Lauk's Lament: Have Real World Corporations Fundamentally Eroded Second Life Culture?

A few weeks ago, a goddess stopped by this blog, to explain why she'd been so scarce in the world lately.  In the Spring of 2006, Laukosargas Svarog created Svarga, a self-contained, simulated ecosystem that remains among the greatest works in Second Life, regularly cited as such by Residents and Lindens alike.  It's not even an exaggeration to say that Svarga is what Second Life was originally created for.  In the earliest years, the Lindens intended their world to have growing flora, AI-driven fauna, and a working weather system-- but it was a supremely talented programmer who chose the user name Laukosargas that finally made those things.  Through 2007, however, I saw less and less of her in-world, or even via e-mail, and I wondered why.  While the community was buzzing over the Lindens' imminent closing of unregulated banks last month, she came by New World Notes and posted a comment.  And because of her unimpeachable repute-- agree with it or not-- it's worth quoting in full. 

She was responding to an aside I made, that the ending of SL-based banks which had no real world regulatory license necessarily diminished a Second Life cultural value: "[T]he trust users are able to generate with each other from simply their in-world behavior, without even knowing each other's real life identity." 

But to Laukosargas, the trouble preceded the banks.

"This trust predictably disappeared when real life corporations started taking over," she wrote. "It's almost impossible to work on a large project now (apart from one's own ) without revealing your RL identity. NDAs, contracts etc."

When I profiled her, Laukosargas described herself only as a British programmer who had worked in the game industry before taking time off to raise a child; her Second Life identity as a goddess with a mini-world of her own was what really mattered.  "One of my favourite projects was building Lauk into an identity in her own right," she wrote.  "I've always liked the idea of William Gibson style entities living their own lives in a virtual word. But I've given up now. Too much threat of real life litigation and no protection either from Linden Lab or anywhere else.

"It looks to me like Linden Lab's effectively become corporate-owned and directed," she continued. "If it hasn't already, SL will soon turn into a mire of advertising and promotion. I also believe this is what the new corporate 'owners' of Linden Lab actually want and possibly has a large part to play in obvious boardroom differences at Linden Lab. I can't see SL being 'owned' by its Residents. Residents already have no power other than to be consumers. More and more real life laws will be passed, Linden Lab will tighten its regulation to protect itself. Creative professionals will take over with corporate sponsorship and non-professional creative types will be squeezed into little cliquey cult groups.

"A typically gloomy Lauk prediction," she concluded, "but really based on personal experience which has gone from loving SL culture to loathing it in the last year."

Svarga is now funded by a group of supporters, with the goddess only visiting occasionally.  In a keen irony, lit up with the new WindLight weather system the Lindens recently added, it looks more beautiful than it ever has before.

Comments

[Troy McLuhan]

I think Lauk would still be happy in SL. The corporate projects are still a very small part of it - they just tend to get covered by the mainstream media. There are many thriving themed communities with no corporate presence.

Even if you want to do a corporate contract and the company wants your real name, you can ask them not to disclose it to the general public. As far as I know, Gwyn has managed to do that all these years.

Okay, now for some fun SL trivia: When the sim Svarga first arrived, Lauk gave people temporary plots in a grid for a competition. What were the competitors supposed to build on those plots?

[Robbie D]

The answer to Troy's trivia question is 'Gardens', which is about the same time I met Lauk if I remember rightly? ("Six degrees of separation baby" - [in-joke]).

Funny (and sad) how a negative reaction to a 'social networking' application like, this can ultimately impact upon a freindship.

Maybe see you at the Ferry Lauks...

[Christophe Hugo]

What will emerge at some point is the "Napster" of virtual worlds: a 3D platform of the peer-to-peer kind, with no servers centrally located. This type of underground virtual platforms will remain unregulated for the same reason peer-to-peer web networks are hard to stop: not only will it be virtual, it will also be ubiquitous.
Lauk will probably love those clandestine persistent virtual worlds. And so will those involved in piracy activity (e.g., virtual movie theaters showing movies not even yet released in the RL), ...or terrorists for their drills. Only piece of the puzzle missing: PCs powerful enough to sustain virtual peer-to-peer activities. Let's wait 3 to 4 more years and all this should become more interesting (by that time, it will be probably quite easy to move one's avatar from one virtual world to another).

[Sophrosyne Stenvaag]

Lauk's right as to the trend, but I don't share her conclusion that all is lost.

There definitely is a War on Imagination, being waged by corporations and lawyers, a denial of the magic circle, an attempt to define Second Life as the atomic world with cartoony graphics.

It's exactly the same sort of imperialism that has sought to stifle creativity, individuality and indigenous culture in every space in the physical world.

As Troy says, our freedoms are far from lost. But they cannot be won without risk, without staying, creating, and standing up for the dignity and autonomy of the synthetic world and of Digital Persons.

Lauk, come to Extropia. We don't have the tiniest fraction of your talent, but we do have the determination to be a haven for creativity in the arts and in identity experimentation.

We're taking a stand, in the name of freedom and in the name of fun, and we welcome all who share our goals to come build and play along with us.

[JSnark]

I just went to the beach and there am I on a towel with naked people.

[Jaymin Carthage]

Kind of funny. Your earlier coverage of Svarga lead me to work on populating the IBM Sandbox with various critters. (Mostly flying fish.) Last night I was there working on a tree that is planted, grows, propagates and eventually dies.
I think she is too caught up in her own doomsaying to realize that it's not just that the Corporates have an effect on Second Life, but that Second Life also has an effect on Corporates. It's just another ecosystem where all participants affect each other.
Why else would the IBM Sandbox Fish sing Frank Sinatra? :-)

[Mikyo]

Terrorist drills? LOL. Hand me that Holy Sword, comrade, i see an orc. But seriously folks, have you seen those terrorists hiding in the closet? And the one under the bed? Maybe we should postpone this next election, just to be safe.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

I don't fear the corporatizing of SL.

Right now, they have a tough enough time REMAINING in-world at all. I was surprised that the departure of Pontiac's Motorati did not make NWN (or did I miss that?).

If anything in-world does stifle creativity, it's the expense of land prices and associated fees. I don't have 3000 RL bucks to buy an island or the cash handy to pay the fees.

Without our university's island, I'd be living in a cardboard box with the hobos (themselves a great part of SL's cultural creatives).