About half a year ago, after #
ElonMusk had announced his #
TwitterTakeover for the first time, and the first #
TwitterMigration to #
Mastodon had started, I've already asked myself (and my readers) what'd be
if Elon Musk hypothetically bought out Second Life.
Now that he has actually taken over #
Twitter, and we see the actual aftermath, I think I can reiterate the question and think about it once more, especially with regards to a just as hypothetical mass migration from #
SecondLife to #
OpenSimulator.
Theory: The transition will be smoother than from Twitter to Mastodon.Likely reality: Yes. Mastodon is vastly different from Twitter, but #
OpenSim is a literal SL offshoot and developed around SL's viewer API. You've actually even got some content on both sides (let's not talk about how most of it got to OpenSim). And you can most likely keep using the same viewer, especially since the most popular SL viewer, Firestorm, is also the most popular OpenSim viewer. In fact, none of the popular viewers has enough developing capacity to deviate far from SL, and as long as this is the case, OpenSim will stay very close to SL.
Okay, you have to choose a grid, just like you have to choose a Mastodon instance. Reuniting with your friends may be slightly more difficult because you have to meet in-world, regardless of who is on which grid. But most grids are on the Hypergrid anyway, so chances are slim that you accidentally end up on a closed one.
And relocating to another grid if you don't like the one you've ended up on isn't much of a problem either. It isn't too uncommon for OpenSim users to have alts with the same identity on a multitude of grids. Some even keep their old avatars (or make new ones) as spares.
By the way, I don't think that people will rather move to someplace entirely different. What's so tempting about OpenSim
is how similar it is to SL. You don't have to get used to something entirely new. And no other virtual world allows for the same level of creativity. Okay, Roblox and voxel miners like Minecraft or Minetest allow for quite some creativity, but graphics-wise, they're a far cry from SL and OpenSim.
Theory: Everyone will pile onto the biggest grid, #OSgrid, taking it for the entirety of OpenSim.Likely reality: Some will, but not everyone.
A lot of people will head straight for #
Kitely after being told before their migration that it has more in common with SL than non-commercial OSgrid, including something very similar to the Marketplace. Others will quickly move from OSgrid to other grids after learning how cheap land is there whereas OSgrid doesn't offer sim rentals at all. Which Kitely does as well, by the way. But there will also be those who want to get away from SL's commercialism.
Generally, most public grids which allow for new users to join in some way will see some growth, also because there's often someone who is in both SL and OpenSim and invites their SL friends over to their own home grid.
Speaking of which:
Theory: Such a huge influx of new users will end OpenSim's deserted feeling that comes from its low population density.Likely reality: Nope. By far most of these new users will get themselves at least one sim of their own, especially after learning how dirt-cheap land is on the Hypergrid. You can get big varsims for cheaper than mere parcels in SL (and you can't get varsims in SL at all). You can build bigger in OpenSim that you've dared to dream in SL. And so people will. You can consider yourself lucky if the landmass doesn't grow more quickly than the population.
In fact, I expect thousands of new users migrating from OSgrid, their first new home, straight to their own home-hosted #
DreamGrid so they can be their own Lindens.
Already now, if you don't have at least one sim of your own, people start wondering why.
Besides, if you really want a population density even remotely similar to that on SL, you'll need more users than SL has right now. The Hypergrid has multiple times the landmass of SL that needs to be populated. OSgrid alone has more land than SL.
Related point:
Theory: More people = bigger parties.Likely reality: Nope again. More people = more land = more clubs = more parties of roughly the same size. Also, more people = more performers and more DJs.
I'm not sure, however, whether we'll generally get busier clubs because the number of DJs grows faster or more deserted clubs due to there being too many of them. We've technically got too many clubs and event locations already now.
Theory: Some grids will advertise themselves to SL refugees as stand-alone SL alternatives to profit from the situation.Likely reality: Yes, some will, but not as successfully as they want to. They'll avoid mentioning that they're based on OpenSim and instead try to pose as scratch-made, stand-alone walled gardens. Not a smart move when everyone and their grandmother is explicitly looking for a new home in OpenSim explicitly. Not to mention the lack of any credibility when potential SL refugees recognise much of the stuff on in-world pictures from SL.
Even for those who manage to end up on such a grid, it won't be a total #
WalledGarden. It'll most likely still have Hypergrid access. And regardless of whether or not it does, nothing will keep you from moving elsewhere anytime.
Theory: More creativity in OpenSim for OpenSim.Likely reality: Yes, but not to such a big degree. Those who make a living off SL will stay there or quit altogether if their number of customers plummets. You can't make a living off OpenSim where the majority of users refuses to use any in-world currency altogether.
Many others will, of course, stay fully commercial and head straight for Kitely, maybe even only offer their products to Kitely residents. Needless to say that those who still don't know where "Never buy in OpenSim" came from will be enraged and try their best to "liberate" all that content by copybotting it (or buying and then god-moding it) and putting it into freebie stores.
Hilarity will ensue when SL refugees go straight to Kitely and put their products on the Kitely Market, just to discover that the
exact same stuff with the
exact same names is already available all over the Hypergrid as full-perm "freebies".
Chances are, however, that we'll actually get quite a number of new talented freebie creators who have previously offered their products in SL for money. But they haven't done so because "that's what you do," nor because they're capitalist shills, but because they may still remember Arcadia Asylum/Aley Resident/Aley Arai being banned multiple times for undermining Linden Lab's revenue stream by offering lots of free content. They didn't want this to happen to them, so they reluctantly charged money for their products to appease Linden Lab. In OpenSim, not even commercial grids will ban you for making #
freebies, and the majority of grids isn't commercial to begin with.
Also, I expect some original SL creations to be upgraded with OpenSim-exclusive technology by their own creators. Former SL boats powered by the marvellous
SFsail, anyone?
Theory: Well-known SL regions will re-emerge on the Hypergrid.Likely reality: Yep. It'll be quite an endeavour, seeing as you can't export OARs from SL. But you can at least take the assets with you. I mean, if you're going to burn your bridges to SL soon anyway, you may just as well take to SL with a copybot viewer and export at least your stuff so you don't have to rebuild everything from scratch. I know someone who did exactly that.
When SL region owners learn about varsims, they may even rebuild their old place not like it used to be, but
bigger.
Theory: Attempts at redefining the content ratings taken over from SL to all G-rated will be pushed back.Likely reality: Yes, because thousands of SL converts who are used to only General being at least halfway child-friendly will first be confused and then
very opposed.
Theory: OpenSim will finally arrive in the media limelight.Likely reality: Probably not, even though Mastodon did.
There will be more talk about OpenSim. But what talk there already is about SL happens in a bubble that's largely invisible for the outside world. Many journalists still believe SL shut down in 2009 because they haven't heard anything from it ever since. If Elon Musk bought SL, most people will see that as beating a dead horse. And it's unlikely that there'll be significantly more talk about OpenSim than there is now about SL with many more users.
Also, there may still be an advertising team amongst Linden Lab's many employees. Meanwhile, OpenSim probably doesn't have more than that one spare-time core developer; everything else comes from the community or is third-party in other ways.
Theory: Someone will then try to buy out OpenSim.Reality: Won't happen. OpenSim is #
FLOSS and maintained by enthusiasts in their spare time. There isn't even a foundation behind it, much less a company that could be bought out.
It's simply pretty much impossible. If such a thing was possible, #
Linux would have been bought out already. Or #
GNU. Or #
BSD. Or #
Mozilla. Or #
Apache. Or #
XMPP. Or #
Mastodon, while we're at it.
Not only is it impossible, but it's also useless. In general, #
OpenSource software can be forked. Remember what happened when Oracle announced to take over Sun Microsystems and #
MySQL and #
OpenOffice along with it? #
MariaDB and #
LibreOffice happened.
Finally, there isn't much to get out of OpenSim. You won't get a grid, you won't get potentially valuable in-world assets either (haha, right, in a largely non-commercial network of #
VirtualWorlds), you won't even get a viewer. All you'll get is a convoluted pile of .NET/Mono code that's destined to stick to Second Life like tar.
#
WhatIfScenario #
Metaverse