The 7 Misconceptions about the Metaverse

To develop a more palpable sense of what the metaverse is going to be, we need to reflect on what the metaverse is not.

The metaverse has been a controversial topic for the last year. Early adopters are exploring the topics, joining in the experiences, predicting the future, and all in all, it’s an exciting time to be part of the beginning of a new era.?

But during this embryonal phase which is laying the fundaments for what the metaverse mass-adoption is going to look like (we don’t have yet the capacity to foresee the massive economic and social impact the metaverse will have), misconceptions about the metaverse are emerging. And because we might want to avoid to sub estimate the potential of the metaverse by categorizing it incorrectly, let’s address what it isn’t in order to keep the eyes on the big picture top-down, while learning from the step-by-step evolution bottom-up.

So in this article, I discuss 7 misconceptions about the metaverse and what is the truth of the matter.?

1. The metaverse is NOT a Game

While the beginning of the metaverse has been embraced by games and gaming platforms, it’s important to understand that the metaverse is not a game, but gamers and crypto aficionados have been early adopters of gaming dApps (decentralized apps). Unlike traditional gaming apps, web3 games have built in an ownership-based supply and demand of digital assets that underly retention and engagement mechanics, as well as co-creation

For example, the Sandbox or Decentraland are metaverse platforms where you can on one hand play games in which you own, swap, and sell digital assets, but on the other hand, you can socialize with likeminded peers and co-create IP and experience to add value to the gamified environment?

Meaning, because early adopters of this “phase 01 of the metaverse” have been gamers and crypto aficionados enjoying gamified mechanics, valuable reward systems, community ownership, and experiences in a digital environment with a digital-to-digital infrastructure people attributed the metaverse to gaming. But, it’s not a game.

The metaverse started out in phases, like any other transformative advancement. The first phase was digital-to-digital interactions, while the metaverse will go mainstream as soon as the physical world merges seamlessly with the digital.?

2. The metaverse is NOT NFTs

Another misconception is saying the metaverse is NFTs. While digital ownership is a centerpiece to the metaverse in order to sustain an economy where a supply and demand of digital assets if given, the two are not the same thing. The definition of non-fungible tokens is, in simple terms,—it’s a digital asset that lives on the blockchain, and given its technical nature of making the asset traceable and immutable, we can own this asset.

What NFTs do is basically become part of the Metaverse experience and therefore used as retention and engagement mechanics for users seeking to have ownership of assets. Before NFTs, these weren’t possible in the digital realm. With NFTs people get the universal verifiable ownership of assets which is a prevalent feature of our civilization in the physical world.?

NFT represents the primary value denominator of the web3 economy. The metaverse is - IMO - the most valuable commercialization environment for NTF to be places. NFT placement throughout the metaverse under gamification mechanics has a high likeliness to increase the yield of the non-fungible token.?

So when it comes to asset ownership, NFT is the key player. But NFT in itself isn’t the metaverse.

3. The metaverse is NOT VR Headsets

The common misconception that people have to this day is that the metaverse will resemble the world of dystopian sci-fi movies like Ready Player One, where everything will be in virtual reality and people will be wearing this crazy device.?

In reality, though, such a thing wouldn’t be feasible as VR headset is just another access point that comes with a specific experience type, and requires the actual hardware. Also, the metaverse isn’t all about virtual reality immersions. Yeah sure, some of the aspects like gaming, and entertainment benefits from virtual reality and therefore may require VR headsets for the ultimate experience.?

Barring that, VR headsets become more of a challenge and a solution when it comes to everyday requirements like attending meetings or just doing your job.?

So basically VR is just one platform out of so many that the Metaverse will be accessible from. In other words, metaverse will be platform agnostic, be it web, mobile, or VR, it’s accessible from everything, everywhere. But the highest form of seamless experience and benefits for us as end users will be achieved in augmented reality because technology will allow us to paint a data layer on top of any place, people, and product to enrich the experience.

4. The metaverse is NOT Meta

This one is pretty straightforward but I still included it here because the mainstream media always goes on a tangent to make Meta and the Metaverse the same thing.?

Well, it’s not. Just like Google isn’t the internet, Epic isn’t gaming, Tesla isn’t the car, Meta isn’t the metaverse. The only confusion on this point is that the names are pretty close, which for a beginner in the world of the metaverse could be a little startling.?

But other than that, equalizing the two as the same has no point. In the beginning, Meta said they will be actively investing in the metaverse as a platform, but in recent developments, it seems like Meta will not be joining the metaverse as a platform but as a sort of a supplier of products. Whatever, they end up deciding, one platform isn’t the entirety of the metaverse.

Feel free to read this article I wrote about Meta and the metaverse .

5. The metaverse is NOT a Trend

Is the metaverse just a trend? This can be a subject open to debate because I don’t have the facts to establish the everlasting longevity of the metaverse just yet. But if it were up to debate, you know which side of the spectrum I am on.?

Right now we are in a long downtrend of a bear market and yet we have companies jumping on the metaverse bandwagon with no less excitement. We have a series of statistics that say it'll be a trillion-dollar industry and above by 2030.?

Many claim the industry will reach an $800 billion valuation by 2024. While I don’t blindly put my faith in statistical predictions, from my personal experience in the industry, I have seen the endless possibility the metaverse has over the next decades.?

The web3 metaverse based on blockchain infrastructure is a technological advancement that comes as a response to our evolving needs, which are no longer fulfilled by web2 technologies.

Web2 has reached its limits. What limits? We no longer trust centralized systems - we want to own the data. We no longer enjoy the overwhelming amount of information available - we want to dissect and learn via immersive content. We no longer want to invest our time for the purpose of entertainment - but would like to get something in return. And, we no longer want to rent assets - but want to own them. It’s going to be the next thing after the internet to have an effect on every industry, every business, and moreover every aspect of our life. So no, it’s not a trend, it’s here to stay.?

6. The metaverse is NOT Just Virtual

This argument is a different one from the number three argument where I said the metaverse isn’t all about virtual headsets. That one was purely from a gadget and hardware point of view, while this one is more focused on the mode of interaction.?

As I already discussed, how the metaverse began on a digital-to-digital plain where the primary objective was to make digital reality more interactable. You have got your wallets, identities, places, products, platforms, everything structured in a decentralized order to make the whole juggernaut work seamlessly.?

But everything is still working inside of devices. How do you interact with something that is present physically through the metaverse? That is where phygital comes in—the convergence of physical and digital.?

I envision a world in which people, places, and products will come with a layer of enriched, augmented data we can interact with, co-create in it, and therefore sustain an economy across those interconnected (what I call) points of experience. Seamless integration of our daily life, with a rewarding, fun, valuable layer of data.

So whenever you think about the possibility of the metaverse, keep building out what-if scenarios about anything that surrounds you in the physical reality.?

7. The metaverse is NOT a Place

As long as we treat the metaverse as a place, we are actually limiting the immense amount of web3 possibilities to the understanding of web2 use cases. The metaverse is not a place but a cross-dimensional experience. You don’t need to go somewhere to access the metaverse. We are in the metaverse the moment we augment seamlessly our real life.?

The metaverse does have “places” we need to sign in for such as gaming environments, and business platforms, where you have to enter and sign up to be in the location in this specific spot.?

Think of an invisible omnipresent layer that is wrapped around our existence and time or place doesn’t interfere with its existence.?

To make it simpler, what the metaverse enables us with is the experience of connecting the physical dimension with the digital dimension in a way that makes sense. It creates an efficient process for everything that hasn’t existed yet.?

Conclusion

The metaverse to reach its mature stage will take more than a decade. As of today, we’ll experiment and test scenarios to find out what is accepted and what is less so.?

?As I like to share a quote of mine: you don’t play in the metaverse—you live in the metaverse. Think of the metaverse as an experience you are part of, similar to when we say “we are online”.

Are there any other misconceptions that I haven’t covered? Let me know in the comments, also make sure to follow me on LinkedIn to receive more such interesting breakdowns of the metaverse.?

P.S: You want to learn how to metaverse? We just released AlmaMeta , a 6-hour metaverse course for non-technical professionals who want to unlock web3 business opportunities. Check it out. ??