I'm often critical of those that jump on the bandwagon to criticise SL without evidence, as are Tateru and Akela. But, in the course of my day I read dozens of blogs about SL, as well as news feeds and the like, and there are several who are often well balanced who are saying different critical things, and things that ought to be thought about.

Lillie Yifu writes for 2nd Sex - a blog about her experiences as an escort as well as her thoughts on SL in general. As you might guess some of the topics aren't safe for work, but her article Triangle of Fire is work safe, and talks about the triangles in SL - user, content creator (clothes, anims etc.), builder being the "triangle of fire" and "scammer, spammer, parasite/noob" being the unholy one that is killing SL. She also questions why LL seem to chase the latter at the expense of the former (as well as some other holy cows of SL activity). She's quite angry in tone, and not always comfortable to read, but she's certainly thought provoking. Her conclusion sent chills up my spine - she pretty clearly describes the "SL Killer" App - if you want to run the new "future of the internet" here's your recipe: 'LL's time is measured in how long it takes someone to come out with a VR that people can make their own content, or get good free content, and invites them over under some generous set of terms similar to these: "here have a free sim! Just put your SL land for sale to us at 0L, and we will give you better land in a better VR! And look, more stability and better building tools!"'

Shortly after that I was reading VtoR where Caliandris Pendragon has written about her depression at on-going infringements of IP rights that LL does nothing about, and a piece in the Second Life Herald where Cory Edo was locked out of SL automatically for, apparently, stress testing a legitimate piece of code, and Ektan Gully is finding LL rather unwilling to support her IP rights under DCMA, despite following the process correctly!

SL is still far from dead. It might still be the "future of the internet" but when old hands, industry leaders, people with legitimate grievances are feeling like this ... and when I read a description of something that really would make me jump ship that's that succinct it makes me wonder if I'm moving from believing SL will survive to simply taking it on faith. Not a comfortable place for me, how about you?