual, or any other customer, was necessary to the existance of SL, did I?

Customers, in the aggregate, are vital to the existence of SL. Without customers – in the aggregate – the general populace of SL would be empty, and yes, that would be a big deal.

This is why companies tend to try to keep their customers happy, because if they don’t, they lose them, and they no longer make a profit.

—–

5. The principle is not the same as any of those you have mentioned Coco – Linden Lab is more like AOL, MSN, Net Zero or the other ISPs out there. to be a bit more exact there, Linden Lab is more like AOL than any of the others … Once they had more than enough users they ceased listening to them. They still exist today.

That is what Linden Lab is – a modern day, three dimensional America Online (Q-link for those that remember it) and they will eventually do the same as AOL: They will find a company that wants to purchase Second Life and they themselves will slink into the background to work on the code.

Like any ISP you pay them for the use of their service, yet they reserve the right to terminate said service at any time for any reason. If you are able to make money using the Internet when this happens, your ISP and even your Web Host is under no obligation to refund you or pay you what you may have lost.

Of course, 5 ties into 3, 2, and 1 as well. I’ll leave it to you to figure out by yourself.

—– Well, that’s interesting that you see it as like AOL.

However, AOL itself (like the other companies I mentioned) has competition, and AOL still has to pay attention to what their customers want. And if they do that well, they will have a lot of customers. And if they have a lot of customers, they will be a successful, profitable business.

And by the way, if you are going to have SL be AOL, then you will have to accept that people with businesses on it will be taking it seriously, just as people with businesses on AOL or ebay or wherever on the web also tend to take their businesses seriously.

coco

—————————————————-
Dear Second Life Resident,
Your Abuse Report has been investigated and resolved.
—————————————————–
Linden Lab cannot verify, enforce, certify, examine, uphold or
adjudicate any oath, contract, deal, bargain or agreement made by the
residents of Second Life. This includes the operation, odds and payouts
of any gambling or “casino” scripts. Please contact the resident with
whom you have a dispute, and request that they “make good” on the deal.
While you may have a valid agreement with another person, Linden Lab is
not a party to and cannot resolve your dispute.
——————————————————

For those that do not understand,

We, Linden reserve the right to allow fraud on our servers. We Linden take no action and refuse to be forced to protect anyone on our servers.
We Linden are virtual gods and will not listen to anyone complaining about our service. If you are truly out money, and you have been stolen from, tough. We ended up with your stolen money and we are not giving it back. You do realize this is pyramid no? All money comes to us, but we launder it via all the scammers we harbor. Get with it, if you want
legal and moral services, go some place else. You do not own anything, we
do. Take your problems up with the scammers that ripped you off, all we do is harbor them so we get paid.

We hope you understand, we don’t intend on doing good sound business and
run our scammers off, we need the money and you’ll just have to suck it up.

————————————————————————

Best,
indra-abuse@secondlife.com

Linden Lab
1100 Sansome Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone 415.243.9000
Fax 415.243.9045
http://www.secondlife.com

==========================

Dear Lindenians,

Please quit sending Abuse Reports. We recently stated that we should have never called Abuse Reports what we did. We don’t want to hear your garbage. Our own Linden Labs people have stated that indeed, we should have never called abuse reports what we did. Look it up on the web.

Look, we are in California, US. Our fore fathers killed off the indians to get here. We took their land so we could create virtual land. We are Linden Labs, we are going to dominate virtual land market and we don’t care who gets hurt in the process. Did we mention we are American?

Sorry, that is the American way. Yes we voted for bush and believe that the US should dominate every land on the planet and every oil reserve that is available. It might take a few years, but we will get it all. That is what we do, we are an American company. If we have to, we will outsource it to other scammers across the globe. All Americans stand behind us.. well, maybe not via our statistics that show what countries are logging into our service, but nevertheless, we stand behind our rights to dominate the web and kill off the indians.

Look sir, you do realise that our American culture is made up of people who took something that didn’t belong to them? So why should Linden Labs be any different? Give us a break. We allow scammers because we believe we have the right as an American company to provide what we want on our own terms. Most American companies do this until they are caught like Enron.

Anyhow, You never made it to California… We did. And yes, this says alot Mr. Gateway to the west.

Land is power. You know it and we know it. Virtual or not, we will drive the indians off the earth for the power we see. We will deliver more land and protect the rights of corporate interests to invest in such at any means.

We think you need to take a break and think about how America came about in the first place son. Look, this is virtual America we talk about. This is the Gateway to the future. Not the mid-west.

So, why don’t you just go buy a virtual island and do what others are doing? Create your own scams and send us the money? Look, your American. You can get away with it. We will protect your rights until we go down. So why all the fuss?

====
The above a parody? Not the way I view it.
====

On a more personal note, and after issues encountered with fraud in Second Life from both a sim owner and Linden Labs harboring the fugitives, I personally hope Linden gets hammered real good, and are investigated on continued fraud claims charges until they are forced to investigate the matters and resolve the scam losses they collect on daily.

Funny how Linden claims fraud and it’s a big deal, we can prove fraud and Linden cares less.

1. By simple observation there are users who feel they are trapped in Second Life due to the amount of time and money they have dumped into this program. Such people have placed more than they are willing to lose into Second Life.

2. If you are unable to see the clearest examples of this point (anyone that states they ‘live’ in Second Life), you really should consider taking a break.

3. It is a computer program originally designed to be an escape from the real world. such escapes are not to be taken seriously …

You are wrong in another part of that as well. Not all art requires total involvement, concentration …. Well, to put it bluntly Coco some art simply comes to you without having to concentrate so much on it.

4. Of course the users have a misguided notion of their value to Linden Lab. How many SIMs do you own Coco? Are you the CEO of a large real life company? Can you provide them with a salary above $5,000 a month?

The first one is not as important as the rest of those. If the answer to any of those questions is no … Well, Linden Lab will treat you the same way it treats everyone else. as a matter of fact Coco, corporates and the like pay far more into their salaries than you or I do, therefore they live off of them more than they live off of you or I. Yes, without the general populace Second Life would be empty – big deal. They do not care so it is academic.

5. The principle is not the same as any of those you have mentioned Coco – Linden Lab is more like AOL, MSN, Net Zero or the other ISPs out there. to be a bit more exact there, Linden Lab is more like AOL than any of the others … Once they had more than enough users they ceased listening to them. They still exist today.

That is what Linden Lab is – a modern day, three dimensional America Online (Q-link for those that remember it) and they will eventually do the same as AOL: They will find a company that wants to purchase Second Life and they themselves will slink into the background to work on the code.

Like any ISP you pay them for the use of their service, yet they reserve the right to terminate said service at any time for any reason. If you are able to make money using the Internet when this happens, your ISP and even your Web Host is under no obligation to refund you or pay you what you may have lost.

Of course, 5 ties into 3, 2, and 1 as well. I’ll leave it to you to figure out by yourself.

>I will not have lost much at all.

So? Bully for you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You gotta be in it, to win it.

A good example of how people wish others evil, with such casual viciousness.

I don’t think Linden Lab will be pulling plugs or leaving people high and dry. Sure, they could. It could be a scandal. But I honestly think we’re way past that. It’s actually a healthy sign that they are a target of a lawsuit now — nobody could have bothered with a lawsuit like that when they were just some dinky and goofy software start-up. Even if they flame out, there will be other businesses, or a recombined version of their own people, who will sustain it in other forms. They surely will have to do right by their customers, if not by their own ethics, then by lawsuits that they’ll have to settle.

The current settlement cost for them to their customers if they have to crash out or are bought out and reformatted is something like $800,000 or less — let’s say they offer $1000 on the sim. Even half that, it’s chump change for people this wealthy. They’ll pony it up if they have to — or those who buy them out will.

Of course the land they sell they claim has no intrinsic value — it’s merely a vessel for creativity that you are supposed to muster yourself, and take away with you even if they crash.

For metaversal services providers like ESC, it doesn’t matter if SL crashes tomorrow, they’ll go to the next guy and the next game. Frankly, even people like me or Coco will go to the next game.

But for now, tier people pay on their land means something to their bottom line, and they have no reason to crash it needlessly.

People who don’t risk anything, who have no “skin in” don’t learn anything, don’t experience anything, and are reduced to forever sitting on the sidelines being jealous of those who have lived.

I’ve never heard a more inappropriate nickname for someone who is in fact unprepared for life of any kind, real or virtual.

But here now, you make entirely too many assumptions about other people.

You write:

“As a general user of Second Life who has not made the rather daft mistake of placing any more into this program than I am prepared to lose, as someone who does not take second Life so seriously as to confuse it with Real Life, as someone who does not have some misguided notion of my value to Linden Lab, as someone who does not believe for one second that Linden Lab is the same as my cable company or phone company ….”

How many erroneous presumptions are in that one paragraph alone? Let me count the ways!

1. Who said anybody put more into it than they could afford to lose? Who said anyone was losing anything?

2. Who said anyone confused SL with RL?

3. What is wrong with taking SL seriously? I take ALL my play seriously!

I work hard and play hard. And when it comes to creativity, regardless of whether the venue is RL or SL, the process is the same, and requires one’s entire involvement. While art can be playful, it just isn’t something you approach without intensity, focus and involvement.

4. Customers don’t have a misguided notion of their value to Linden Lab, for the sheer reason that we pay their salaries! They literally live off us! And without us, the world of SL wouldn’t exist! LL needs us more than we need them, quite literally!

5. Of course they’re not the same as your cable company, or your phone company, or Kimberly-Clark, or CBS, or Hobby Lobby. But the principle is the same – they’re a company offering a service/product, and we are the customers who buy it and keep them in business!

But I’m curious, what do you think LL is, if not what I said in (5) above?

coco

I will be sitting here and laughing.

Do you know why I will be laughing?

As a general user of Second Life who has not made the rather daft mistake of placing any more into this program than I am prepared to lose, as someone who does not take second Life so seriously as to confuse it with Real Life, as someone who does not have some misguided notion of my value to Linden Lab, as someone who does not believe for one second that Linden Lab is the same as my cable company or phone company ….

I will not have lost much at all.

The two of you on the other hand will be left sitting there wondering just who the hell yanked the rug out from under you.

To put it bluntly: Linden Lab is not your phone company, your cable company or any other Utility provider.

They are Like America Online, MSN, Net Zero or any other dedicated ISP or web site host out there: You pay them for the use of their services. You are bound by their rules, they are not bound by your’s.

Don’t like that? Tough, deal with it like everyone else.

Oh and coco? Nice try on the sarcasm – you need to do a bit of work however.

I must have been looking at everything through rose-colored glasses! I didn’t know I was supposed to cower in the corner until LL decides to “pull the plug!”

Here I thought SL was a going, dynamic concern, of which I’m a part!

And the user base doesn’t bother with homes? Gee, I’d better tell my customers that! And tell them to give me back the homes, since they don’t buy them!

Golly, the Lindens are mean people. I didn’t realize that till I read your post speaking for them!

coco

No, we’re not “beholden” to technical service providers. They may *think* that. But…the market prevails, Congress even prevails, people prevail, and they *move on* when a technical service fails, or simply ceases even to serve people or perform its function. Second Life or any virtual world is no different.

I don’t light candles to Bill Gates, or sprinkle Holy Water on the Con Ed building for providing me with the means to make a living every day and feed my family. That would be silly. In the social contract, they provide a service, I pay for it, they uphold their end of the contract, I uphold mine.

This notion that we’re all supposed to be living in a company town is ridiculous — and frankly, it’s one that even something like Linden Lab that people might brand as a “company town” doesn’t even have about *itself*. The scornful sniggers and nasties coming from sidelines-sitters like Reality who don’t run businesses or do much of anything except use up the space in their mom’s basement, rent-free, aren’t actually the sort of tone the Lab takes, most of the time.

I’m not obliged to appeal to the general user base in every story; indeed, I’m not really sure how much the general user base reads the Herald, but probably most of the read the Herald not for Reality’s comments, but for the articles.