Wagner James Au / New World Notes

In recent months, many Second Life merchants have reported experiencing a significant and steady decline in sales. As a top seller of home decor recently put it to me, “the slowdown has been happening way before Summer; since March of last year, we progressively lost 5% every 6 months.” Indeed, 1 in 3 merchants surveyed recently told me that sales since 2022 have shrunk by over 20% — as detailed in my report on the state of the SL economy in 2025.

I’ve been looking into this over the last month or two, and may finally have an explanation, or at least a key part of it. To put it bluntly and briefly: 

There are way too much un-bought Linden Dollars in Second Life’s economic reserves, not enough in-world sinks — and a growing need for more active, paying users.

Subscribe to read the rest here.