“There’s always been a struggle between art and commerce — and now, I’m telling you, art is getting its ass kicked. And it’s making us mean; and it’s making us bitchy.” ~ Judd Hirsch as Wes Mendell, Pilot episode of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (via Aaron Sorkin)
Yesterday, Grace presented a thought-provoking post on the current state (and future possibilities) of SL from a practical business standpoint. Part of it was a revisit to her previous post which narrowed down the market the Linden Lab “powers that be” could be aiming for through process of elimination. So far, Grace’s tea leaves are dead-on (mostly because she is less educated guesser and more professional-that-knows-her-stuff than the average blogger).
The bigger question, for me, is: what form will this impending (and necessary) “destruction” and restructuring take? Targeted wetwork or napalm? I can think of three historically tried methods for such endeavors:
Model One : And the Lord Spoke Unto
And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ~ Numbers 14:33
Central Message: “Fuck All Of You.”
Probability: Low
Chance of Success: Risky
Prior Example: God and the Israelites
Linden Lab has the potential to go Old Testament on us. Let’s face it, they’ve got the keys to the kingdom (anyone who works with LSL should have no problem believing the world was created in six days or less) and they can lock us out of the car at any time. They could easily just decide to ignore the entire existing customer base, and refocus their offered content, and policies on all-new users. While it may seem like this is what they’re already doing, it’s not — it just seems that way because they keep changing their targets. Such drastic measures could net them a lower-maintenance user base. However it also means they lose the user-created content boon that comes along with those pesky talented haughty pain in the ass artist types. Even Lindens are able to see the difference between their avatars and the average user’s avatar. Unless they’re willing to hire high-dollar content artists (recent employment shifts at the Lab don’t point this way) they’re stuck hoping their user base can produce content that will woo new blood. Also they don’t have forty years, or whatever the digital age equivalent is.
Model Two : No, Mister Bond, I Expect You To Die
You spin me right round, baby, right round, in a manner depriving me of an inertial reference frame. Baby. ~ XKCD
Central Message: “Cream Will Rise.”
Probability: Moderate
Chance of Success: Variable
Prior Example: Babcock Centrifuge
Shake things up, give us a spin cycle, and hope the momentum separates the wheat from the chaff. It sounds like madness, but there’s some method to this type of approach. First of all, if you do it with economy, the people on the fringes (who are less likely to be desirable users from a business perspective) will flake off. This gets rid of users that don’t directly contribute to the in-world economy and the hobbyist creator who plugs the gird with low-level junk. What remains is the big spenders, the big earners, and the people with absolutely no quality of experience expectations who will put up with anything (interestingly, both cream and scum rise to the top). The costs to the community take the form of those individuals who contribute intangible value to an environment; from an “on paper” point of view, that’s often a loss companies are willing to take.
Model Three : The Jedi Mind Trick
“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” ~ Obi-Wan (via George Lucas) Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
Central Message: “You’ll Like What We Tell You To Like.”
Probability: Worrisome
Chance of Success: Even More Worrisome
Prior Example: Apple, Disney, Blizzard
In many ways, Linden Lab has always flirted with this model, cherry picking what it wanted to present to the community as “the right things.” However, this has been done passively, with a focus on positive voice rather than targeted content. While the validity and ethics of this method is murky, there’s no question that LL has skilled up on PR over the last several months. The website looks and navigates professionally; newsletters are polished and purposeful; regardless of the chaos and ill decisions, the announcements are mostly on-target message-wise. (It’s sad that these are improvements for a seven year old company now that I think of it, but let’s ignore that for now.) By identifying the superficial things that draw in higher volumes of casual users and escalating the prices of things that problem users value, there’s a big two birds one stone benefit in this method from a CEO POV. But this will have to be done with finesse so that too many are not alienated too fast and they don’t end up with all their eggs in one bunny…erm, I mean basket.
Art vs Commerce
While I do roll my eyes an awful lot over the-sky-is-falling circle, I have some sympathy. Linden Lab marketed itself, for years, under an idealistic banner of hearts, flowers, and rainbow-colored unicorns. LL slogans were pledges of cooperation with their user base; their medicine man made high profile claims and promises to the community of the wondrous things to come. It’s a lie to claim this was merely clever advertising; Linden Lab simply isn’t that clever. There were promises of good faith made to the user base from the company in both its early collective actions and aloud in the person of its Willy Wonka leader. Yes, those promises purchased huge quantities of goodwill and good press. But they were never practical and the user base, being mostly composed of adults who live in the very real world, should have known better. I understand and acknowledge my own disappointment and disillusionment of how far below the high water mark Linden Lab has settled, but such sentiments are the result of self-inducted suspense of disbelief, no matter how enabled by Linden Lab and its jester/king/whatever he is this week.
Yes, when you tear down a house to rebuild a new one, you lose the things that made the previous structure feel like a home to its inhabitants. It’s a painful process, but so is an unhealthy devotion to trying to squat in a condemned structure that’s threatening to collapse around you. If there is to be a reinvention, it must succeed in not only knocking down the walls of Linden Lab incompetence, but also the entitlement and unreasonable expectations of segments of the user base.
At any rate, given that most useful content in Second Life is almost entirely user-base driven, what does this mean?
History and literature are packed with instances of artists coming to terms with maintaining focus amid the distractions of the battle against power and commerce. Michelangelo, Beethoven, Henry Miller, Banksy all share(d) issues with authority and scorn toward the patron/business aspect of art culture while simultaneously having to woo favor to survive and maintain the tools of their trade. But artists have to face the hard truth, that most people don’t know or appreciate a quality experience of artistic expression when they encounter it. People will want what they want unless someone convinces them differently. Commerce does that better than artists. Always has, always will.
Real art does not owe commerce anything, but an equally important truth that often gets overlooked is that if art has no obligation to commerce, then commerce, in turn, has no obligation to art. It is only where their motives intersect that mutuality occurs. I’ve known a lot of artists and I’ve known a lot of businesspeople; I’ve regarded myself as both and neither, but mostly I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a lot of difference between the nature of the two beasts. Creating art is a self-absorbed, ruthless and committed undertaking; so is the business of making money.
Unlike a lot of the SL “community” I don’t labor under the delusion that Linden Lab owes artists anything. I don’t even think Linden Lab necessarily owes its “community” anything more than consistency and a reliable product. The problem I have is that Linden Lab keeps falling on its face and dragging everyone down with them. They’ve taken a product with limitless potential and turned it into mediocrity. This offends me on a fundamental logic level, like the characters of Less Than Zero or the Kardashians.
But, Wait, There’s Hope
Commerce, art, and recreation all have intersecting bubbles in their Venn diagrams. That overlap has so much potential it’s almost unfathomable that in seven years, Linden Lab has been unable to get it together. Think about that length of time. If a team doesn’t make it to the playoffs in seven years, ticket sales sink; vendors find alternate sources of income, free agents jump ship. The fact that we’re even still here, still giving them a chance has to underscore the potential of the possibilities.
Second Life is a platform. It’s a tool. It’s a canvas. It’s a playground. Linden Lab is a company with one high profile product that is on the edges of becoming the biggest almost-that-never-was; a cautionary tale of squandered opportunity. The danger of losing an important stage in the evolution toward the inevitable emergence of virtuality is playing out and while it’s morbidly fascinating to watch, there is a fourth model that could stem some of the damage and growing pains.
The Fourth Model: Diplomacy and Recognition of Mutual Advantage
Central Message: “Let’s Talk.” / “You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours.”
Probability: Unknown
Chance of Success: Hopeful
Prior Example: All around us, everyday.
This doesn’t have to be about art vs commerce; paper dolls vs gadgets; us vs them.
This transition is about a platform completely dependent upon its user base while simultaneously shutting out its user base. It’s about a user base so busy screaming about what they’re entitled to and what they felt they were promised that they’re losing sight of what is still to be employed and gained.
There have to be ways for us — the artists, the coders, the content creators, the fashionistas, the entertainers, and even the casual users — to open means of communication. Linden Lab either can’t or won’t invite us to the table. We’re going to have to find ways to engage them on a practical business level, to demonstrate that motivating our involvement will contribute positively to their bottom line.
So, our homework is to figure out what we contribute that they need and how to communicate our willingness to compromise what we want in terms so simple as to compel their assent. We need the right people with the right ideas to make the right proposals to the right ears.
Or we can just sit back, wait it out, and see which way the wind blows while we shepherd bunnies for forty years on the mainland.
