74K: New Peak Concurrency Record Reached Despite (Because Of?) Openspace Rebellion

Here's a rule of thumb I've developed over five years of writing about Second Life: the angrier and more outraged Residents are over a given Linden Lab policy, the more active they actually become in the company's world.  And so yesterday when I noticed that SL's peak concurrency was heading toward a new record of 74,000-- to be precise, 73,995 at 1:55pm SLT, according to the eagle eye of Massively's Tateru Nino-- I wasn't all that surprised. 

Of course, this number's partly due to scheduled and impromptu in-world protests over the Openspace price hike announcement.  More than that, however, I'd say we're seeing in it the need to share the rage with others. 

Still more than that, I think, is the starker truth: most Residents spend little L$, own no land, and aren't directly impact by the price hike.  (If they're even aware of it.)

Whatever the case, if there was an initial upsurge of interest in OpenLife and other OpenSim-based metaverses, it's not reflected in the above number.

Comments

[ArminasX Saiman]

Hehe - the upswing might be due to those who tried out OpenLifeGrid and quickly ran back to the safety of Second Life, which actually works!

[Doreen Garrigus]

The vast majority of people are not going to spend $75 a month on virtual entertainment, let alone $125. They go into Second Life as a diversion from real world problems and responsibilities---and an increase in the price of open space sims doesn't change that.

When they are, like many people in the real world, facing the possibility that they won't be able to pay their mortgages in real life, they aren't going to have much sympathy for (or even much time for) a protest about the prices of virtual mortgages.

This is a thing we must face: Nobody starves in Second Life, and nobody sleeps on the street. Avatars don't need health care or life insurance or full time jobs. The consequences of someone having to give up an open space sim are minor. To compare that to losing your house in real life is ludicrous and laughable.

Most residents have completely ignored this tempest in a teacup and gone on doing what they have been doing all along: hanging out in Second Life for fun.

[Bliss Crimson]

The people who bought into Open Spaces were that small but valuable percentage who were actually investing Real Money into Second Life. While a greater majority don't bother to buy land, or spend real money in SL, they also bring nothing to SL in terms of profit -- hence Linden Labs killing of Open Spaces is also killing off of that small percent who were settling in of long term ongoing infusions of real money into SL. So LL can sit back and wonder in the months to come why there are more people, but less money from them. With the economy in a crunch LL is only making it that much more easy to chose Second Life as what NOT to spend one's not so disposable income upon.