So many thoughtful replies and on a whole true.
But what I find most telling is they all come from some of the most creative people in SL. I am going on 4 years now and my thought about SL is: look what we have created from what we had to play with. Lucas point about our personal inventory is the most telling. Open your inventory and bring out that prized first dress or house you built and compare to what you are making now. It is truly astonishing.
I accepted a long time ago that SL commerce wouldnt be lucrative. How could you apply your RL hourly rate on to some of these wonderful things? Nonnas sculptures, Lex & Gallyons wine, Ephes dresses, Bedrichs builds. To mention but a few. One could never charge enough to make them profitable or get the money for their value.
So this all tells me we do it because SL allows us to truly create and grow as craftsman and artists. And a forum to present. That is why we come back. That is why we may swear we wont come back tomorrow after todays tiff. But we do. And we will.
Old saying: You get out what you put in.
Do we know if SL will be here tomorrow? No. but if it does go we all have had a truly intriguing evolution in our creativity. And more importantly if she starts to sink fast we will exchange (or have already) emails with those we love.
