It is pretty much what I suspected. The whole Second Life thing has locked like a Ponzi scheme from the beginning: "Get in early, everybody is going to want to be here! You can take some losses early one because their will be more after you that you can sell your virtual property to for lots and lots of cash!" It lacks the flexibility of the web (or the virtual world in Snow Crash) and it does not give anything in particular. If you pay for World Of Warcraft at least you get a computer game (with real life opposition), while you can also chat with other players, dress up your doll, and so on.
The fact that very few computer people I know has a Second Life account backed this impression.
The closest I've ever got to being hooked on a computer game was Yoshi's Island on the nintendo as a teenager and Prince of Persia during a summer of nothing to do a few years ago.
I like games I can spend half an hour on and then leave behind me, but I've never been able to get into really complex empire or civilisation building scenarios. Ad astra per aspera
