Crash and Burn II: Classified Ads and SNE

Much as the Lindens might wish the Open Space sims issue will go away, I’m afraid heavy repercussions still continue to be felt – partly as a result of the policies that have been enforced, but also because of the loss of trust in the Lindens creating an environment where people can develop an inworld workable stratgey.

One sign of this was pointed out to me today is a marked decline in the price paid for classified ads (which you can see on the Search pane).

It has long been a source of surprise among many experienced content creators that some stores are willing to pay over eighteen hundred dollars US per week to ensure their position near the top of the classified lists.  But, in fact, the number of people fighting it out for that position near the top of the chart is reapidly declining.  Where you might once have found an number in the 500,000 Linden range, they are now dropping.  The average fall seems to be by about 10,000 Lindens per week (from 50,000 to 40,000, for example).  If this is in fact the case, that’s rather a lot of lost easy revenue for the Lindens.

Of course, that might simple be because people are becoming more canny in how and where they post their ads.  We’re certainly not seeing a loss of revenue on Prim Perfect – rather the reverse.  But even so, it could be seen as a worrying tend.

Perhaps more seriously, yesterday one of the bigger land barons, Sarah Nerd, announced that she was pulling out of Second Life.

She explains that all SNE assets will be liquidated and any Lindens received will be divided among shareholders according to percentage owned.  How effective that will be in a situation where the land market is depressed in the wake of the announcement of the Open Space sim changes is a very moot point, but presumably the best that can be done in the present situation by a landowner who all agreed was extremely fair with her tenants.

What will become of those tenants now is another moot point.  They will include people who rented homes, and people who supported their Second life habit through small and medium stores.  As they obviously cannot afford the ludicrously inflated plots in, say, Nautilus, presumably they will now be looking for other estate owners.  But it is worth betting that a fair proportion of them will become discouraged and leave, especially as they are likely to be aware that their next landowner may similarly go under.

Sarah was a great and enthusiastic proselytiser for Second Life, back in the day.  It is certainly sobering to read her cheerful entry on Second Life Buzz, and then read the increasingly bitter posts as the whole Open Space sim mess exploded around her and, quite simply, bankrupted her.  To add insult to injury, at one point she was banned for swearing in frustration at a meeting where she realised the full enormity of the financial pit opening under her – and at a time, ironically, when she was working in world on a contract with a major university on a presentation for the following week to help show the benefits of investing in SL for educational purposes.

So Linden Labs will lose an estate owner who has made them plenty of money over the years, and more importantly, they have lost an advocate, an enthusiast and an animateur of no mean note.  The ripples of this will be felt much more widely across the grid – and beyond

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You can see a full list of our posts covering the Open Space crisis here.