I might complain a lot about the copycat articles people write to introduce SL to an ignorant audience, but I'm always ready to praise articles that do the job well. Case in point: Murray Whyte of the Toronto Star provides an excellent intro/state-of-the-world piece, which both mentions important events in SL's history as well as a positive, fitting final quote from no less than Urizenus Sklar himself.One thought this article engendered in me, however, is the idea that just as it's impossible to escape commercialism in RL without radically modifying your life (which is certainly your right), it's going to prove equally so in SL before too long. The answer, therefore, is synthesis, rather than antithesis. Accept it. Embrace it. These things only affect you as much as you'll let them. While I'm dancing the night away at my favorite clubs, the fact that IBM owns several islands has no effect on my happiness. When I'm watching a game of Building Shelter, it really doesn't matter that Adidas is hawking its wares somewhere in the world. When I spend far too much time talking with random strangers, I just don't care that Pontiac wants us all to buy its cars.
Even if I did, would I really want that to be the reason I left SL? I was forced out by people with more money than me? Be like water, my friends, as Bruce Lee would say. Or, if you prefer, Be like the Internet: Route around it. Don't define your Second Life by avoidance of what you hate. Make it an example of what you love.
Start packing, because 
