Second Life Now Has About 60,000 Premium Subscribers -- Up ~3000 from 2017 Low Point, But Still Below 2012's Peak of 70,000

Data via Grid Survey

During my interview with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg last month, I asked him how many Premium monthly subscribers Second Life now had. (Watch below, when I respond to him saying, "The subscriber base is growing... it's been going up for awhile.") He declined to discuss specific numbers, even after I asked him if there were about 50,000 subscribers. That is a figure I thought had been recently reported by Second Life economy expert Tyche Shepherd. Turns out I misremembered that number, because as of January 2019, there are just over 60,000 Premium subscribers. 

We know that thanks to Tyche's annual SL grid survey, which counts the number of people and groups who own land on the Second Life mainland. (See her chart above, of unique mainland owners.) And as Tyche explains, mainland real estate owners are, by definition, Premium subscribers:

Ebbe talks subscriber growth around :43 seconds in

"You have to be a premium account holder to own mainland and/or own Linden Homes -- or in a group which has premium members donating land tier."

A premium subscription costs $72 to $114 per year, depending on payment option, so that means Linden Lab is currently making from $4,320,000 to $6,840,000 a year from subscriptions. That's a decent amount of revenue, and shows a bit of growth up from 57,000 in 2017 and 2018, the lowest rate since 2010.

However, that's still down from the high point of 70,000 in 2012. (Again, see chart above.) For Second Life to be sustainable mainly from subscriptions (as opposed to land tier), subscription rates would need to get a lot closer to 400,000.

Comments

[Sasy Scarborough]

This is only counting mainland holdings? what about the premiums that own regions, that don't have land at all - I have been premium for 13 years and have probably only had land associated with the account for half of that time. Or those that have alts that have premium accounts but only use one home etc. This could mean the numbers are higher, just not lower?

[Gordon]

If it's true that there were 60k Premium subscribers in January 2019, then I'm betting that the number has now risen to at least 65k.

The new Linden Homes on the Bellisseria continent have sparked a little hype among SL residents. This has led many people to create a new premium account. There are even people who already had premium and who have now also signed up an alt account, just to get a new Linden Home.

Now a lot of people are waiting for the second batch of new Linden Homes to be released. The demand for this product is enormous. Linden Lab has finally created something that really adds value for premium users.

[Clara Seller]

The Linden Homes are a good start. I've noticed, in my little corner of the world, that they seem to be pulling away from small private land parcel sales. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

The biggest problem is tearing down the firewall that makes it nearly impossible for new users to be a part of the game. They have got to take back their avatar in an even better spirit than they put into the Linden Homes. It just keeps evolving into a less unified experience. I doubt LL could even write a usable instruction on how a new user could become a status quo avatar. It's like trying to provide healthcare if the human race suddenly started branching off into random different species in a matter of a couple of years.

I know many people think that reaching out to new users is a waste of energy, but we've reached a point of imminent extinction. Sansar won't support life and there is no time to explore. We need to have babies and take care of them. It's a pretty exciting challenge that SL needs. It's a reason to exist. LL needs an inspiring leader to rally troops to a cause larger than snapping selfies and tinkering with empty decorated chat rooms. Time's up.