Is Linden Lab Treating Second Life as the "Red-Headed Step-Child Internally"?

Here's an epic, behind-the-scenes blog post from Andromeda Media Group's Will Burns, whose in-person visit to Linden Lab's San Francisco headquarters and meeting with CEO Ebbe Altberg I blogged about last week. Will's also Vice-Chair for IEEE's Virtual Worlds Standard Group, so there's lots of meaty analysis of Second Life and Sansar in relation to other MMOs, along with tantalizing hints of updates to both. Two takeaways stand out most for me:

Linden Lab's cultural shift away from a Second Life focus:

Why Linden Lab is so hellbent on pushing Sansar while effectively ignoring Second Life, or treating it like the wicked red-headed step-child internally, is anybody’s guess... while I was at Linden Lab, I definitely got the feeling that Sansar was the main focus with a near total avoidance of discussing Second Life or its future. It’s technology evangelism at it’s peak. As far as Ebbe is concerned, he’s all-in for Sansar while Second Life is… somewhere in the basement level with the engineers. On one side of the equation I can see why Ebbe would be all-in for Sansar. I’d assume Linden Lab spent a stupid amount of money developing it and couldn’t afford to pull the plug, and so he was likely told to produce an ROI come hell or high water.

Will cites a Glassdoor review from a recently departed Linden Lab employee who says more or less the same.

"Here's the vibe I get," Will tells me. "When I was there, Ebbe was of course wearing the Sansar hoodie, and keen to steer conversation back to Sansar whenever possible. Whenever I did bring up Second Life related things, I got the vibe that he was politely listening and waiting to go back to Sansar discussion and show it off." Which is quite understandable for the reasons Will mentions. And to be sure, Linden Lab is still actively updating Second Life, even moving it completely to the cloud. But the overall shift in corporate cultural focus, away from Second Life and toward Sansar, seems undeniable.

The other point worth highlighting here: According to Will, hints that Linden Lab may soon change the pricing of SL land caused a mild freakout among some Second Life "land barons" who make money by subletting their property:

Another conversation I had with Ebbe was about those [SL] land prices. It was a question posed in the Facebook post so I made sure to ask. It was kind of a side-note to another conversation about the structure of Second Life being based on land sales, and a way to balance the equation through other means. I won’t say what those other options were that were presented in the conference room. I will say that Linden Lab is fully aware of the land price “issue” and looking into ways to lower the costs.

Now, after I had stated this for Wagner James Au on his blog (New World Notes), I was contacted in-world by a few Land Barons who (you could say) were slightly paranoid about this situation. If land prices went down, they would reason, then everyone would just buy land and get into business for themselves, putting them out of business and killing their investments… I don’t see it that way, honestly. I think competition is healthy, and spurs innovation. So I guess you just can’t get away with an auto-mat system and a couple of volunteers working for tips and commission anymore. May have to invest in treating those companies more like companies, I guess.

So reading those tea leaves, it looks very likely pricing changes are coming, and they may require Second Life-based businesses to change their model some. Anyway, read the whole post here.

Comments

[Clara Seller]

I read this on Andromeda Media Group yesterday and he did a good job. The subject of Second Life really does stir a lot of passion for everyone but Linden Lab top management. I appreciate knowing that there are people below who care.

Maybe this is just the way society is anymore. It seems like big money has just elevated the worst of us to the top ranks of everything. Narcissists with no vision and skill are at the helm and they are driving everything over a cliff.

I applaud Will Burns efforts, but I have absolutely no faith that any positive changes will be happening to Second Life under the current leadership. There has been an unbelievable amount of thought put into suggestions to better Second Life over the years and it always falls on deaf ears. We will continue to get promises and cheer-leading that will materialize into catastrophe. It's who they are.

[Cutting Teeth]

He is a god damned fool old ebbe who basicly is wasting a good product for a bad one.
we will never see a real phone version of sansar who would have the data download plan big enough for dat!.

As a product with near 20 years under its belt being a multi generational iconic brand that could go on making them money from nostalgia and smart marketing for many years to come..instead he throws it under the bus for something as boring as Sansar.

Why no browser version of Sansar? because it is a flop in the making that's why!

[Cutting Teeth]

Marry me Clara!=)

[Tankgirl]

Has Altberg ever talked with a female resident or creator? That would be news.

[Vivienne]

Second Life creators who contribute a single pixel of free content to that epic Sansar flop should go to pixel church and give a thousand "mean culpa" to the pixel lord - for betting pn and feeding of a lame horse.

And this ALtberg guy should get fired ASAP.

[Jo]

Tankgirl, I've spoken plenty of times with Ebbe, both inworld as via social media, etc.
I'm both a resident and a creator.

[Tankgirl]

Really? Where is the picture of you 2? He received you at LInden Lab?

[Hamlet Au]

" Ebbe, both inworld as via social media,"

Which world? And when's the last time he made an appearance in Second Life?

[Clara Seller]

Second Life has something built into it's platform that none of of the next generation wannabes seem to appreciate. Freedom. It's something that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are nuking right now. I think it's something that may end up being more precious than gold on social media. Imagine a world with no ads, tracking, and the ability to create communities without Big Brother's approval.

If Linden Lab would just remove itself from it's almost toxic religious belief that the road to wealth is paved with obsessive corporate control, they might be able to finally see that the real wealth has always come from the little Joes. Chasing corporate and institutional money failed long ago in SL. Their blundering favoritism experiments in creating internal corporate controls with land barons and big brands has delivered us to stifled innovation and zero growth. It's a world of Xeroxes.

If they could only focus on uplifting their residents instead of caging them, they might find that their platform is still fertile ground for unforeseen opportunity and growth in this age of strangling institutional control. They might also make a ton of money in the process.

Linden Lab, set your people free.

[elmo]

@Clara,

Enslavement of the masses has always been the fantasy of the small.

And their are lots of small people at LL and many other corporations and govts. around the world.

True freedom is not needing anything from them.

[Gaga_Gracious]

Perhaps I wouldn't mind the high cost of Second Life if a big investment was being made in the platform itself rather than Sansar which I suspect is doomed to fail anyway (Sansar centralized while everything seems to be moving towards decentralization and Blockchain). However, that said, I have reluctantly come to accept the land focused business model of Second Life as a necessary evil (coughs!) that actually helps SL limit the amount of land available and thus keeps land barons in business, another necessary evil if users would rather not commit to a high setup fee and can drop the land anytime without loss. At the same time I can see why Opensim never really took off either, and this is a lesson for Linden Lab too! Land costs have often been cited as good reason to move to Opensim but what seems partly to have prevented SL residents from doing that in any great numbers is that they have too much invested in Second Life inventories and well established relationships. Even the fact Second Life is expensive still hasn't caused an exodus to Sansar either and likely never will given the widely held view that SL users are being ripped off to finance other platforms while they can only hope Linden Lab will continue to support SL, let alone improve it.

I hear all the time that SL and OS can't be improved much more now or perhaps the developers just don't want to work on it any more (the article quoted would suggest that) but, together, SL and OS still has a big user base that are not showing signs of going anywhere so why not try to make the platform fundementally better I ask?

Even if things like voxel terrains and water surfaces are difficult or near impossible to implement in SL/OS surely it is high time some fundamental redevelopment took place and a new platform design that takes what is good about SL/OS, and works for so many people, and build a genuine SL2 instead of ignoring none-VR desktop users wishes and just looking at them as a cash cow until the old platform dies a slow painful death?

Imagine SL2 or even OS2? There is still a huge user base with inventories and relationship to be invited in. Personally I wouldn't hesitate for a moment if I find I still have access to my friends and customers and, of course, to my virtual dollars and my accumulated and PAID FOR inventory.

[David Cartier]

Some desirable fundamental improvewments would be great, but Linden Lab could breath a whole lot of life into SL, simply by deleting everything older than six months from the Marketplace. Seriously! It's a confusing, constipated crapfest, which is increasingly impossible to navigate.

[AJ]

Can't see SL going anywhere unless LL decide to pull the plug on their bread and butter - and I disagree that they're treating it like some kind of dirty secret/red-headed child (a horrible expression, btw!).

Perhaps there are some grumpy butts at HQ who 'don't like' SL but that's their personal issue, not ours.

Seems to me they're spending a great deal of time, effort, money and attention working on SL so why not see that and give credit where it's due?

Visited Sansar; it (still) holds zero appeal for me. It's like shoving me into a high school math class and telling me to be fascinated by it. Not for everyone, but it obviously appeals to some or it wouldn't have a fan base at all.

On the subject of lower tier, it's now officially cheaper for me to pay LL $35.00 tier per month for 8192sqm than it is to pay double that amount for 6144sqm privately. I don't even need to be good at math to figure that out.

Clearly there are land barons with no interest in keeping tenants by passing along the savings. Sucks to be them.