What is the Metaverse and Will it Change Anything?
Big tech is promising the metaverse will completely transform how we live and work. But they’ll need to convince us the change is for the better.
In this article, we’re diving into the great expanse of the metaverse. You might have noticed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg making big claims about the future of the internet, and how we’ll interact with it in the years to come.
Right or wrong, Zuckerberg is betting the house on the metaverse. He’s already pumped tens of billions of dollars into building it — and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
So, what is it about the metaverse that has knotted Zuckerberg’s knickers? Will it solve all the problems of humanity and change our lives for the better? Or is it an over-hyped peculiarity that’s destined for that big tech trash can in the sky?
What is the metaverse?
Imagine the internet as we know it today as a giant city suspended in the digital universe of cyberspace. Like any city, the streets are lined with buildings — shops, entertainment venues, office towers, warehouses and public spaces. But in this city, the buildings are a vast array of websites, apps and platforms. There’s the e-bay shopping mall, there’s the YouTube cinema, there’s the Facebook park, there’s your Gmail office, and on and on.
But we currently don’t walk or drive around this city. We use search engines to find and access our desired destinations. And we typically experience these destinations via the 2D screens of our computers, tablets and smartphones.
The metaverse will be like stepping inside the internet. It will still be a giant internet city made up of websites, apps and platforms. But instead of using a 2D search engine to navigate them, we’ll use virtual reality (VR) headsets and augmented reality (AR) smart glasses to actually step inside and walk around this 3D internet city.
In other words, 2D search engines will become 3D virtual worlds we’ll use to enter, interact with, and navigate the metaverse. And we’ll exist as digital avatars inside these virtual worlds. We’ll still visit our favorite websites and apps, but it will be a more integrated, seamless experience.
So let’s say you want to share your latest Netflix discovery with friends. Right now, you’d get out your phone and share a link to the Netflix show with your friends via SMS, social media or a chat app. Your friends would access the link, watch the show when they get around to it, and respond with their reactions at an undesignated time in the not-too-distance future.
In the metaverse, that will be different experience. You’ll pop on your VR headset and meet up with your friends as digital avatars in a virtual world. Then you’ll attend a screening of the show together, and interact with each other in real time while the show is playing out.
We’ll attend other social events as digital avatars too. We’ll go to work meetings, we’ll shop, we’ll play games, we’ll exercise, we’ll hang out in bars and at concerts, we’ll watch sporting events, and we’ll access a vast array of other apps and platforms that will exist inside these virtual worlds.
We’ve already seen the beginnings of the virtual worlds the metaverse will be built on in popular role-playing games like Fortnite and Roblox. You know the drill. Players exist inside the game’s world as digital avatars, and carry out various quests and missions that drive the narrative of the game.
But participants in these games are not limited to a quest-based gaming experience. They can choose to freely explore the game’s world, interact with other players, and attend and host virtual events that have nothing to do with game-play narrative. They are immersive digital worlds masquerading as games. The metaverse will be like that, but bigger. Much bigger. And in VR.
Right now, the big tech companies are building — and betting on — their virtual worlds to serve as the infrastructure of the metaverse. Remember the search engine wars of the 90s? Before Google conquered all, search engines like Yahoo and AltaVista competed for dominance as the go-to internet navigator. The same thing could happen in the early days of the metaverse.
Epic Games (owner of Fortnite) and Roblox Corporation are both in the box seat to evolve their virtual gaming worlds into the platform that will serve as the Google-like infrastructure of the metaverse.
Meta (formerly Facebook) is also in on the game. The company is creating a series of digital spaces it hopes will underpin the metaverse. Horizon Home will be your digital residence where you can host friends, watch immersive videos, do a yoga session, or simply hang out in your digital undies.
Horizon Worlds will be where you go for a virtual night out on the town — whether that’s attending a comedy show with friends, heading to an NFT art gallery, or as an entry point into any number of custom experiences.
Meta also wants you to work in the metaverse. Horizon Workrooms will bring people together to work and meet in a digital VR office environment — while your physical body is wrapped in pajamas on your real-world couch.
Whether the metaverse will consist of several competing virtual worlds we’ll chop and change between, or a single Google-like virtual world that will knit the metaverse together as a unified whole, is the billion-dollar question.
How does the metaverse economy work?
The metaverse economy can be broadly separated into two categories: making money from the metaverse, and making money in the metaverse.
First, let’s look at making money from the metaverse. Investors are currently stepping over each other to buy stocks in the companies that are building the metaverse — for good reason. Bloomberg Intelligence says the metaverse market could be worth $800 billion by 2024.
Investors are betting that as the metaverse develops, the stock values of companies like Meta, Epic Games and Roblox — along with a long list of others — will skyrocket. Of course, there will be winners and losers here. Like the Web 2.0 tech bubble, some metaverse companies will rake it in, while others will implode.
Metaverse tokens are the other big way to make money from the metaverse. Tokens are the currencies that players use to buy and sell goods and services within the virtual worlds of the metaverse. Metaverse platforms or virtual worlds all have their own tokens. It’s a little like how countries in the physical world work on different currencies.
The Sandbox, for example, is a virtual world where players use SAND tokens to buy digital objects inside the game. Axis Infinity is a similar platform where players use AXS tokens to buy and sell collectable monsters. Decentraland uses MANA as its in-world currency.
These metaverse tokens all have real-world value — and some are now available to buy and sell on currency trading platforms. So, just like currency traders profit from buying US currency low and selling it high, some metaverse tokens can be bought and sold in exactly the same way.
There are also opportunities to make money in the metaverse. Brands are watching this space closely. Luxury fashion label Balenciaga is already selling digital ‘skins’ in Fortnite, and Roblox users can deck their avatars out in the latest Ralph Lauren digital collection.
But it’s not just the big brands that are cashing in on the metaverse. Digital artists will be able to sell NFT artworks at metaverse art galleries. And if you fancy yourself as a digital fashion designer, you can make and sell wearable NFTs on metaverse marketplaces. The Sandbox is also set to launch VoxEdit — an application players can use to build and sell all kinds of 3D objects that we’ll use inside the metaverse.
You’ll also be able to make money from gaming in the metaverse. Play-to-earn games reward players with metaverse tokens for accomplishing in-game tasks. And Roblox Studio and the Sandbox Game Maker enable users to make and monetise their own games within their respective virtual worlds.
Many digital property investors will also find their fortunes in the metaverse. Decentraland and the Sandbox allow users to buy and sell digital land and real estate — and the numbers are getting bigger by the day. Plots of digital land in the Sandbox and Decentraland have sold for as much as $4.3 million. Of course, virtual landowners need digital buildings to put on their land. A virtual architecture firm can help you with that — for around $300,000.
There’s on-going income potential for landowners too. Build a nightclub, bar or concert venue on your land and charge entry fees, or just plop a billboard on your land and sell advertising space.
As the metaverse develops, there may also be jobs available inside its virtual worlds. Perhaps you’d like to work as a virtual sales assistant at a metaverse fashion boutique, as an event manager for a metaverse nightclub, as an NFT art gallery curator, or even as a metaverse tour guide.
In any case, if the tech companies get their way, the metaverse will be much more than a game. It will be a thriving alternative reality with its own currencies, economy and workforce.
What are the dangers of the metaverse?
The metaverse isn’t all beer and skittles. Cyberbullying, trolling, doxing, grooming, scamming — call it what you will, but we’re well aware that many of us behave badly in cyberspace. Likewise, walking through the digital curtain of the metaverse won’t necessarily protect us from cyber harassment.
Sexual violence and racist abuse have already been reported within the early virtual worlds of the metaverse. It took only 60 seconds for London-based 43-year-old mother Nina Jane Patel to be verbally abused and sexually harassed after logging into a virtual world in the metaverse.
You might scoff at the idea of digital assault. But remember, the whole idea of the technology is to create an immersive VR experience that rivals our physical reality. So we’re not talking about insults clumsily typed out in a Facebook or Reddit feed here. We’re talking about realistic 3D assaults that could make the metaverse feel very unsafe.
Patel’s experience sparked Meta into rolling out a new safety feature to try to prevent future attacks. The ‘personal boundary’ function gives you the option to put a protected personal space around your avatar that keeps you safe from unwanted contact from other avatars.
It’s a good start, but the masters of the metaverse will need to put much more time and investment into keeping people protected in the new reality of cyberspace.
Also concerning is hate speech in the metaverse. Just like social media has provided a platform for ultra-conservative groups to recruit members, disseminate misinformation and spread hate speech, so too will the metaverse provide dark corners for these groups to congregate.
The social media platforms have shown themselves to be almost completely inept at preventing the spread of hateful propaganda to date. But their current ‘we’re just a platform, not a publisher’ defense will not play in the metaverse.
There’s the physical and emotional toll to consider too. Despite being more connected than ever through current social media platforms, we are suffering. According to the National Center for Health Statistics in the US, the suicide death rate among persons aged 10 to 24 increased 56 per cent from 2007 to 2017. That’s not to say social media is the cause of this increase, however it’s an issue that needs to be seriously examined and addressed before we free fall into the deep end of the metaverse.
There are also concerns around the impact the metaverse will have on our relationships. Porn is ubiquitous on the internet as we know it, and it will likely become even more pervasive after a VR makeover. Will more of us choose to engage in VR-only sexual experiences at the expense of real-world relationships? Will this create more social isolation as we drift further away from our physical reality? Or can a metaverse relationship be as — or more — fulfilling as a real-world partnership?
Food for thought
There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start by reviewing what the big tech companies are planning. They are building a network of virtual worlds that will operate along the lines of a sophisticated role-playing game. We’ll explore these worlds as digital avatars through VR headsets, and use them to access a range of online social, leisure and work experiences. Some of us will buy virtual property, and build and operate metaverse venues and digital businesses to generate income.
There’s the potential for the metaverse to fundamentally change how we work and live. As VR technology improves to deliver increasingly immersive experiences, we may put less and less emphasis on the importance of physical proximity to our social and work interactions.
This need could also be driven by external factors such as future pandemic lock-downs or climate change weather events that restrict our movement in the physical world.
However, if left unregulated and unpoliced, the metaverse runs the risk of becoming a lawless hellscape where virtual rapists, trolls and scammers lurk around every corner. Meta, for one, seems mindful of this problem and looks to be taking more responsibility for providing a safe space than it did with Facebook. But they — and others — will need to stay on top of the problem as the metaverse evolves.
Depending on your perspective, the metaverse either sounds like a digital paradise or a Matrix-style nightmare. Either way, it will require a critical mass of adoption before we can be sure it is here to stay.
And if the metaverse does achieve that critical mass, you’ll have little choice but to put on your VR headset and jump aboard the digital train. At least that’s what Zuckerberg and his Silicon Valley pals are betting their fortunes on.
Will the metaverse live up to the promise? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section. But let’s keep it classy. Disagreement is good. It’s how we learn and develop our ideas. Disrespect is not good. Name-calling, fake-news pedalling and passive-aggressive skullduggery of all kinds is the signature of a small mind. Be better than that.