But yes - I am open to the fact many have found something personal in here, and trusted this to Linden Labs. Even though I may not mention Nike again i don’t agree on why you say it doesn’t work but thats okay - ’nuff has been said on that. But don’t dismiss me ‘wondering over the goverment issue’ as misunderstanding ‘the inside point of view’ - even in the most immersive experience of the Metaverse as a ‘new frontier’ I am quite happy to apply logic and reason as ‘dictated’ by western RL law - they make sense to me, provided they are translated correctly to a virtual enviroment.

Just because Virtual Worlds can be a ‘New World’ if you want to look at it that way, doesn’t mean we have to reinvent the wheel or discard logic and start over - and I don’t think LL descisions in this are have been controversial to common sense. This is my point of view from both an outside (meta) point of view, aswell as inside. (on which you might agree or disagree, I am just explaining why I don’t think the ‘point of view’ has anything to do with it)

You have to concider what binds you to Second Life You-Know-Where in particulair - psychological ties, emotional, social, or whatever reason you say you will not find these anywhere else, and reflect them on YOU, not the platform. Because what ever meta, gaming or multiverse you are in, thats the one thing that doesn’t change. Its still you doing the experiencing, socialising etc. The way I read your point of view is you say you will not be able to find that anywhere else and thats impossible to say at this point.

P.S. I demand more blogposts!

@prokofy - thank you for dispelling those stubborn rumours about you being one of those toothpastillioacs. I can sleep peacefully now I know your toothpaste is safe once more.

My God, we pay them 80 percent of their bottom line. We are the greatest adventure capitalists of them all, our tier funds the entire enchilada. They wouldn’t exist without us. We are their revenue stream. Let’s act like we belong here, people, and stop crawling and snivelling.

All corporations are subject to law. And good corporations have social responsibility. LL prides itself on being the hippie socially minded type of responsible corporation, and we can draw on that. I fail to see why we can’t treat this as a new kind of company in which we are co-owners.

Toothpaste isn’t something you have sex with, or rent from, or learn something from, or prototype something with. It’s just to clean your teeth. Virtuality is something we get all up inside of. And they had better behave better, like we’re there, or they lose.

Please, enough with this forced migration policy to solve problems. I’m not free to leave something I like and put money into. That’s ridiculous. I don’t say that about my country, my job, or my university unless I have another one lined up. Let’s not be so prostrate before these awesome game gods.

I should also note that it is the legal theory of corporations that they are chartered by the government and given special privileges before the law for state reasons, specifically the state interest in growing the economy. Every corporation, no matter how small, as a certain amount of the force of government behind it, and special recognition. For example, the corporate veil prevents you from suing corporate officers for corporate acts in many cases, and prevents attachment of their assets.

So this fiction that LL is no different than our tooth paste brand is absurd, and really the polemical nature of the comments indicates a lack of understanding. We don’t sing agreements with people we buy ordinary goods from. Ordinary goods companies are sued, but not over the issue of whether the tooth paste tube is property and belongs to the tooth paste company or the consumer.

Some weeks ago a lawyer came to sl and argued rather persuasively that yes, LL is going to have to start respecting notions of property and commerce beyond simple contract, if, indeed, it does not already.

I share them wholeheartedly when I put myself in your place, i.e., I think of SL Y-K-W as just one example for a virtual world, a part of the new wave of products coming, and of its residents as users / early adopters of that product. This is what I would call the outside point of view, and it is perfectly valid. When I say it is not all, I am not trying to substitute another point of view for yours, I am merely suggesting that there is an additional one, which I would call the inside point of view. Because to those who have firmly established themselves in Second Life, you will find that it is more than a product they use and can replace any time. This is one of the points where your Nike simile falls apart (which, soit dit en passant, will make me personally come over and pull your ear should you trot it past me one more time ).

Not even addressing the issue that SL Y-K-W has a de facto monopoly as there is no valid alternative at the moment for what one might call the full adopters (all other VWs are either still technology studies, vapourware, or so restricting they can hardly compete for these people’s attention) — being the only manufacturer of sports shoes on the world would make quite a difference for Nike’s customer relations too, I think —, Nike users do not constitute a society, while the core of established SL residents shows all signs of being one. We don’t just use SL Y-K-W. We live there (part of the time, agreed). This is not Facebook on steroids ; it is a second identity, the marketing spun name ringing more true than anyone could have expected (and yes, it would still be a second life if it was called Linden World).

To the society of SL Y-K-W residents, government is a must, and it happens de facto all the time. The problem with it (and I think it is a problem at least Philip Rosedale is aware of, see the Guardian interview) is that matching the outside reality = a company running a business onto the inside reality = governing resident society translates into despotism.

To quote Lillie Yifu :

One discussion [is] over whether [LL] is a government. Yes, it is. It has its own currency, its own laws, and claims a monopoly on violence within its own control. Analogies to consumer products companies don’t apply, because I don’t sign a contract with Colgate saying they can pull my teeth out “for any reason, or no reason at all.”

I’ll repeat myself : I am not saying you are wrong : you are not. But I would invite you to take into consideration that there might be other valid points of views out there than only the outside (or meta) one you are taking. It might stop you wondering why so many people think there is a government, or that they should be one, in SL Y-K-W, and maybe even add another dimension to your own understanding of the metaverse adoption process. Lest one day someone asks you, you who were so bright and knowledgeable about the new colonies, and could discourse so well about the future of the Empire when people would move from one colony to the other and back to the mainland as economic and societal needs and biographies dictated, why the hell a tea shipment is floating in Boston harbour.

Feel kissed for your kind words to Void.