and then you came around, tried to tie me down

Came across an interesting bit on the SL Forums in relation to the OpenSpace sim issue. A little thread called Please delete all post[s] advertising other Virtual Worlds.

"Hello mods," Magikos Constantine starts off by saying, "please delete the forum posts that advertise other Virtual Worlds, I don't see how they are relevant to this discussion, and frankly watching those vultures post is kind of distracting."

Fair enough, I suppose, but that's where it gets really interesting.

Vye Graves registers a complaint: "LL is saying "What are you gonna do, leave? *snort*". Well, if they are daring us to leave, other options give us the resources to make that decision.

This isn't just about openspaces for a lot of us. LL's disinterest in upgrading the appearance of avatars after this many years is one thing that annoys me. LL has worked themselves into a corner with SL. They will have a great deal of difficulty improving our experience WITHOUT making a lot of people mad. So much of the content already in SL RELIES on the original bugs and bad design.

So, i have no problems with people pointing out other options. I am not stuck here by any means. For the last year it has been a constant chain of LL yanking the rug out from under users with little warning or help with the transition. Casinos, banks, mainland advertising, yadda yadda. It isn't the fact that the changes were necessary, rather they didn't at all attempt to help people with the transition, rather they just basically gave us the finger and told us to suck it up.

If they are daring me to leave, I appreciate knowing that there are other places to go."

And that's a damned good point, when you think about it. The Lindens have, not once, not twice, not ten times, barrelled past any number of good workable solutions to any given problem, by going with the option guaranteed to cause controversy and growing mistrust. It's like they're trying to fail, all things being equal.

What I still don't understand is why...

Smoke Carter makes another excellent point: "If there was just one other virtual world that even came close to SL, do you really think they would be doing this to us?"

And the obvious answer, of course, is...no.

Then, of course, Second Life's answer to Nurse Ratched chimed in:

"It's against forum Guidelines to post ads for non Second Life goods or services.

Doing so could certainly earn you a suspension or ban."

And then closed the comments.

Somehow this strikes me a great deal as SL in microcosm, currently:

"Hey, don't talk bad about SL!"

"Why not? SL sucks right now!"

"And there's nothing else, but if there were, we would so be there--"

"Where? Where sounds good?"

"You can't talk about it. If you do, we'll ban you. Have a nice day!"

And this thread is likely also just the tip of the iceberg. I wish there were a way to know how many people have downgraded from premium accounts to basic--because I don't know if the Labs are looking at the numbers, and seeing it as the outrider of doom.

They may have, in all honesty, pushed their users too far this time.