Second Life, like the internet as a whole, is pretty much anarchy. Except there is somebody at the top who’s allegedly keeping an eye on it all, but it’s sort of like that absentee father who drops in once every couple of years just so the kids don’t forget who daddy is.
Honour’s blog post raised some interesting points of how some users seem to see Second Life. Yes, it is an online community, but first and foremost, it’s a business. And if the business part isn’t being run correctly, then there’s no point in trying to grow a community.
I have the same opinion as Honour – why the hell would Second Life be a democracy?!
But when you think about it, you realise that actually Linden Lab have produced the perfect gameplan. It’s as if they owned an art gallery and put up a lot of blank canvases, and invited the public in to paint something pretty. And then you sell it and they take a healthy cut of the profits. And they charge you for the paint. They also charge you to keep the painting in the gallery and a bunch of other charges which soon total up to you thinking “Wow, this is getting pricey!” But it’s far too late by then.
Linden Lab’s whole business model is based around user generated content, which means we – the users – are the only thing standing between Linden Lab and their profit margin. Surely that entitles the users to some sort of voice, understanding their key importance to the survival of Second Life?
And then you go back to that “It’s just a freakin’ game” argument, where anyone on the outside thinks the idea of a democracy in a virtual world is absolute craziness, and you realise they might just have a point. I mean, it’s not like democracy is the saviour of mankind in the real world, and I certainly can’t imagine it working in the virtual world either. Give the residents the chance to vote and they’ll pick some ranty, dyslexic and incoherent freak as their favourite blogger. That alone should send alarm bells ringing of how bad democracy would be for Second Life.
But the primary reason democracy would be completely impractical in Second Life? Because that means we’d only have ourselves to blame when things get screwed up, and that just wouldn’t do. We could never blame ourselves – we need someone else to blame. We need a CEO to hang and burn effigies of. Because despite the fact that we created this place and we have the power to do with it whatever we wish, we’ll never accept any responsibility for it.
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Shug on July 3, 2010
There would be less interest in “SL democracy” if LL did more explaining and requesting in marginal AR situations rather than just remove and ban. In many ways LL is their own worst enemy.
Perhaps what we need is a judicial system.
Gwyneth Llewelyn on July 23, 2010
*cough* Democracy in Second Life? *cough*
Shameless plug: Self-governance within a representative democracy model in SL. Alive since October 2004 and still not dead. We’re almost the oldest community in SL (FurNation/Luskwood are older still) and showing off that democracy inside SL can work. It’s just incredibly hard!!
Mr Gausman on August 6, 2010
Amen
I just love the way you write Mr