Second Life's Survival Seriously Threatened by Second Life Users' Hate and Fear of Change (1st of a Series)

Recently I mentioned talking with newly appointed Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble about “the recalcitrance of Second Life's existing userbase to change.” To be clear, I do not know if Mr. Humble shares my belief that Second Life’s community resists and fears changing Second Life, even to save it from its current trajectory, which inevitably ends in oblivion.

However, I can say for certain that many Lindens past and present share my opinion about Resident resistance to change. I even suspect this is what Second Life's very founder, Philip Rosedale, believes. After all, he once warned SL's most dedicated users, “Try not to cling too tightly to what we have now... [coming] changes are sometimes going to be disruptive and painful.” One only expects pain, when one expects resistance.

Then again, Philip has all but left Linden Lab, as have nearly all the founding Lindens, even though they once spoke and advocated for Second Life so passionately. Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka now works at Facebook. Second Life community management founder Robin Harper now works at a company that makes Facebook games. Most other Lindens have followed them out the door, and many Lindens have since spoken to me about their frustration (almost aways tinged with affection) with Second Life's userbase, and its resistance to change. I believe that resistance is among the many reasons for their collective departure -- a sense that the community they have worked so hard to foster and support resents or dismisses their efforts. Outside analysts have made a similar observation: Forester Research's Tom Grant, for example, suggested Linden Lab suffers from an Iron Law of Oligarchy of "their best customers [who] are, in subtle ways, holding them back."

But more changes are coming, and so will more resistance. Take just a couple examples from recent weeks:

• When I reported that Linden Lab describes Facebook as the best option to share Second Life content -- an option, mind you -- well, you can read the overwhelming reader rage that provoked. This despite the fact that Facebook now accounts for more than 25% of all web pageviews, which means Linden Lab not having a Facebook promotion strategy for Second Life would be tantamount to ignoring Google.
• When I suggested that Second Life should have a point-and-click avatar movement option -- again, an option -- and Rod Humble agreed with me on that point... well, again, read the reactive rancor here. This despite the fact that the largest, mass market 3D games also have a point-and-click avatar movement option.

And so on, and on -- many more examples of this dynamic abound. Based on Mr. Humble’s experience with The Sims franchise, at Electronic Arts, we are likely to see Second Life become more gamelike, become more appealing to “the riffraff”, as one community member once referred to the mainstream. Some changes will likely meet even more resistance by Residents (certainly the most vocal ones.) The resistance may be so great, the Lindens may back away from the changes they had planned at the last minute, even if it means losing another opportunity to grow the user base, and thereby save Second Life.

But not all change is bad, especially if it's needed to insure the community can go on. Because, once again, here is the harsh reality:

Virtual worlds the size and scope of Second Life need millions in annual revenue to survive, but Second Life's existing revenue model, while currently successful, is not sustainable into the medium or long term. There are simply not enough people in the real world willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month for virtual land, and those who do now will slowly but inevitably leave for many and various reasons, making Second Life a candidate for lingering death from a thousand cuts. The imminent death of Numbukalla, once a treasured SL sim, is just one of many such blows; in the next 2-3 years, barring a dramatic strategy shift, expect many more to come, until the utter direness of Second Life's situation will be undeniable to all. Though by that time, it'll likely be too late.

So this will become a recurring theme of New World Notes for the next few months (or indeed, until Second Life shows signs of growth.) I’ll be writing not so much about how Second Life might survive, but how many Residents who love it so much are inadvertently threatening its survival by near-strangling it with their passion. I’ll be writing these posts not just to the community, but to the Lindens themselves, in a bid to convince them that they should not fear pushing forward on the changes that are needed.

Because in the end, it's not the Second Life Residents' hate and fear of change that threatens Second Life -- it's a fear of that reaction. That's what needs to be overcome. By the Lindens, by the Residents, and all of us who love Second Life.

UPDATE, 3/25:

This series continued in this post, click to read. Among the points I expand on from the above essay are:

• Only Resistance to Massive User Growth is a Threat to Second Life's Survival
• Only a Vocal Minority are (Actively) Resistant to the Changes Needed to Save Second Life
• Resistance to Change is Not Bad or Unreasonable in Itself
• Linden Lab is Largely Responsible for Their Users' Own Resistance to Change
• Linden Lab is Mostly Responsible for Second Life's Now-Precarious State

Read it all here.

Comments

[Tinsel Silvera]

You will be pleased to know the Second Life 2-6-1-223988 Dev version has PnC defaulted in. I am no fan of it but I did do some walking around with it earlier. I have always preferred keyboard to mouse movements but both should be offered. I think this whole "website movement" we see Linden Lab doing is proof they too realize their revenue model is not sustainable indefinitely. Wait. Did I just agree with you? {:o)

[Vivienne Daguerre]

I think you really hit on something here. Linden Lab needs to remember that the most vocal residents who cry "The sky is falling!" the loudest are not representative of the majority of us.

The Chicken Littles will always find something to squawk about. Ignore them and move on.

The changes I have seen since my rez date in April 2004 have been marvelous--flex prims, sculpties, and soon mesh! With every one of them people moaned about old content becoming obsolete.

With flex prims, my clothing stocks became obsolete overnight, and I had to work to make new stuff quickly to stay in business. The coming of sculpties made me jump through hoops to learn to make sculpties.

It brought extra work, but I enjoy this type of work. To me this is fun, and I love getting new tools.

Onward! To stagnate is a certain death.

[Uccello]

Hear Hear! Daily I listen in on the Third Party Viewer chats I hear nearly endless vitriol (mostly in the Firestorm group) against v2-style viewers. More than one person I know hasn't even seriously tried a v2-style viewer or tried to customize one. For example, I walked one person through the steps to make a feature more v1-stylish even to the point of sending screen shots of how I did it. The response? "Oh, that sucks. I shouldn't have to even do that. I want it MY way. No one should use the abomination called v2" (I paraphrased ... posting transcripts here without permission is against ToS I've heard). What if the new viewer is MY style? Why can't I have choice? I can embrace and work with change *if it is for the better good* of me and the situation. I don't advocate change for change's sake as is suggested by those who hate change. If I can't have everything I want, I do my best to adapt, adopt, and improve.

Go find the very short book "Who Moved My Cheese?" and read it. Or get the illustrated versions or the video. Or here is the Wikipedia summary for the severely time-challenged: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F You'll think about change rather differently if you understand the message within the Cheese.

[Pam Broviak]

I continue to see direct comparisons between virtual worlds like Second Life and the operation or governance of cities or other communities. Those of us working in government often experience the same feedback and reaction from residents in our communities. Even though we might propose something that is extremely beneficial for the public, if it changes something familiar, there is often a very vocal resistance.

Based on these similarities, I believe Linden Lab could save themselves a lot of frustration and position themselves for a higher rate of success if they could research how municipalities operate, function, and deal with similar challenges.

[Laetizia 'Tish' Coronet]

It's all very well that a slew of ex-Lindens complain about their former customers, but they were (partly) responsible for the utter failure of trying to launch the platform as a business tool - and many a decision was made with that in mind, not in the least the whole sanitation operation that we've seen. One that has left SL advertising with bunnehs and horsies while IMVU has half nekkid avatars passionately hugging. And we all know that sex sells, whatever one might think of the ethical side.

The problem I see is twofold: yes, there is vocal resistance to any change whatsoever, but there is also an unwillingness in San Fran to listen to customers, even when what they say makes good common sense.

They can unload their frustrations on all of us as much as they like but I have seen a lot of I-told-you-so moments coming by in these past years. Not to mention the many times we all had to pull a rope for a loooong time before something at the Lab started to shift in the right direction.

Pretty one-sided company view here Hamlet. You've gone from embedded journalist to company spokesperson, it seems.

[Crap Mariner]

I still find that warning of painful things to come as an utterly bizarre thing for a service provider to tell their customer base.

If they're rolling out products and services that provide better stability, functionality, flexibility, and performance, then people won't be experiencing pain.

They'll be experiencing joy. And telling others about it, bringing in more customers and revenue.

Oh well. Phil's a billionaire building a geek chic coffeeshop. What do I know, right?

-ls/cm

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Didn't SL at one time have PnC movement? IIRC there used to be a "go here" command in the right click window.

I tell people all the time that 2.foo isn't that bad...sure for communication/friends/groups the UI is not as good as 1.foo, and it works best on widescreen monitors, but for avatar stuff/inventory/landmarks that sidebar is great. And the location bar is awesome because you can edit it directly. Stuck in a spot where you don't want to be, edit the bar to move yourself a meter or 2. I do wish they made notifications a bit more like 1.foo, blue and larger with black text on white and in the upper right, because the small size of them makes them not as useful.

And you know how people complain about search? I remember when it worked awesome. It was when it indexed EVERYTHING, and when you searched and chose a location you also got a list of objects at that location WITH location info within the region, which was wonderful for actually finding items at a large store. But then people complained about that and they stopped doing it.

I don't mind change as long as I have the option to make things work well for me.

[Talwyn Mills]

Just because you think something is a good idea doesn't actually make it one. And any given idea, good or bad, will have people that disagree with that idea, such is the nature of life.

But there is an additional here, in part I think its part learned behaviour, because many of the changes LL have came up with have either:

1) Not been good ideas (Freebie roadmap)
2) Have had negative effects on the userbase (Homestead price rises, concentration on businesses)
3) Have been handled badly (more or less everything)
4) Have been suggested, accepted as positive, maybe even worked on, then binned (Script limits apparently)
5) Results in people no longer able use SL on older rigs (Windlight)
6) Have the possibility of causing a major schism in the userbase (voice, there are people and places that won't welcome you if you refuse or cant use it)
7) Require release or RL info (the Facebook links you seem to think are so great when facebook considered avatars as illegal).

So I think LL frankly has only themselves to blame on this one.

I do think the whole Facebook thing is a stupid idea and getting old fast, make it an option that people can opt in to and I don't care, but wheres the option to remove the Like button from my web profile?

But the underlying thrust from Hamlet from this and recent editorials is that anyone that disagree's with his aparent opinions (Facebook is the saviour of SL, everyone should be required to release RL info, anyone that wants privacy is an idiot or has something to hide, if you don't have anything to hide you don't have to worry) isn't worth listening to and not worth respecting their opinion. If you don't respect my opinion, I won't respect yours, simple.

[Jilly Kidd]

When you said people were reluctant to change and that change would be painful I thought you meant the change to fees for educators and nonprofits. Many of us don't like that and found it hard to believe.

Not long ago I talked to you about how happy the London School of Journalism was on SL, and how active their sim was.

Now they have left because the discount for universities and nonprofits was taken away and they can't justify doubling what they pay. I'm in touch with other universities who are also leaving.

This is a massive change and sent out a message to us that was painful and hard to accept. After years of believing Linden Labs valued education and culture and that it was worth our while putting time and effort into building sims and communities for those kinds of activities we suddenly get shown that we were mistaken.

Resistant to change? Yes, I suppose we are in this case. You say it's the need for more income, well these people did pay and it's hard to believe their discounted rate was of so little value that it could be discarded.

The changes you mention are small ones, and people do react but then get used to it, just as they do with upgrading viewers. The reluctance to be part of any social network or website outside SL is also something we have to accept from some users who want SL to be a separate world.

The massive message that education and culture don't matter is quite different.

[Rin Tae]

This post does read like a 'rage-thread' of sorts. Actually when talking with people, reading what is written and listening to what they might have to say about SL I don't see much resistence to change. This might come as a surprise but the ressitence is more fueled by the so far less then satisfactionary performence of the lab. Lots of the vocal resistence is there, because over the years many residents stopped trusting the lab!

Mostly because of the absolute horrid and actually not existing communication with the customers and often no response to issues or complains beyond some corp-speak blog posts that have been so awful that it was too difficult to read them.

If you look at SL, then there is very little resistence to change. There is lots of support. There is a community that screams and shouts and actualyl begs for a chance to help the world grow, but so far LL has made a good job of ignoring it and cutting back on even more services. How can soemone be expected to invest money and creativity into the platform, when there is so little coming back from LL?
But then, there is still money and creativity being invested all the time. If people would be so resistent to change and so much complaining, then why are they still doing it and why are there many people waiting for mesh and larger prims? If there is resistence to change, then why everyone is being laughed at when they complain about how a new feature will kill their buisenss? When there is a resistence to change, then why are so many people jumping on the chance to use the Firestorm viewer even when it is a pre-alpha preview? Or use one of the other version 2 third party viewers already on the gird?

There might have been other reasons then 'resistence to change' that prevented the version 2 viewer to gain more users when it has been introduced. There has been lots written about this but it took LL way to long to accept this feedback.

I rather think, that all those experts are not really in touch with what they are writing about. It all seems like they have a premade perfect plan that has to work because it has been done by experts who must knew it since .. well .. they are experts! When the users say that it is stupid, it is of course the users fault and resistence the change since they lack the 'experts' enlightment.

There is so much to do in SL. So many problems to solve and improvements to make. There is so much support and love for it within the community, that it is almsot breathtaking. But no one is listening and instead we only get 'perfect plans' made up by experts. Now of course I have wrote up something of a 'hate-post' myself but once my fingers touched the keys it all got out on it's own. I think it jsut needed to be said ... and ... was there not something about Googles Lively havign been made by 'experts' who knew exactly what SL made wrong and who knew what would be THE virtual world of the future?

[Machine]

If they make SL more gamelike, I hope that some entrepreneur will start a new virtual world where people can focus on building things of interest to them, and explore what other have built in a non-game like environment.

[Alia Baroque]

Being on survivor island right now, I can eat coconuts for months if this will help SL get its sparkle, but just tell me...

..what's that black smoke?

[Machine]

I really hate games and RL sports generally too. I prefer to participate in a RL sport to remain physically fit, rather than spending endless hours watching sports.

I used to love video games back in the 80s when I was high school. I just find them to be childish now at my age. I anycase, most games involve some kind of fighting which I really dislike.

I used to participate a lot in RPG sims when I just joined SL, and now I really dislike them. I have enough rules to follow in RL to then follow more rules when I log into SL.

I enjoy the music scene the most in SL. So I also hope that if Hamlet succeeds in his crusade for game and sport lovers, that some visionary entrepreneur will start a virtual world where in addition to a main focus on building digital stuff of interest, there will be a vibrant live music scene.

[Riisu]

Facebook, point-and-click as options, I can't care less and nobody should argue... as long as LL don't decide suddenly to make any of them mandatory. That's the big problem with LL. Too often, they try to push disruptive changes down our throats, say "let's discuss" and just ignore anyone who doesn't agree with them, saying that we "hate and fear change". The best example of this strategy is Viewer V2. Those who hate it so passionately --like I do-- always keep in mind the endless forum threads of hatred against it as proof that LL don't listen to us. These threads were certainly unpleasant to LL but they pointed a big finger in direction of some obvious flaws in V2: The popups, the chat and the sidebar. I test every version of V2.x and I still see V2.0. How can I not hate it? (Please, don't mention the mini location bar or the detachable tabs of the sidebar, I still don't know if I must laugh or cry when I see them.)
As for the revenue model, it is definitively doomed. As a landowner, I pay for some server usage and I wonder from time to time why the prices weren't even slightly reduced when LL put 4 sims on a server. Less servers, lesser prices, no? Any way, the tier system is broken. I'd like so much to buy more land and I can afford it. I just can't afford to double my tier.

[Arcadian Vanalten]

I'm not sure I buy your hypothesis, Hamlet. Most of the residents I know actively want changes, but they feel rather disenfranchised b/c LL has not focused on the needs and wishes of their customer base. They keep trotting out new bells and whistles that no one asked for, while ignoring the tech fixes people have been requesting, in some cases, for years.

That's not fear of change, Hamlet. That's mounting disgust. There IS a difference.

[Tateru Nino]

"Didn't SL at one time have PnC movement?"

Yes it did, Crono.

[Machine]

On another point, I don't see how the revenue model can be substantially changed.

SL in hardwarde terms consists of servers that maintain the sims and avatars that people use. The more stuff you build, the more server space you use, so your payment has to be related in some way to server resources. If SL were mainly an avatar world with a static environment, you could charge subscriptions based on number of avatars. However, the main server resources in SL support sims with all the digital content that they contain.

I can't see how you can have revenue model in SL that is not based on the server resources that you use. Unless you do away with building and land altogether, in which case one would wonder what is the point of SL then?

[Marx Dudek]

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/09/hamlet-au-goes-to-blue-mars.html

Enough said, I think.

[Kim Anubis]

The attitude that the most important thing is for SL to last forever, even if it requires changing it in ways that longtime customers protest, is about continued income, not continued enjoyment. While you and I and the folks at the Lab rely on the continued existence of SL for financial reasons, those who aren't in it for the dough don't have much incentive to put up with changes they don't want, or to keep their mouths shut about them. I think acting as if customers who are displeased when the formula of their favorite product is changed are a bunch of backwards whiners or recalcitrant, shortsighted children is both insulting and a great way to drive them to the competition. That competition isn't IMVU or Habbo. It's Netflix, Hulu, Shapeways, OpenSim, a box of watercolors, or maybe even a walk outside.

[Robustus Hax]

I don't disagree that there does seem to be an impression that SL residents are against change. However to say that is holding SL back is ridiculous. When have the users of Second Life ever successfully overturned a Linden Lab decision? Linden Lab made many decisions that were against the popular viewpoint, so if the Lab decided to go in X direction, they will go in X direction and will usually do so regardless of outspoken resident opinion.

I also fail to see how a Facebook connect / sl in a browser window changes their business model either. A million new freebie users don't necessarily guarantee Linden Lab anything except more costs.

If the Lab's income is dwindling it has to be from the failure of Mainland, since unrented/unowned land is actually a loss. Private Estates are pure profit money tree's for the Lab.

But back to the point, if the Lab wants to connect to Facebook, it is going to connect to Facebook, and no amount of bitching will change that. The only thing holding back Second Life is the turtle pace at which Linden Lab operates.

[Cisop Sixpence]

Seems like every society has groups that resist change, even though it may be (in this case) change that they had been asking for for years.

I say lets progress with the changes. We had a rough and confusing start, but we are finally making headway. Those that don't want progress, know where they can go. ;)

[brinda allen]

Oh Please!.
I pay my share... 6K USD a year.
No, I'm not golden... but I'm far from a freeloader.
Try to force me/us to use a UI thats so bad that literally thousands of daily users don't like it?
It's darned sure nothing to do with point/clic... the Third Party Viewers have that.
As was stated above we tug on the rope and no one listens for weeks/months/years?
It's not that people don't come... it's the 86% that never relog after time one.

Here, let me tug on the rope one more time.
This "new user experience" isn't working, and a large part of that is the complicated viewer that we "that are strangling Secondlife refuse to embrace". Return all new users to and island of their own with adequate mentoring.
Instead of sitting in and office emotionally, actually come spend time in world talking with that new user standing way off to one side of a so called welcome area where he/she has just been ignored... or even worse jeered at because they are so "lost".

Mr. Humble... if you read this and would like to hear from several of those that used to work with new users (and a few that still do... IM me or send me and Email, you have the address).

[Cajsa Lilliehook]

No wonder LL is having trouble with the residents when they have such contempt for them and are comfortable voicing that contempt with a journalist.

Residents are not resistant to change for the sake of resisting change. There are changes residents have embraced with delight - windlight, shadows, and there's great eagerness for the new mesh.

Residents have resisted changes that make the user experience less pleasant (new interface), more expensive (homestead fees0 or more fraught with angst (teen merge).

[Danielle]

The fact that the majority of SL residents use third party viewers proves we are not resistant to change, merely we are resistant to crappy software, which is what the viewer 2.0 initial version was a year ago.

The latest 2.5 and 2.6 beta, with the addition of third party add-ons, I find quite acceptable, and miles ahead of the original 2.0. I still keep some 1.x series viewers installed as alternates for those functions that work better on that series. The 2.x series is not "better in all respects" yet.

[Adeon Writer]

I'm not resistant to change, I'm resistant to regression. For example: those who know me in-world know I'm very loud about my non-use of Viewer 2. But what is my reasoning for that? Am I a change-fearing, stuck-in-my-ways oldbie that is killing SL? Well... No. I actually don't use V2 purely because from the time it was released, to now still, voice doesn't work for me. If and when I can open my mouth while using it, I'd switch instantly and welcome it with open arms.