During the Coronaviris/Covid-19 Pandemic, the number of people using Second Life rose. Linden Lab stated in April 2020 that signups had gone up sixty percent since it started. In June 2020, CEO Ebbe Altberg stated the number of active users, those who were logging in at least once a month, had gone up to 900,000, a one-eighth of an increase over the previous year.
Since then, the Lab has been quiet on just how many are coming in and staying in. There has been some speculation that with the Pandemic over, people have been leaving once more. In an article by Daniel Voyager, he stated that the daily peak has gone down slightly, from 55,000 about a year ago to about 48 to 53,000 this month. Checking the Second Life Grid Survey, this was the case.
So it seems some people are leaving, though it appears to be a smaller number than those who joined during the Pandemic. Some who came back are sticking around, at least for now.
Of the number of sims, things looked more encouraging according to Daniel. With the growth of Belisseria, it should be no surprise to most that the total number of sims has continued to go up. He reported the total number at 27,659. This is an increase of over 2000 from two years ago. What will surprise some is that the majority of these, at least from two years ago, were private sims, from 17,024 to 18,370. But it should be noted almost all this increase was in 2021. The number of private sims didn't change much in just 2022, an overall increase of thirty-eight. But the number of Linden-owned sims grew at almost the same number, 378 more in 2021 and 380 more in 2022.
So the number of private sims is still growing, but it appears economic troubles such as inflation causing the prices of everything from food and energy to rise and cut back on the amount of cash available for entertainment is resulting in fewer people getting new ones.
So what do things have in store over the course of 2023? Difficult to say. If inflation drops and the global economy avoids a recession, we may see a few more people logging in and more people getting private sims. But if we end up with 1979-1980 style "stagflation," the news over the next several months may have some sim closings.
Source: Daniel Voyager's Blog
Bixyl Shuftan
i have seen the exact opposite in just my 3 years in SL when i started there wher hundreds of sims i was able to get to, from Noob stores to fancy social sims. in just those 3 years about half to 3/4 of the sims i once went to have closed and gone to abandoned land. SL is dying. Least that's what i see
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