Meta, Microsoft, and the future of work
When one type of technology displaces another, it’s never just about the technology. There is always a societal shift happening at the same time.
The societal impact creates tribes: those who wish to come on the journey of whatever is the latest technological advance, and are able to, versus those who can’t or won’t.
There are three types of societal shifts that accompany technological advances.
Once we agree on those three responses to new technology, it is fun to imagine what the societal impact would have been if we could re-write history and scramble the order things were invented in.
My Mum - in her late 70s - is comfortable with WhatsApp, but many people her age think it’s more polite to call someone than text them. Their grandchildren have it the other way around - they would rather text than call.
Now imagine if smartphones were invented in the 1960s but landline phones didn’t arrive until the 00s. The older generations would consider it rude to just call someone - without any idea if it’s convenient for the person you’re calling - while younger people would’ve grown up making calls and would consider messaging old-fashioned.
Neither is correct or incorrect. Our experience of technology is shaped by societal norms, not just the tech.
Here is a brilliant quote from Douglas Adams which I often return to.
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
All of this was on my mind this week because of the announcement of a partnership between Microsoft and Meta.
It went somewhat under the radar but gives one of the clearest indications yet of where the metaverse is heading.
This is significant because if we only ever imagine the metaverse as a gaming experience, it’s limited.
Less than 200m people in the world regularly play video games on games consoles. Many more play light-touch games on their smartphones but hardcore gaming is niche compared to other uses of technology (just 200m versus Facebook’s almost 3bn active users or YouTube’s 2bn; Instagram and TikTok each have more than 1bn, five times the number of consoles worldwide).
Most of us spend 5 days out of 7 at work. Our choices for how to spend the other 2 days are limitless but for the 5 days we’re at work we generally don’t have a choice for which platforms we’re using. Outcome: Microsoft Office has more than 1bn users.
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That’s why the Meta-Microsoft partnership is eye-catching. The metaverse as Mark Zuckerberg imagines it doesn't yet exist and when it comes, will be unlike the VR we have today, which is often lazily called 'metaverse' anyway.
Zuckerberg has always been clear that he envisages a metaverse which is less like a current-day gaming experience and much closer to our real lives ie a mix of work and personal.
The sports industry will play a huge role in that, since it's a passion point for billions of people.
How likely is it that we will do a hard day’s work inside the metaverse and then kick back and watch a World Cup game, still with our headset on?
Pretty likely actually. Just this week, FIFA announced a partnership with Roblox.
So in one week we've taken significant steps towards both our working lives, and our passion points like football, happening inside a metaverse headset.
If employers end up paying for those headsets because office tasks are easier to complete there, this removes another friction point, just as personal computers became widespread first in offices, and later in homes.
Does it still seem like science fiction?
If so, let’s do the exercise again where we flip the timeline, and imagine that technological and societal shifts happened in a jumbled-up order.
What if all of us had started our working careers in the metaverse and then recently someone invented physical offices, in cities and towns, with trains and cars to get us there.
Objectively, that would be a hard sell. Are the trains affordable? They’re eye-wateringly expensive. Are they efficient? They’re frequently unreliable. Are they safe? Most of the time probably, but we can’t guarantee it. OK, so I'll drive to the office? Sure - just pay for a vehicle, tax and insurance, servicing, and sometimes pay just to take it to a city. Oh, then pay to park it. By the way it will also pollute the planet.
A challenging message. But millions of us do this most days, just because we always have.
Now, we still live in the early 2020s. Lots of jobs require people to be present, in-person, regardless of technology and even in jobs which theoretically can be done by working from home (eg during a pandemic) it’s not the optimal state.
I work in a sector where being together in a real-life space is essential to creative collaboration. In our field, the technology is probably 5-10 years away from being able to replicate that environment virtually.
But for jobs which require someone to be in a quiet space, able to work effectively but call on colleagues when needed, we can do that now and this week’s announcement by Meta and Microsoft is a further step towards it.
For the sports industry,, the possibilities are endless and exhilarating.
When billions of people get to the end of their working day and are looking for entertainment - but without the hassle of a commute home, the sports industry MUST be ready to step in. It needs to have at least kept pace with other entertainment sectors.
We can take our sporting events to the world, rather than the world having to come to us. We can recreate our stadium experiences in the place our global customers already are.
We’re at the beginning of the beginning of this. I can’t wait. Watching an NFL, NHL or NBA game at the end of a working day, in the exact same way as I would if I was there in person? Count me in.