SL landmass shrinks because of open space issue

According to this article on massively.com:

Chilly policy reception causes exceptional Second Life shrinkage

Since the announcement of Openspaces 3.0 product pricing for Second Life (and the subsequent update to a reduced specification Openspaces 4.0 product), Linden Lab has seen its virtual world shrink for the first time on record with a net loss of 24.05 million square metres (a little less than 6,000 acres).

That's a net loss, so however many new simulators have been brought online since the beginning of the month, those gains have been canceled out by customers dumping land, and an additional 24 million square metres have been lost.

For the rest of the article, see the link above!