Boiling the frog... but in a good way.

You know the old story about how to boil a frog: raise the water temperature gradually, so the frog never notices the change until it's too late. It's typically used as a metaphor for the encroachment of some evil, often an intrusive government.

But sometimes, gradual change is good--but it has the side effect that we don't notice it. We do notice when things break, though. People are a lot more motivated to complain than to compliment.

For all the endless kvetching about Second Life, I strongly suspect that were people forced to use SL as it was a couple of years ago, they'd really have something to complain about.