It seems no matter where you turn these days, there are negatives. We all spend a lot of time focusing on what isn’t going right, even dwell on it. Not me. *cough* Heh, but if you do it the other way around, and focus on what is good, what feels right, things seem to just flow better. Not to say that you don’t get knocked upside the head at times with truths you’d be happy not to have experienced, but it does take the ‘edge’ off the sadness and slows the cycle of despair down a notch or two. Let’s face it, evolution is painful and what I have been observing is unsettling around the grid.
First, there has been a mass exodus of creative people from SL at an alarming rate or who are downsizing their operations drastically. The land barons are turning back in “grandfathered” real estate with ‘fully rented’ Sims in their advertisements. And vendors are giving back their land deferring to Marketplace to sell their wares to reduce tier costs. More and more a person can get around SL without spending any lindens at all. Unfortunately, those are not good trends. And the live music venues that need the extra income aren’t getting it because the sims that were surrounded with shops seem to be dwindling with the inclination of SL residents to be online using online access to shop.
One has to wonder if Linden Labs realizes this, cares, or what. Now I don’t keep up on blogs etc. so maybe they do, but those I trust think otherwise so this is all a recipe for disaster right? Then you add in Mesh where you have to have a license, know auto-cad (not easy) and yet people are investing not only higher end expertise and money but ‘blending’ in a new era of reality. That is still up in the air, but people are pouring resources in to make Mesh happen. What affect it will have on those who do not follow the Mesh step, is still uncertain so, this why my introduction was a notion of starting with what is working and of course went right to the negatives to prove my point. *chuckle*
When you do get to being more positive, I look at my close friends and marvel at whom they are, how they act, what they do and how much they enrich my life. I cherish that. I see people like Gentle Heron helping thousands of disabled people live again, be free of what holds them back RL. And Patrick Thorkfeld, who took the initiative and has people real life signing up to be trained in disaster management, helping people communicate and anticipate the best methods for saving us all around the world. The art, the objects that make us smile or the Sims that take our collective breaths away. Being able to go out and listen to live music where you can interact with the artist and them you. To meet people from all around the world, interact with them get their perspective as you traverse usual geographical constraints to find a companion soul you never would have met otherwise. These are good things let us not lose sight of that. These creative people made the world we live in, support them, let them know, “wow, you are great!”
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I think its important when you are reporting on a problem to make sure you are not part of it.
ReplyDeleteI have been hearing this nonsense about mass exodus etc for 2 years now, if there actually was a mass exodus that had been going on for this length of time there would no longer be anyone left in SL to read your article.
There has not been, nor will there ever be a mass exodus, nor will anything happen 'drastically'. That just isn't what happens with online games and the like, usually there is a very slow decline over a number of years and this is what we are seeing now.
Live Music venues have always had problems monetizing their businesses, but I think think this has far more to do with a flawed business model that did little for merchants and the average customers reluctance to pay for entertainment, rather than any decision made by LL
Mesh does not require a licence, only that you confirm you understand relevant copyright law by answering a couple of simple questions and the skills and software required to produce it are exactly the same as required to make sculpties.
I would agree that the artists and creators of SL deserve our respect and support, but reporting things like your perceived Mass Exodus is doing them no favours at all.