LL’s “future vision”

Is it any coincidence that on the 20th October LL signed a deal with Rivers Run Red to actively promote “immersive services”, described with inevitable fanfare and hype on the 21st October was followed at the end of the week by the announcement of the OpenSim tier hike?

It is pretty evident that LL view their strategic future is with “enterprise solutions”, despite the dismal (albeit premature) attempts to move the grid in that direction last year.

As such, it could be suggested that the OS sim tier hike is all part of this “corporate” strategy. Despite all the negativity surrounding it right now, LL know that while many may well vote with their feet and leave for places like OpenLifeGrid – there will be many more who will essentially “suck it up and live with it” – and these people are liable to be far more compliant when the next round of “changes” comes into force.

And the loss of OS sims could even be viewed in some circles within LL as “beneficial”:

• If there are technical concerns relating to the management of said sims, the fact that many are already being returned to LL allieviates these concerns more easily than changing the OS specs….
• The people “leaving” SL can be viewed as “troublemakers” who are best gone from the grid
• Counter-intuitively, a drop in resident numbers = a drop in daily concurrent log-ins = a “more stable SL expereince” (for one thing the Asset Cluster won’t be as wobbly)
• It leaves LL free to “adjust” things elsewhere to make Mainland more competitive with full private islands / estates
• It leaves LL free to *possibly* – as Anne O’Toole has suggested – move into the “fully prefab sim” market: offer NEW residents a nice OS-like sim, complete with a choice of landscapes and house directly from LL themselves, at a nice, tidy price & reasonable tier

And of course, lastly, it helps reduce the overheads on managing SL so they can be focused on the wider aspects of the grid and so-called “corporate solutions”.

Does this sound overly cynical or naive on my part? Possibly, but given the drive to make the grid a “corporate tool”, one cannot help but wonder…