Image by Torley published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

“Bad weather, oppressive regimes, poor economic conditions — that’s what makes an SL user.”
Philip Linden (AKA Philip Rosedale)

Yes, he said that in an interview for Reuters, not a joke, just part of an interview.

Of course maybe Philip wanted to say Second Life is a good way for some people to have access to some kind of contents under “adverse” conditions, but the sentence is too categorical, too emphatic…

Most of the residents in Second Life have their RL residence in USA or in Western Europe, or in other countries like Brazil, and the regimes there are supposed to be democratic.

I agree some people live in countries with some rainy weather, but most of us (I mean MOST OF US) life in areas with a non-extreme weather, or even really good weather.

But, for me, the worse on Rosedale’s affirmation is the “poor economic conditions”. First, poor people can’t have a computer, and second and even more important, they can’t have the broadband Internet connection Second Life requires, specially in some continents like Africa.

I would say some other comments about this, but i just prefer to say Mr. Rosedale is, with this sentence, “not quite in touch with reality”. (Rheta Shan dixit)