Above: A Bonnie bot, tirelessly on bot patrol
There's been lots of interesting conversation and debate spurred by my post on BonnieBots, the new website tracking genuine Second Life activity. While Bonnie's bots don't violate any Linden Lab policy that I'm aware of, the sheer amount of information that both her avatar and web-based bots are able to collect and surface on the site has generated much surprise and controversy (including in comments here).
Reader Kate Nova argues that much of the pushback is based on a very understandable distrust of surveillance provoked by very real abuses by the Internet giants:
I was surprised and disappointed to discover that there's so much hating on them. SL can be narrow and intolerant in so many ways. Ban Lines and Security Orbs make the idyllic SL mainland into an untraversable minefield of hate and GTFO-ness.
Obviously, I'm not the arbiter of anyone else's security and privacy concerns. If you feel that your parcel needs ban lines, or a 10-second security orb, or that the stuff in your profile is private info, it's not my call to dispute that. I kinda wish it were my call, because I think all of these diminish the SL experience, but SL or Physical World, it is, of course, not my call. And it shouldn't be, no matter how frustrated they make me.
Surveillance Capitalism as heavily practiced by Google & Facebook have rightly made everyone security and privacy conscious. Or paranoid. Ironically, if we ever do regulate this, it will be after Google & Facebook already have enough data to control us in perpetuity. Any future regulations will more likely serve to lock out competition and cement these giants in place. On this topic I recommend Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and Zucked by Roger McNamee.
Some concern has been raised that Bonnie's bots also pull data from user profiles available in search, but Kate argues this is not the intrusion some say it is -- and that overall, the site is incredibly valuable:
Continue reading "Who's Afraid of Second Life's Data Gathering Bonnie Bots? (Comment of the Week)" »
Responding to our question on how many active users on the Quest VR headset there are, a reader points us to a recent market survey which suggests that use is quite tiny, especially among Gen Z:
Piper Sandler completes 43rd semi-annual Generation Z survey of 7,100 U.S. teens...
While 26% of teens own a VR device, just 5% use it daily. 48% of teens are either unsure or not interested in the Metaverse
This prompts reader "lieisacake" (LOL) to observe: