Linden Lab’s Anticompetitive Moves
It all started when Linden Lab stopped being a Land Provider and started to Make side jobs that the residents should do like the Editorial Work on the Showcases and that “Sandbox” newsletter. Most of the time, when Linden Labs gets in a Market they kill it by taking over it. But when is it forgivable?
Web Marketplaces
2 or 3 Years ago Linden Lab purchased the two most popular web marketplaces, XStreetSL (Previously named SLX) and OnRez and launched their own one.
Why you can forgive them:
It makes it easier for everyone, you don’t need two passwords, you don’t have to go to an ATM to deposit money for that separate account and merchants will get the new direct delivery system soon that will work better than Magic Boxes.
Why you can’t forgive them:
They Killed a market and also any chance of further Innovation, they could just have made API’s to get closer to that experience and they could use more of their staff on the important stuff that needs to be fixed.
Social Networks
Linden Lab bought and Killed “Avatars United”, which was a pretty big social network for many Virtual Worlds and MMO’s, they also Just released web Profiles for Viewer 2 that Include Status Updates “Friends Suggestions”, which is some sort of a small Social Network that will probably kill the need of any other Network. (Check out my blog post on what It could potentially do to kill this market too)
Why you can forgive them:
Second Life is already a social network, even if you don’t like how it sounds. Having the need to sign up for another site to Socialize with people is too much. It’s easier, all your friends are on it already and you won’t have to worry about another Social Network in your life.
Why you can’t forgive them:
They could just make Viewer Plugins that would be like advanced HUDs (Shared Media HUDs are a start) and anyone that wants to start a social network could do all that or more.
Editorial Work
Linden Lab has many people doing “Editorial Work” Like choosing which places get into their showcases and even started making Fashion and Decoration choices in their “The Sandbox Newsletter”.
Why you can forgive them:
It makes it easier for new users to like Second Life, which indirectly helps the market. That’s the single reason I can think of.
Why you can’t forgive them:
This affects multiple markets, it makes Mainstream Businesses richer and those new ones loose most of their chances to ever succeed. They affect the Editorial Market too, not that much since most people kinda hate it. Bloggers and Magazines should do that job, not Linden Lab
Conclusion
Most of the time these Business moves help Second Life survive to make it easier to use for less tech-savvy people, which helps the growth of the grid, something that will make everything better in all ways. Other Virtual Worlds like Active Worlds didn’t do these and they stayed as underdogs for even a longer time than SL, so at least we are not on the wrong path. Like it or not, this is how SL is evolving and succeeding
Why you shouldn’t Invest (or rather waste) your time and money on SL
SL is an interesting market, I’ve had explosive business startups and also dead ones, but one true thing is that you will depend on Linden Lab’s business decisions and mistakes, and the effort you make for a Real-Life living is almost the effort some people make for multimillionaire Real-Life businesses, so why bother?
The single business you can make is an equivalent of what Zynga is to facebook (Creator of -Ville Games) except that Zynga was only founded 3 years ago and it already has a 600 million dollar revenue for this year, which is probably more than Second Life’s itself, if they get screwed by Facebook they will have money to keep the grandchildren of their grandchildren swimming in money, while you will run out of your earnings in months.
Linden Lab is also doing many anti-business moves:
- The “Editorial” work they do selecting some branded items for their monthly newsletter.
- The extremely, if not most valuable businesses Residents should Run:
- Real estate business ( Linden Homes)
- The eCommerce business (sl,marketplace.com)
- And now the advertising business they try to launch.
Linden Lab has the right to kick you out without any reason nor refunds. I think Linden Lab should make a simple platform, and not a Game or MMO, They don’t have the possibility to fix their base system and they still get busy inventing new projects that affect the current businesses. I hope 2011 Will bring some less blurry view of what SL will be, but until I don’t get a clear image of what they want to do with it I won’t waste my money and time on it anymore.