The Virtual False Dilemma
Last week, well known virtual persona Botgirl Questi explained why she believes that Linden Lab is investing in new products “instead of” Second Life. Botgirl’s argument, based on factors mentioned in an “employee” review, is that Second Life is built on ten year old technology that has inherent limitations. She believes that the virtual world market is stagnant; therefore it wouldn’t make good business sense to invest in reengineering the platform. In conclusion, she asserts that we will still see tiny “incremental improvements to the client” or “small fixes for issues that don’t require a large investment,” but in a few years “a declining Second Life and an emerging OpenSim will tilt the balance and we’ll see a fast decline in both land ownership and active users.”
Fallacies
Before I can continue with the point of this post, I have to point out several fallacies in the disproportionately negative logic of this proposal:
- Employee review
Botgirl draws insight from what she refers to as an employee review, but this is simply a review made by an anonymous person. We have no way of knowing if this person was ever actually a Linden Lab employee. I would argue that with a large, active and vocal community like Second Life has, it may be more reasonable to conclude that this review was not made by an employee, but a frustrated user. However, even if we were to assume that this review were by an actual former employee, if would still just be one factor in a big picture put forth by a disgruntled member of a large organization. - The virtual world market is stagnant
This simply isn’t the case. Just because giants like Google have focused on other current trends and haven’t publically tried to take on virtual worlds after failing at their first attempt does not mean the space is dead. Although, I suppose this could depend on your definition of virtual worlds. In the broad sense, many analysts have been talking about the increase in real time social environments and the rise in funding, like this recent $15 million dollar investment, only renewing interest in avatar-driven virtual spaces. But even if you are referring to a more narrow definition of virtual worlds, Botgirl herself cites the “emerging” Opensim community and no one can argue the recent popularity of using Unity 3D based spaces. In addition, investments like the $1 million dollars in funding that Language Lab received for education in Second Life demonstrate the power they’ve been shown to have. - Only tiny improvements to the client or small fixes
All evidence points to the contrary and Botgirl has no way of knowing what Linden Lab is working on. When I was participating in the Second Life closed beta for mesh support I heard so many users complaining that Linden Lab doesn’t listen to them, that the Lab never does anything to improve Second Life, that Second Life was dead, that mesh was never coming, etc. I was so excited by what I was seeing that I wanted to scream it from the roof tops, but I couldn’t say a word. Who knows what’s being developed now that we don’t know about, yet? - Emerging Opensim
While I believe that certain platforms can be better suited for certain uses, there just isn’t clear evidence to support this. Despite its misleading headline, a recent report shows that Opensim’s top grid is planning to purge as many as 50-60% of its regions due to inactivity. Another report shows that Opensim has about 15,000 users, the same as it did in 2009. - New products instead of Second Life
Botgirl’s theory overall explains why she believes the Lab is investing in new products *instead* of Second Life, however, there is no evidence that Linden Lab is putting any less time, attention, or money into Second Life. Linden Lab has already stated that it isn’t pulling employees from Second Life teams to explore and create these new products, they are hiring new additional ones. They are also hiring new additional employees for Second Life itself.
Unproductive Gossip
The above fallacies are not why I wrote this post though. On this week’s MetaReality Podcast I agreed with ex-Linden, Karl Stiefvater’s contention that these types of assertions are often unproductive. I also happen to think they are dangerous.
Botgirl’s post is a false dilemma. Her theory that because Linden Lab is also working on new products then Second Life must be unsavable and dying ignores numerous unknown factors and therefore leads us to an irrelevant conclusion. In the end, it’s little more than unnecessary gossip.
The reason I find these types of posts so particularly offensive is they are full of black and white thinking, overgeneralizations and catastrophizing which only exploit the community’s emotions and trigger strong reactions from all sides. It’s not only unproductive, it’s toxic. Yet we voraciously consume and spread it. What’s even more concerning is that the more and more it gets repeated, the more it’s believed as truth or fact.
Accepting the Things We Cannot Change
The Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying:
“If there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry. And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.”
There are so many more productive and important discussions that we can have to actually improve the future of virtual worlds. It may be less titillating, but it’s definitely more fulfilling. In the meantime, I’ll be in-world creating, experimenting, exploring, and enjoying the present virtual worlds. No matter what any rumors say, they truly are an amazing experience.
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FIRST to comment hihihi…oh ok, I guess now I have to say something profound? Mhhhhh – ok how about this: I find this huge world so awesome that I feel it is a waste of time to speculate about the degree of evil in the Lab. And: I see improvements every single day – they are sublte but rather HUGE: lag for instance – not resolved but getting better every day. Mesh implementation: working 99 percent of the time & me and my machinima team is building a new mesh set every other week including characters and wardrobe. Sooo – just my two little meshy cents.. Thank you for listening
It would be possible for a reasonable and open-minded person to come down on either side of each of the issues highlighted. Unfortunately, most people who are outspoken about Second Life are advocates for one position or another. Like debaters or lawyers, they interpret evidence to fit their position, rather than modifying their position when faced with conflicting evidence. So I’ll just agree to disagree with you and refrain from going back and forth about the validity of pseudonymous employee reviews, metrics related to the health of the virtual world market, the progress of Second Life technical improvement efforts, and the future of OpenSim.
I will take issue with typifying the thoughts of those with different opinions through derogatory hyperbole using terms such as dangerous, unproductive, catastrophic, offensive, exploitive, toxic, etc. First, if there’s anything I’ve learned after following this stuff for almost four years, it’s that these controversies are tempests in teacups. They rise and fall, one after another, with little substantive impact. Second, the question of which world you should be spending your “productive” energy on should be at least partially based upon your consideration of its future. As you implied, we can’t control the actions of Linden Lab, but we can make personal choices based upon our best judgements about their actions. So for me, it makes sense to share them within my community of interest.
I respect you even more for your comments here.
I completely agree that it’s possible to argue both sides. I just wanted to present another side of the coin.
As for the terms I used.. I do understand your point. To be honest.. I sat on this post 2-3 days before publishing. In the end, I thought it was important because the tone of the post felt, to me, as if this was the only inevitable future. I watch so many similar posts go up everyday, most of which are based less in fact and logic then yours, but nonetheless… I do think it plays into the community’s emotions and I don’t like the ways I see it tearing us apart. While I do think discussing the future is important, I can’t justify coming to any one conclusion based on speculation, specifically one of doom and gloom.
I can empathize with the drama fatigue. Personally, I sometimes get annoyed by both the obsessive paranoid haters and the self-righteous cheerleaders who feel they must defend every perceived attack on LL or SL. But I think there are only a handful of people who fall into those categories. Or at least I’m not following them.
The funny thing is, outside of occasional parodies, I rarely post about Linden Lab or the future of Second Life. And when I do, it’s usually either with positive suggestion or cautious optimism. I intentionally used phrases like “my take” and “my guess” in this particular post to reinforce that I was sharing my own current thinking rather than proclaiming a certain conclusion.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful comment!
I completely agree! Unfortunately you asked me to explain why I disagreed/thought it was unproductive, so you were mentioned specifically, but this wasn’t really directed at you overall. In general, I really respect your opinion and enjoy your explorations of virtual worlds, especially relating to identity.
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Little substantive impact?
Would you keep talking to the public if it didn’t help your job? What if it caused personal attacks against you or something you care about? Most individual Lindens gave up years ago.
Would you let your employees talk to the public when conversations incite defamation of your company? A year ago the company issued a policy that stops most remaining Lindens from talking. Only a couple senior engineers speak publicly without PR training and scripts.
By the time I left, many Lindens moved their meetings to Skype and only logged into development servers. They added a viewer setting that ignores IMs from strangers. Assholes were always the loudest and almost nobody called them on it, so the users lost their collective voice.
This blog is years too late. Take these lessons to the next company that tries openness.
Its the job of a company that deals in community products to take the heat and get smacked. If you don’t want to deal with the public, don’t put out a product to be used by the public.
Deal.
Do better community relations, and the heat wouldn’t come so hard.
Less ‘pretend aspergers’ and more ‘community and customer service.’
Some of us have worked years of customer service, others have worked years of making product the public would consume. The way to deal with criticism is not to rant about it and not to shut up – but to engage it, work with it, listen to it, and tailor the product to address the concerns founds within it.
In most organizations this is why you have market research, focus groups, community service reps, active blogging and reading of consumer blogs, folks on the phone lines to handle feedback, constant marketing to shape the external message, and so on.
If you just want to be a pack of tech geeks writing code – don’t sell a public product. If you want to sell a public product, hand over the business side of things to people trained in dealing with it.
- that how companies with tech-founders that have ‘toxic personalities’ like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and etc do things – they get a -LOT- of community reps, marketers, and business folk in there who are trained and comfortable dealing with ‘human emotion’ and things other than 1s and 0s.
Then they can code away in peace, and let the ‘ex-jocks and cheerleaders’ put it all into shiny boxes for people.
Facebook, Google and Yahoo are black boxes. There is no broad engagement outside of promotional press releases and spin control. You have nothing to worry about if this is your ideal. This is where Linden Lab is already headed.
[...] Gianna snaps back at the It's The End Of Second Life crowd (I don't think it's the end, but if things keep up this way, you can see it from here.) Shandon wraps up The Banshee's Comb (Now THAT'S some good storytelling) Daily Dash: Lipstick (Who am I kidding, right?) [...]
Not all negative commentary should be silenced, especially observations that help us plan for the future. I’m sure a lot of Americans are glad that when Paul Revere rode through the night shouting “The British are coming”, the townspeople didn’t say, “Come’on dude, if you don’t have something positive to say, don’t say it! Why don’t you work on positive solutions instead.”
Hi Kate. This conversation continued from the comments in our podcast discussion so to repeat what I said there…
I also do not think critics should be silenced. I, myself, have been critical of Linden Lab in the past and spoke about it many times. As I said in the podcast, I look forward to thought provoking conversations in which we debate these important topics. I agree that critics have a role to play… and an important one at that. There is often a lot to learn from criticism. However, there is a big difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism.
Take for example a food critic. If he/she writes Restaurant A sucks, @#%#@ Restaurant A, Restaurant A doesn’t listen to me, Restaurant A is going to die, etc.. then it carries no weight and offers no basis from which to improve. However, if they write Restaurant A did not take it’s customer base into consideration when it developed it’s expensive fine dining menu in an underprivileged area and it fails to live up to it’s advertised experience because the food was served cold and under cooked, etc then readers can take this into consideration and the restaurant is clear on how it failed.
Botgirl at least provided a logical argument in her post. Many writers don’t. However, I think it would be more productive if we discussed some of the underlying criticisms which we have a chance to change and improve on now, then speculating whether or not Second Life is doomed to failure.
Does that make sense?
A great post! I couldn’t agree more.
In recent weeks I’ve been vocal on what I labeled as “fundamentalist unibomber type” ramblings about the “evil Lab” and doomsday sayers. It’s not about being a cheerleader for Linden Lab. I appreciate Second Life. I work and play (and social) inside Second Life. It has been a tremendous benefit to me personally and professionally.
Recently I encouraged some clinical folks to consider doing trials in Second Life. In their efforts to understand Second Life they began down the blogsphere trail of some “notable” bloggers. Her conclusion? “Unprofessional, unbalanced and inarticulate nut jobs”. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I was gutted. Disappointed and frankly embarrassed.
And really saddened. Because the “fray” (and it is a small number really) do a great job of attracting negative attention to their negative commentary. Personally knowing a few of them and understanding that for some, Second Life is a counter culture that can be outgrown in time. My take on it? Bored people looking to get unbored have created a subculture of vilifying Second Life for not fulfilling their needs.
I believe that disconnect belongs to the user. Not the platform. And not the hard working people that provide the platform either. And it’s such a curious psychology almost as though… having run out of fascinating things to do or explore, this is all they have left. Harsh criticism. Fundamentalist unibomber style ravings … They are adults right? Have real jobs? (some of them). A life?
A friend recently commented that the negative criticism was very “American”. I disagreed wholeheartedly. But what I did agree on is that it is a form of self loathing and not productive. And pretty classless (kind of like a blog version of Jerry Springer). It does nothing to advance the platform or make it more appealing to new users. It belittles the community and perpetuates the myth that netizens are nutjobs which we know is not the case unilaterally.
But definitely the case sometimes
Skylar
A while back, on this very show, I talked about the concept of an “Ambassadors” program where Second Life users who are skilled and experienced in the use of the client and the platform would assist inexperienced critics and members of the media (often the same thing) to demonstrate to them the power, potential, and plentiful examples of positive storytelling in SL.
Folks like Dusan, who turned around Chris Abraham before… well… um…
Okay, maybe Pooky. Or Daniel. Or Draxtor and Gianna.
Such an Ambassador would admit there’s the negative/raunchy/ugly side, but have the patience and persuasion skills to put it in context, show that there’s that stuff in RL too, and then focus on the good. (I did this for the local FOX affiliate several years ago, showing off some interesting and positive things after the station wanting a fair perspective http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4mVPmPgRCA )
There are countless blogs that are either positive or fair about their criticism of SL without being “fundamentalist unibomber type” – Inara Pey, Gwennyth, Tateru, and many others I’ve been adding to my blogroll as part of my 2012 project.
But to get mired in the negative without steering the conversation back to the positive shows a lack of preparation, poor curation skills, and possibly a fixation/obsession on the negative.
Or, based on your recent discovery of an admiration for Catherine/Prokofy, an inability to recognize true negativity.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back into my cabin in the woods, wash my hoodies, and write up more manifestos 100 words at a time.
-ls/cm
I’ve never played this “Second Life” game you speak of, but as with any and all technology, I’m sure I’d hate it too.
“On this week’s MetaReality Podcast I agreed with ex-Linden, Karl Stiefvater’s contention that these types of assertions are often unproductive. I also happen to think they are dangerous.”
The man who gave us the phrase ‘whackadoodle’ as the term LLs uses to describe its customers, is not the ideal spokesperson for a call to cut the bad-chatter. He needs to either clarify that term’s usage, or take on Hamlet for using it the way it was used – one or the other (or both) of the two of them has done a good deal of damage for the current situation wit that phrase.
But lets looks at this here… We’ve had two weeks now of getting pimp-smacked by the lindens in rather harsh ways. If there’s an upswing of negativity right now that’s working to undo the last year’s gradual peace-making between residents and LLs – its not come from us. And even Qarl’s quote there didn’t really resonate so much until -after- Rod seemed to show that it really was how they thought of us with his ‘sucks to be you’ response to Last Names…
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[...] The Virtual False Dilemma [...]
Cool,
I hope you are right. I know after 4 years, I am still enjoying SL, and trying opensim.