There has been the biggest protest ever seen in Second Life tonight as Linden Labs announced that they are drastically increasing the prices in respect of their Openspace virtual land. To read their reasons go to http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/10/27/openspace-pricing-and-policy-changes/ They emphasise that the Openspace sims, which were intended only for light use, (for instance, areas of ocean or open land), have been used for other things involving more avatar traffic and development which is putting a strain on the servers at the Linden Labs. This would seem pretty crazy as I have been informed that they increased the amount of prims on these lands to 3750 a short while ago encouraging more activities instead of decreasing the usage. I have heard from a few people tonight who are clearly distressed at these large price increases, so much so that they are handing back huge amounts of Openspace land because they are unable to pay for the upkeep. This will also involve many charities in SL who relied on this cheaper land to keep going. I am only putting this short report on tonight, however I will be talking to people who will be affected by this from tomorrow. Are the Lindens strapped for cash? Why would they treat their residence with such distain, who knows. It comes at a strange time though when they are trying to attract real business into sl as a cheaper way of running things. Also with half the world heading towards a recession and banks closing along with the stock markets crashing, expecting their hard up customers to pay more would seem extremely bad timing. Perhaps someone from Linden Labs would like to contact me with their side of the story.