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Linden Lab has spent $1.3B building Second Life and paid $1.1B to creators (updated)

Linden Lab has spent $1.3 billion building the Second Life virtual world, which debuted back in 2003 in the first era of the metaverse.

Those numbers represent a huge digital business that is good to remember as we all continue to discuss the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that sci-fi folks would love to see connected together one day as the next generation of the internet. Altberg created a project called Sansar as a kind of sequel to Second Life, with VR experiences that existed via web links rather than inside a virtual world. “If you want to think about a sustainable metaverse world that people are going to live in, you want to see a higher level of spending per individual, a more blended mix between creator and consumer, something that looks more like a farmer’s market or Etsy or something as a business,” Rosedale said.

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