This post is about why Second Life failed — but not in the sense of, “here are the reasons why Second Life failed,” but instead, “here is why it is true that Second Life failed.”
Slate published an article titled “Why Second Life Failed” that also, like this post, is not an elucidation of reasons why SL failed — but unlike this post, it is not an authentic attempt to support the proposition that SL indeed failed. It is simply an effort to market a new book by posting an article with a catchy headline. There is an unavoidable paradox in that any marketable headline with the structure “Why [X] Failed” must use for X something that has first achieved at least some significant success, otherwise the title would be too obscure to attract readers. I started a company called Bynamite that folded after less than two years — no one writes articles titled “Why Bynamite Failed” because no one’s ever heard of Bynamite.
This mild paradox isn’t sufficient defense for SL’s ardent users and thoughtful critics. As is often the case with posts about SL’s demise, the comments to the Slate article are full of well-informed, intelligent and passionate conversation that puts the original article to shame. At Terra Nova, Greg Lastowka suggests that SL remains fertile ground for study, with the pointed rejoinder that “Second Life never failed — the media reporting on Second Life failed.”
As a former Linden, I appreciate the desire to insist that Second Life hasn’t failed. I joined Linden Lab in 2005, at a time when we had a few dozen employees and registered users in the tens of thousands. By the time I left four years later, we had around 7 times the number of employees, several hundred times as many users, and almost a hundred times the revenue. It certainly felt like success to me. I left sated with a feeling of accomplishment, and great hope for the future of Second Life.
But I also left feeling depleted. We had stumbled our way from obscurity to something like prominence, but I didn’t know how to take it to the next level. We weren’t making progress despite having bountiful talent, desire and resources. We had a beautiful company, a real culture of beauty and love, genuine emotion for each other and for the world we were helping to build. And it wasn’t working, not well enough and not fast enough and not big enough.
Perhaps there never was a next level. Perhaps it was always the destiny of Second Life to be an innovative niche product for a select group of people, a worthy subject of serious study, a constantly evolving emporium of edge cases. Maybe we should have just hunkered down, and focused on maintaining an elaborate playground for only a select audience of passionate and creative people. We could eke out a fine living, and damn the rest of the world who just didn’t get it.
But I couldn’t damn the rest of the world, because dammit, I’m from that rest of the world. I was never a true Resident of Second Life; I was a visitor, an outsider with the good fortune to see the incredible things that people can do in a truly free environment. I was inspired, amazed and delighted by Second Life — as well as occasionally revolted, offended and demoralized — and the diversity and depth of this experience was a revelation to me, one that I believed that everyone can appreciate.
And I still believe that, which is why I have to accept that Second Life has failed (so far, we must always say so far). The reality is that Second Life is still a niche product, and to deny that I wanted it to be something more would dishonor the heartbreaking glory of our ambition. It’s fair to say that Facebook became our second life, but it’s also shortsighted. Not so long ago, people laughed at the proposition that anyone wanted to maintain a virtual presence online that could form the basis of social interaction. Facebook did put an end to the dismissive chuckles on that topic.
But it’s equally laughable to say that this is where we’ll stop, that the final destination of online interaction consists of wall posts and text messages in two dimensions. I still believe that there’s no sensible way to define an impassible boundary between where we are today and a time when people “live” in a three-dimensional virtual environment. I’m still a true believer, an old true Linden in that way. So I have to admit that Second Life has failed.
So far.
