The Metaverse

Facebook is now Meta and the Metaverse is the latest in a long-line of coming soon technological revolutions. People are saying that soon we will do everything in the Metaverse. If I currently stream all my entertainment, communicate through chat, Zoom and message boards, buy everything from Amazon and Rock Auto, and learn everything from YouTube, am I not already in the Metaverse? Do I get a (virtual) pin or something for being an early adopter? Wait, if we are doing everything in the Metaverse in a few years, that means that I need to start building a virtual autocross car.  

I liked it better when it was called VRML, it was intended to be an interoperable standard and nobody was worried a giant evil megacorp would hegemonize it

Meta is an attempt to hijack something that is already developing "naturally."

I'll stay as far away from it as I have facebook.

I am familiar with the terms "free verse" and "perverse", but I am unfamiliar with this so-called "metaverse."  I am skeptical that it even exists.

Mr_Asa said:

Meta is an attempt to hijack something that is already developing "naturally."

I'll stay as far away from it as I have facebook.

This, there have been better options for virtual meeting spaces since long before Facebook got their grubby mitts on the idea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSimulator

Anyone that's read or seen ready player one, that's a metaverse. 

Technically speaking, they already exist in several mediums, especially gaming. Thing about any mmo you know. I'll use GTA online as an example, because that's the one I've played the most. (I) have an entire second life there. I have homes, businesses, hobbies, vehicles, etc. The interesting thing is, I'm not limited by technological or physical problems. I have a flying bike that shoots rockets. Afaik, flying rocket bikes aren't a thing in real life, yet- and I'm fairly sure the three letter squad would be real rustled if I had rockets. 

I find it very interesting, to be honest. But then again, I find nfts, Blockchain, and other things outside of the established norm interesting. Fu-tur-istic. 

Flying bikes with rockets?!?! Sign me up!!!

GameboyRMH said:

I liked it better when it was called VRML, it was intended to be an interoperable standard and nobody was worried a giant evil megacorp would hegemonize it

Two decades ago me and coworker built a dynamic VRML website. Clunky as hell, but damned if it didn't work. We thought it was the future back then.

Sounds like the Internet before social media happened.

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem

Mndsm said:

Anyone that's read or seen ready player one, that's a metaverse. 

Or possibly more accurately, Snow Crash. Where the term actually comes from :) As did the inspiration for Google Earth. Although that Metaverse was less about shopping and more about socializing and entertainment, if memory serves.

I keep reading the description and thinking "it's like AOL Online but with VR goggles!" Everyone wants to own the walled garden.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Walled garden is exactly why I initially didn't join Facebook.  I can't trust any platform that does not allow its contents to be searchable and deliberately Brave New Worlds its content URLs - that image you hotlink from Facebook gets a new url every few months to keep it from being incidentally indexed.

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

If I currently stream all my entertainment, communicate through chat, Zoom and message boards, buy everything from Amazon and Rock Auto, and learn everything from YouTube, am I not already in the Metaverse?

No.  The Metaverse is the reach of Facebook & Friends.  Unless your chat is Facebook Chat, none of those other things are in the Metaverse.

Keith Tanner said:

I keep reading the description and thinking "it's like AOL Online but with VR goggles!" Everyone wants to own the walled garden.

This is the most accurate analogy I have seen so far.

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

Keith Tanner said:

Mndsm said:

Anyone that's read or seen ready player one, that's a metaverse. 

Or possibly more accurately, Snow Crash. Where the term actually comes from :) As did the inspiration for Google Earth. Although that Metaverse was less about shopping and more about socializing and entertainment, if memory serves.

I keep reading the description and thinking "it's like AOL Online but with VR goggles!" Everyone wants to own the walled garden.

I've never actually heard of snow crash, so I should probably find it. I just really liked ready player one. 

Mndsm said:

Keith Tanner said:

Mndsm said:

Anyone that's read or seen ready player one, that's a metaverse. 

Or possibly more accurately, Snow Crash. Where the term actually comes from :) As did the inspiration for Google Earth. Although that Metaverse was less about shopping and more about socializing and entertainment, if memory serves.

I keep reading the description and thinking "it's like AOL Online but with VR goggles!" Everyone wants to own the walled garden.

I've never actually heard of snow crash, so I should probably find it. I just really liked ready player one. 

Snow Crash is awesome. No "remember this thing from the 80s?" callbacks like so much of RP1, but the main character is literally named Hiro Protaganist. The audiobook is really well done, too.

Keith Tanner said:

Snow Crash is awesome. No "remember this thing from the 80s?" callbacks like so much of RP1, but the main character is literally named Hiro Protaganist. The audiobook is really well done, too.

Hmm I will check it out.  "remember this thing from the 80s?", in list form, drove me insane in Ready Player 1.

Another vote for Snow Crash as a thing folks should read on this topic, but also just because it's good. It's a lot of fun.

Also +1 for the observations that where these "new worlds" keep cropping up... everybody wants to rule the world. Imagine being able to one-up Amazon on everybody having to give you a cut of their business, but not just for ease or search or payment, but for existing.

I took a big break from Neal Stephenson because The Baroque "cycle" lost me early on, but I just started REAMDE, and it looks like another slice of observation about virtual worlds and real currencies and probably other interrelationships. All these virtual worlds are still subsets of the real world by definition, right? Right?

Jesse Ransom said:

I took a big break from Neal Stephenson because The Baroque "cycle" lost me early on, but I just started REAMDE, and it looks like another slice of observation about virtual worlds and real currencies and probably other interrelationships. All these virtual worlds are still subsets of the real world by definition, right? Right?

I liked REAMDE, but was completely disappointed in the followup, FALL.

In reply to Duke :

Agreed, it was like he was being forced to write a sequel but wanted to write something totally different. The new one, Termination Shock, is more like REAMDE in that it's set in the real world. Closer to Zodiac, probably.

And if you like ridiculous and fantasy worlds, The Big U is an early one he wants to disown but I find quite entertaining.

Jesse Ransom said:

Another vote for Snow Crash as a thing folks should read on this topic, but also just because it's good. It's a lot of fun.

Also +1 for the observations that where these "new worlds" keep cropping up... everybody wants to rule the world. Imagine being able to one-up Amazon on everybody having to give you a cut of their business, but not just for ease or search or payment, but for existing.

I took a big break from Neal Stephenson because The Baroque "cycle" lost me early on, but I just started REAMDE, and it looks like another slice of observation about virtual worlds and real currencies and probably other interrelationships. All these virtual worlds are still subsets of the real world by definition, right? Right?

I'll have to check that out, I had the same issue with the Baroque cycle. I'm skeptical of the "metaverse" or any other platform just because no one has indicated what it will provide to make it worth putting on a pair of VR goggles for. I say this as an owner of a set of VR goggles and someone who enjoys social media platforms. I still consider Facebooks killer feature to be a centralized event scheduling application that I can send out event notifications and receive public and private feedback on a standardized platform with near zero technical aptitude required.

When you wake up from the Metaverse after trying to take down Zucc

Something I've noted about metaverse "real estate," which people are already paying millions for, with talk of "fashion districts": Artificial, meatspace-like constraints on movement will have to be maintained in order to maintain the value of these properties. No space in a virtual environment should be more valuable than any other if you can teleport around at will and/or open portals between spaces, which are totally reasonable things to be able to do in a general-purpose virtual environment.

GameboyRMH said:

Something I've noted about metaverse "real estate," which people are already paying millions for, with talk of "fashion districts": Artificial, meatspace-like constraints on movement will have to be maintained in order to maintain the value of these properties. No space in a virtual environment should be more valuable than any other if you can teleport around at will and/or open portals between spaces, which are totally reasonable things to be able to do in a general-purpose virtual environment.

The virtual space that attracts the most people will still be more valuable.  Like having ads in the New York Times vs GRM.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Exactly. Say I want a plot of land in...I think it's the sandbox? Snoop has a mansion. Perfectly berkeleying useless. However, it's going to attract a crowd of lookie loos, and lookie loos buy things. Sort of like all the souvenir shops in Florida. There isn't any of them in DeLand, but I trip over about 25 trying to get some wings where I am.