Face it: we’ve all been predicting Second Life’s demise for ages, “worst year ever” every year for several years, but it just keeps on ticking.

There’s that, but there’s the other thing too: since the appointment of the new CEO we’ve also seen some significant positive changes as well. Enterprise support is improving (slowly, but definitely), and the moves to keep Linden Lab profitable benefit everyone long-term.

Remember now, I do not have a history as a cheerleader for Linden Lab. Just the opposite, actually.

To be quite honest, nobody is more surprised that Mark Kingdon is doing a good job than I am. I’d been recommending the appointment of a career CEO for ages, and when they promoted FROM WITHIN I just cringed. As it turns out, though, he seems to know what he’s doing.

From what I can tell, he’s trying to wrestle a company composed of a bunch of autonomous renegade bits all doing whatever they feel like, which drives customers (er, residents) crazy, into a cohesive whole that follows some kind of direction. That’s necessarily going to mean some uncomfortable policy changes, but that’s also going to mean a stronger and more stable company and product long-term.

Those inconvenienced are loudly complaining, understandably, and they have every right to. The trick here is that all of that complaining is drowning out another sound: thousands of sighs of relief from those seeking a little stability and customer service. Expect a few more inconveniences this coming year, but also expect things to start working the way they would if a real company was running things.

Of course that’s just my opinion I could be wrong.

So I think that your evaluation of the present situation is like John McCain saying that the fundamentals of the US economy are strong.

But that’s not the point. The point is that it’s a fiasco that was a moment in time, and the company is dealing with things the best they can given the existing mess. Short of rolling back the clock (which is plainly impossible) they’ve made the hard business decisions here that, a year from now, will bear fruit.

Bloggers aside (whose stock-in-trade is outraged vitriol) it seems people are getting that.

You can’t be serious! The Openspace sims fiasco has been one of the worst one ever and it could really be the straw breaking the camel’s back. Where’s that rock you’ve been hiding under?