Critical Mass in the Metaverse

A Lonely Experience

The #metaverse is something that I talk a lot about here on LinkedIn and also on Twitter. I think that a big part of its lack of success so far is simply about critical mass. There's good reason not many people use it.

Just to preface all this, I wanted to say that I have been interested in #VR for a while, and own a bunch of my own gear. In addition to that, I own thousands of dollars worth in software and games. It's not like I haven't tried to like it. It's not that I'm not excited by VR or am an outright detractor.

It's simply that, mostly, that gear and software all sits now and just gathers dust. After the initial excitement wore off, I found that it brought me little real joy and no dramatic, new adventures. VR was a poor place to play, and a terrible place to work.

Worse, I found that the few friends and colleagues that I had in that shared digital space were never online to experience it with. It was a lonely digital existence that left me feeling more empty instead of more connected, which is what I would expect from being online.

Communication and a shared connection should be friction-less. VR isn't that.

Without people that you can have valuable experiences with, VR/AR simply isn't going to be emotionally meaningful for anyone who take thes dive into that digital realm. Sure, you can walk around in 3d, and you can perform tasks and do some neat, new things, but it isn't going to be memorable or attractive.

It feels amazing until the buzz of "something new" wears off. Then you are just left feeling empty.

But, just like a new dating application, without people there to do things with, there is no real reason for you to do be there at all.

In most cases playing a game in VR/AR is functionally the same as playing with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (pew pew). For work, the hardware limitations and physical side-effects like headaches and nausea are enough to make it unpleasant for more than an hour or two at a time. Work sucks enough as it is, let's not make it worse, please.

Appending concepts like a digital identity to VR doesn't solve its core problems:

• VR/AR it is still uncomfortable
• VR/AR doesn't have emotional staying power

As long as we have to put something on to enter VR/AR, it will continue to be a side-attraction to the main circus act. A future generation of headsets which is either hyper lightweight or embedded into our surroundings is likely necessary to really blur the line between IRL and VR/AR and make it generally palatable.

Finally, without a critical mass of people who are emotionally invested in the experiences that the metaverse provides, there is no people-centric draw which brings personal joy or poignant feelings.

The Path to the Metaverse

I think that the real reason that VR/AR has failed so far is that it isn't about us at all. It's about what a developer or enterprise wants you to do so that they can make a quick buck. People can smell that and they are put off by it.

The Metaverse shouldn't be a virtual place for making money for corporations. It should be about freeing the digital you.

The ability of a user to own their data, their digital assets, and the history of their digital self is a powerful concept that gives us all the freedom to migrate from game to app and back again, while maintaining a sense of public self that we control.

This is not possible using today's technology, and is actively worked against by companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook who would rather you maintain your digital self locked in their siloed ecosystems.

For these corporations your digital self is a mine-able resource which is worth trillions of dollars.

For us, the digital citizens who inhabit this ethereal realm, it is much more than that. It is our town square, our playground, and our place of work.

The Metaverse should be ours, not theirs.

Gaming as a Step Forward

I would argue that VR/AR is not the way to introduce the Metaverse into the mainstream, and that blockchain-based gaming is.

Right now, I think that gaming companies with an achievable goal of integrating blockchain stacks into their experience have the greatest chance of providing a real and meaningful "Metaverse Experience" in the immediate future.

What these companies, like Ultra, are building is an infrastructure for a semi-permanent set of data to exist publicly, which can then be accessed, managed, and updated by many different parties in a secure, permissioned way. Players in the end own that data, which exists on a decentralized network, and can do with it as they like.

Once these gaming universes are well established and the basic concepts of a transferable identity, with digital assets and history in tow, then that there will be enough societal foundation for introducing a more extravagant visual layer which takes advantage of it.

Until people are comfortable managing their digital selves in the same way we are capable of doing in the real world, I don't believe that the Metaverse will take off in any real way.

Adding obscene hardware requirements into the mix is just an unnecessary barrier to entry and detracts away from the real value which is inherent in the potential for a shared digital space where we can all be who we really are.

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Rami James is a Web3 Futurist, Team Builder, Product Strategist, Blockchain Technology Expert, Product Designer, and Podcaster @ Ultra Chill.?

By day he works at Ultra, helping to guide its product strategy. By night he works with the Telos Core Developer group to build a decentralized, community-run network based on Antelope.

If you’re interested in talking about Web3, blockchain, NFTs, gaming, esports or the future of decentralized technology, reach out to [email protected]