Linden Lab has confirmed that non-paying Second Life users were briefly shut out of the virtual world earlier this month, but that it doesn't intend to make a regular habit of this in the future. The news ties into the ongoing debate over free versus paying users, and how (if at all) virtual worlds should differentiate between them.
Reuters has Linden’s statement:
“On June 12th, we intentionally restricted logins for approximately seven minutes due to grid problems. We have reviewed the use cases for this capability, and have determined that it no longer serves the purpose for which it was designed. As such, we do not intend to exercise this capability again in the foreseeable future.”
That seems a sensible decision. A virtual world keen to convert more of its free users into paid users is surely wiser to focus on a carrot approach - offering them real incentives to pay for additional content or features - rather than a stick approach - penalising them for NOT stumping up. Second Life is known for being one of the more successful virtual worlds at monetising its userbase, too, for positive rather than negative reasons.
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