I think it was some time in 2003 that There.com e-mailed me to ask me to be a beta-tester, with the promise that I’d have free membership. I remember being interested, and I think I even started the download, but I don’t recall going any further than that.

We believe that all of this together made a world which was, well,
like “real life”, with just the right level of unreality thrown in.
Standards for speech, interaction, avatar dress, and even the amount of
“blood and gore” were pretty much what you’d expect in the real world,
and we believe that it’s one of the many things which made There
special, accessible, and attractive to people from all over the United
States and the world — not just the privileged with high-end machines
and broadband connections.[…]

But, at the end of the day, we can’t cure the recession, and at some
point we have to stop writing checks to keep the world open. There’s
nothing more we would like to avoid this, but There is a business, and
a business that can’t support itself doesn’t work. Before the recession
hit, we were incredibly confident and all indicators were
“directionally correct” and we had every reason to believe growth would
continue. But, as many of you know personally, the downturn has been
prolonged and severe, and ultimately pervasive.

We’re very sorry to announce that There.com will be closing to the public at 11:59 PM on March 9th, 2010. —There.com