It does seem a long time, but times change. It'll be based on analysis of the oil and I'm quite sure Volvo would have been extremely thorough. The idea of 6K changes on a modern car is laughable, just because old 70s Leyland rubbish filled it's sump with swarf every 6000 miles that doesn't mean a modern car will. I work for a company that makes very large gensets and with modern oils you can run them for a long, long time between changes. We send oil off for analysis before changing rather than hours of service and they look into the metal and contaminant content, fuel content and how much the oil and additives have broken down. We also have many pool cars that are serviced according to the manufacturers recommendations (typically 18 - 20K miles these days) and they all seem to reach 200K+ without engine issues.
That said I found that at about 12K the engine was noisier than I remembered so out of curiosity I performed a quick oil and filter change which settled it down. I'm thinking that what I might do is
12K - oil + filter
24K - oil + filter
36K - oil, filter, air filter and all the other things expected at 36K/2year intervals
and repeat. The Volvo schedule calls for basically oil and filter every 18K and everything else ever 36K (there isn't really much TO service on a modern car). I do 12K in less than 6 months. With a Pella pump and the filter on top changing the oil is very straightforward and only takes 15 minutes with a hot engine.
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