Residents of Second Life have many different views of what provides the true value of Second Life, and of what promotes brand loyalty to Second Life. For many, it is the community-creative and interesting people that draws others to Second Life.

Companies wishing to do business in Second Life recognize this value. They want to reach people who are thought leaders, who are well connected. Yet many feel that recent actions by Linden Lab have further eroded the community and have done considerable damage to the Second Life brand.

Others feel that what is most compelling about the Second Life brand is the platform. Second Life is the environment where they can most easily and reliably create three-dimensional objects that they can sell and share with other. For these people, the stability of the environment is extremely important, especially as residents plan events where they can gather with others to demonstrate new objects, new places, or simply discuss important issues.

This ties back to the ideas of the Second Life community. Yet recent instability of the platform, together with changes in basic level hardware required for the Second Life viewer have frustrated residents.

Meanwhile, it appears to many as if Linden Lab views their most important asset as the assorted trademarks that they own. They have instituted new policies that go far beyond what normal companies do to protect their trademark; they have threatened to ban residents of Second Life from using their systems if they improperly use any Second Life trademarks. This would be similar to Coca Cola Corporation managing to prevent anyone who uses the word ‘Coke’ when referring any other soft drink from drinking their Coca Cola brand soft drink. It has left a sour taste in the mouth of many residents.

At the same time, recent changes to Second Life have required residents to upgrade their viewers. This has presented problems for many, especially those in education who have to support many machines, which barely meet minimum requirements to even run SL.  In response to these concerns, Linden Lab held a few  inworld informational sessions with Pastrami Linden. Pastrami discussed how to optimize the latest viewers for older hardware. Linden Lab maintains that the latest viewers are even faster than the old ones.

The main grid, itself, has not been all that stable during this period, and residents have sought different ways of dealing with their frustration about the outages. Many have simply taken pleasant walks