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I was prompted, to this line of thinking, by reading comments (specifically the comments, not the article) on an article over on The Age’s blog pages.

The commentator, ‘Merus’, expresses a concern at the rise of virtual worlds (VW) controlled by ‘corporations’. I agree with the sentiment but not sure I’d go as far as concern. As examples, referencing the specifics of the article, he offers Dan Hunter’s posts regarding a particular VW product and its promotion (posts here and here) – the posts are now ancient history in the blog or VW time-cycle of course.

But I still like the posts as they demonstrate, in my opinion, apart from being nicely written and quite entertaining, a version of a ‘worst case scenario’ of a private VW provider ‘protecting its patch’. They are entitled, of course, to do ‘protection’ and it’s entirely their choice how they go about it .. and the consequences of any actions they take will be entirely their problem as well.

On a slightly different tack is looking at how these types of services are being provided..

The crux of the matter, is services, like Second Life (SL), are being provided on the same basis as a telephone, cable, or ISP services where, in all likelihood, your ‘terms and conditions’, or contract, include something like “we expressly imply nothing about this service’s fitness for purpose even though we are charging you money for it, and, by the way, if we turn it off at anytime you have no rights – period”.

From SL specifically:

1.6 Second Life is subject to scheduled and unscheduled service interruptions. All aspects of the Service are subject to change or elimination at Linden Lab’s sole discretion.

So whilst I might agree entirely with the ‘thrust’ (or ‘ideologicals’) of various complaints about the situations of societal factors, financial controls, policing etc of these Virtual Worlds the fact remains that these services are provided “as-is, without expressed or implied warranty” (gotta love the software industry lawyers :-) ).

I, personally, am happy to ‘cough up my dough’ to be part of this experience (wherever it’s going..) and pay that money to a service provider on the same basis as I subscribe to 6 hundred channels of rubbish on cable.. (which, like any of these services, might actually ‘work’ every now an again)…

Does the point need to be driven home…? again from SL terms of service..

1.4 Second Life “currency” is a limited license right available for purchase or free distribution at Linden Lab’s discretion, and is not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab.

and someone’s talking about setting up a serious, mortgage backed, ‘hanging your families future on it’, business on this platform?…

There is no point in ‘bashing’ the mostly venture capital funded (from available information I can see) private companies, like LL, who are out on the ‘bleeding edge of technology’ because they have to ‘jiggle things about’ to make *their* business model work. They do that so they can attract more venture capital and/or customers (e.g. increase revenue). And they have to raise revenue so they can continue to survive long enough to develop this ‘thing’ further… That’s ‘accepted’ business, and business development, practice.

If we don’t like this “as-is, without expressed or implied warranty” type of product and service delivery then we better take it up on a different level. It’s not unique to ‘virtual worlds’ – it now seems, sadly, to be common business practice. Maybe, ‘at the end of the day’, that is what the ‘beef’ (complaint) is about..

I doubt it’s got anything to do with some idealistic virtual ‘new world order’ which some seem to think should be financed by the (clever and talented) folks who front up *their* money in venture capital funded ‘experiments’ like Second Life..