Conflict of interests

There are times when it seems to me that some of the ills of Second Life could be dealt with by Linden Lab engaging more with their very own residents. However in order to do that, they're likely to cause a furore and put noses out of joint.

Let's take for example the group limit issue. Subscribe-o-matic and Hippo Groups both offer a solution for content creators to send messages and updates to members of a group. This alleviates part of the group limit problem, there's no need for a land group, you don't lose a group space with these solutions.

However if Linden Lab were to develop a similar system, would Subscribe-o-matic and Hippo Groups cry foul? I'd imagine they'd be miffed to say the least, after all they've created a solution that benefits Second Life as a whole.

So what if Linden Lab paid one or the other of them to send messages. For example at times such as the concierge party when you don't really want chat in the group but you want to send messages, the solutions offered above fit the bill. However if Linden Lab chose one over the other then there would be cries of "FIC", bias, accusations that a Linden alt was involved and all manner of bad feeling.

At what point can a business such as Linden Lab make a decision and say "To hell with the feedback". If that solution is in their best interests there have to be points where such decisons are made.

They did so when they raised private island prices and they did it again when they slashed them, although I still maintain that they could have easily dangled some carrots to estate owners over the price slash and still cut prices, all it would have took was a little bit of imagination and some marketing speak.

How about third party management of some selected mainland sims? How would people feel about that? The sim is in Linden Lab's ownership but policed and managed by a third party, would people be uncomfortable about that or do you think it would work?

I see people asking for openspaces to be made available to all, not just estate owners. Personally I think this would cause some great unrest amongst estate owners. I only have one openspace myself, I might get one or two more because I feel the market is getting saturated so I'd only be slightly grazed if Linden Lab were to make them available to all. However some estate owners have invested big and the consequences for them could be damaging but would it be better for the economy as a whole if any resident could own an openspace? Is that the sort of business decision whereby Linden Lab should say "To hell with the feedback".

Personally I don't think openspaces should be available to all, Linden Lab shouldn't be competing with their own customers. However I do feel they should have more land products available, different tier payment schemes whereby you pay more tier but less upfront and just plain more choice.

However as a company Linden Lab are constantly treading on eggshells, at some point they'll have to crack a few eggs to progress.