If people from SL are asking themselves why it didn't grow more, here's my story:

In the past 5 years, I've spent about 5 hours reading and watching videos about SL. And yet I've never once downloaded and run the client. You know why? Because the whole gameworld is just too ugly.

There are many reasons for its ugliness. A missing lighting engine, that most of it is very empty, bad frame rate / low drawing distance, and also the fact that it's all made by the users and the majority of users don't have any taste.

I'd rather spend my time in WOW or Zelda, they appeal much more to my eyes. Or, you know, meet in real life.