…Linden Labs and their “age verification”. Some may argue that it was necessary, but the way LL handled it was completely botched.

Many people became paranoid and there was a lot of confusion. And after we naughty people (I am, or was, a Second Life escort) were banished to Naughty Land (aka Zindra, the so-called “adult continent”), Second Life began to die.

I rather predicted that the banishment of escorts and their clients to a maximum security ghetto would start to unravel Second Life, and am sorry to see I was proven right. After the move to the adult continent, visitors to escort clubs fell off by 80%; average escort earnings went from 40k Lindens a week to 20k Lindens and then 2k…and the escorts started to desert in droves after they realized their customers were gone.

So what if the virtual hookers are gone, right? Well, we virtual hookers were one of the engines of the SL economy, because the only services men could buy in Second Life were those of the escorts. There was no gambling, no sports, nothing that would appeal to many males except the simulation of sex. Once that was sharply restricted, the men left and took their money with them. The escorts, no longer able to shop in Second Life, left, too.

Here’s an example: I used to watch as my sister escorts would have successful nights in various clubs, and they would promptly teleport off to their favorite stores to buy more clothes, more hair, more shoes. 95% of them spent 100% of their earnings in Second Life: the perfect consumers. I was one of the exceptions to the rule, never spending more than I needed to keep my own business going, and converting the rest to real-world currency.

Now all those consumers are gone, and they are gone forever. I assume that Mark Kingdon was the Brainiac who thought of making Second Life “kid friendly” and banishing the escorts and their clients. Problem is, the kids and teens didn’t come to Second Life while the adults left.

Second Life is not dying, it is dead. 70% of escort clubs did not survive the move to the adult continent, and of the survivors, even the oldest and most-established clubs now exist as shadows of their former selves.

That would be OK if something better or even something else had replaced the escort clubs and their customers and service workers as engines of the SL consumer economy. But nothing has replaced them.

It’s called “killing the goose that laid the golden egg”.

After seeing my escort business wind down, I finally closed it down before it became unprofitable. At my peak, I was earning 300k a week in Lindens, clear profit; at the end, when I closed things down barely 1 year after the move to the adult continent, my profits were down to 40k-50k a week, but I was working the same number of hours. That’s just not a wise investment of my time, so I have moved on elsewhere.

Sure, there are still escorts in Second Life, but the really good ones have already left–and they won’t be back.

In fact everyone feel that the big change in Second Life should be done also with the contribution of the residents themselves (they do not hinder and assist and support the platform where they can give their opinions, however ridiculous it may be, after all the residents are the true creators of content as well as foreign companies are big breadwinners). This was not the original idea behind the Second Life and had a profound change when it was M. Linden CEO in the chair. Many of us feel that M. Linden was operating at self mode, having a vision, but ignoring some warning signs of residents and the actual outcome of the markets (we can´t claim we won when our troops to dies massively on the battlefield – stupid comparison but makes some sense ).

Perhaps the great wave of protest came when the grid still needs improvements, the new viewer 2.0 (#fail as you know) (needs to be redesigned and re-released as a truly innovative product that is truly easy and productive for those who use it).

Of course this last minute change of not foresee what still lies ahead with the new (?) Chair man (CEO). But in fact it is refreshing and gives up thinking that the time that Philip Linden was away from the leadership may have been a period of reflection and truly innovative new ideas. And it reappears with exciting new features, such as focus, “Attack of the problems” in several parts, new and fresh ideas, perhaps without much speculation a new way of approaching a new life to Second Life, making it even just a new attempt approaching the SL and its major competitors. Regarding the lay-off, this was just an accident that could be easily (?) Passed with a leader supported by his followers.

From everything you want is that I caught the old feelings that prevails is this, get ready, comes within the brief seven Havok physics – maybe my post was this a way to provoke the desire to achieve such massive physics http://yourmachinima.com/?p=1257 | Enhancement SL Marketplace (company helps residents spread brands?) | consolidation of LL employees (cost efficiency of the company), mesh, web access to the platform without client viewer. Solving old problems with new support system (Hey it was Mark who did, after all it was not all that bad, right?) (I’m only talking….)

Only time will tell, until then a feeling of welcome. Incidentally I hope the blogosphere does not make this task difficult for Philip a complication in the midst of speculation, let’s wait and see the “ball rolling” or maybe a “rolling restart”.

Second Guard: Who are the Puppet Masters?
http://blog.vrhacks.net/?p=229