Welcome To The Metaverse

Have You Heard Of The Metaverse?

"People come to The Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be.”

From the landmark movie, Ready Player One (2018)

In this Steven Spielberg-led film that gave us a possible glimpse of the future, The Oasis was a virtual reality (VR) world that players can be whoever or whatever they want via digital avatars. They are able to interact with each other, complete missions, engage in commerce and even fall in love in a completely digital domain.

The truth is…The Oasis is not entirely fictitious. The reel world is already real.

But in our world, it is called the Metaverse.

Owing to a fair bit of free time due to home quarantine, I had been doing some research on the metaverse. I profess to not being an actual expert in this but let me share some of my thoughts on this exciting prospect that would possibly transform the way humans work, live and play.

So what is a metaverse?

“Meta” in Greek means “above” or “beyond”, and “-verse” denotes an extensive realm – quite literally, a world that is above and beyond our current one. It is basically a total integration of the real with the digital world. Think of the metaverse as the Internet where you are not just interacting with it but immersing yourself in it – a next-gen Internet.

So the metaverse is VR?

Saying this would be akin to relating that your computer is the Internet. VR soft- and hardware are merely tools to access the metaverse like you need your laptop and a Wi-Fi connection to access the Internet.

So the metaverse is Second Life with VR?

Close but not exactly. Firstly, Second Life does not immerse a player in its world like The Oasis. So the VR part is correct. But secondly and perhaps more importantly, Second Life is a closed ecosystem. This means that only Second Life players can interact with other Second Life players and the Linden dollars that one earns in the game can only be spent in the game.

For a metaverse to be a metaverse, it would be an almost borderless ecosystem where, for instance, players in Second Life can interact, trade, play etc. with players in Fortnite or Roblox -?An “Internet” for different digital, immersive applications to co-exist and integrate.

But this is something that, for many of us, will not see in our lifetimes, right?

Excitedly speaking, I predict that Metaverse 1.0 will be seen in the next 5 – 7 years. It would have been double this number if not for the pandemic. But because of the pandemic, the metaverse is poised for an accelerated launch as it has satisfied the “holy trinity” for tech adoption. For any technology to achieve mass adoption rapidly, it must satisfy all these three criteria:

1)????Demand

2)????Supply

3)????Infrastructure

Let’s start with demand.

The COVID pandemic has changed our lives in more ways than one. Remote work stands out as one of these realisations because, quite remarkably, it was previously thought to be near-impossible even though Zoom has been around since 2013.

A tiny virus has taught us that through human resourcefulness, ingenuity and desperation, our technological innovations can help us live a life that does not require us to leave home if we don’t want to, and such a lifestyle is not such a bad thing after all. (I’m writing this article whilst serving a 10-day home quarantine and things are actually quite ok).

There is already a clamouring of employees worldwide who are demanding the option of remote, or at least hybrid, work arrangements that has even resulted in thousands of Apple employees threatening mass resignation if this choice is not given.

Moreover, the Oculus VR headsets have already sold 5 million units in 6 months (2020 – 21). In contrast, the previous, best-selling VR headset, PlayStation VR, took 5 years to reach this milestone! The possibilities that Oculus provides can seduce even the most sceptical consumer. I actually had some doubts about how realistic its visuals are until I put one on and found myself standing at the top of Everest looking around in awe.

Fortnite has even seen a 37% increase in sales year-on-year amounting to a whooping USD3.3 billion. This makes its maker, Epic Games, richer than many small nations. Astoundingly, this figure was achieved even with the Apple ban (Apple had recently banned the game on all its devices due to a legal dispute).

It is apparent that global markets are ripe for the taking. There is an insatiable hunger for the next stage of digital innovation to enter our lives – for the metaverse to give us opportunities to work and play anywhere we want – both literally and digitally.

But can the supply keep up?

There is an obvious reason why Facebook acquired Oculus for USD2.4 billion back in 2014. Mark Zuckerberg may have seen the metaverse even before we could predict what we’re having for dinner. With the recent launch of Facebook Horizon and Horizon Workrooms, Facebook is already at the forefront of the metaverse.

The Zuck was even quoted that Facebook may not be defined as a social media company in the very near future but a metaverse company instead. It is no surprise that it wants to be a first mover in this space.

So with more and more Oculus sets being sold everyday (which I suspect is a loss-leading product so as to gain ubiquity for VR headsets), it is only a matter of time before a critical mass is reached and Facebook officially enters the metaverse. Couple that with nearly 3 billion monthly active users and the fact that with the launch of the Oculus Quest 2, Facebook accounts are required to use it, I can’t see supply being a problem for the metaverse to grow with Facebook leading the pack.

In addition, at the Adobe MAX 2019, this innovative company that has been a leader in creative technologies, signalled its entry to the metaverse by showing us how the digital world can interact with the real one via interactive, AR-powered, overlays in electronic eyewear.

It appears that Adobe is trying to take over where Google Glass left off – a “cooler” pair of glasses that serves as an extension of the metaverse and very soon, we wouldn’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s….augmented. (P.S. Google Glass isn’t really a failed experiment. It still lives on as a utilitarian product helping workers, mainly in factories and warehouses, perform their tasks more productively)

And with relatively smaller players like The Sandbox and Decentraland, which are essentially world-building and exploration platforms, there are already plenty of fish in the metaverse ocean waiting to dominate it – huge entities that can create demand and provide almost infinite supply simultaneously.

And now, let’s talk about infrastructure.

The original mention of the word, metaverse, was made in a 1992 science fiction novel titled, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Since then, what was fiction was only somewhat brought to life with the advent of the Internet.

Unfortunately, for a good 30 years, no real quantum leap was made from our current Internet and Stephenson’s vision of a metaverse.

Why?

My reason – The absence of 5G.

When telecom networks upgraded from 3G to 4G, the mobile internet age was ushered into our lives. Without 4G, I honestly don’t think anyone would bother scrolling their Instagram feed and watching YouTube videos while commuting or taking a toilet break. It is primarily because of 4G networks that mobile phones outnumber laptops globally. (I’m a bit perturbed as to why we still call them phones…)

In essence, we are now connected to the Internet no matter where we are (almost).

But with the recent launch of 5G, the possibilities from mobile applications become innumerable. This is a network technology that serves to make the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities and yes, the metaverse very possible.

5G will finally give humans the ability to immerse and explore a real-world Oasis with near-zero latency, hence offering a seamless digital experience. If you think watching your favourite Netflix show with no lags is already satisfying, wait till you are able to immerse yourself in that show, not as a viewer, but as a participant.

(FYI, work has already started on 6G networks that promise absolutely ZERO latency. Holy cow.)

Dinka Ayilavarapu, a partner at Bain & Company, had even remarked, “If the shift from 3G to 4G was transformational, wait till 5G arrives.”

Ayilavarapu said that in 2019. 5G has already arrived.

Developed economies can now transmit and receive enormous amounts of data in a blink of an eye, thereby opening the door to the metaverse.

But for the metaverse to be truly sustainable, it needs more than just fast network speeds.

It also needs the ability to create and sustain digital economies. At scale.

How?

My answer – blockchain technology and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

First of all, one must take note that Bitcoin does not equate to blockchain. It is simply an effect/application of blockchain tech. But the immense benefit of blockchain from a technological standpoint is tremendous, because for any economy to work, value must be created. The reason we spend different amounts of money on different things is that things have different values - A house can cost $1 million while a chocolate bar, a couple of dollars.

Though I do not foresee digital currencies taking over fiat currencies, blockchain would allow digital currencies to be easily transferable/exchangeable with each other and maybe even with fiat currencies. What one has earned in Second Life can now be used in another world and vice versa, and the flow and exchange of these currencies would seamlessly facilitate the metaverse economy.

Economic value will be finally generated throughout the metaverse, powered by blockchain.

And if you add NFTs to the mix, one will then be able to protect digital wealth. At last, we can solve the problem of asset duplication in the digital world because digital copies of digital things is an existential threat to digital economies; but hallelujah, thank goodness for NFTs, which guarantees digital authenticity, ensures a sustainment of value in the metaverse. Unsurprisingly, NFTs are riding on blockchain tech.

On top of these, even governments are getting into the metaverse fold. Known as the K-Metaverse Alliance, this is a South Korean government-led programme that called upon the country’s biggest and most prominent companies like Samsung to create a metaverse ecosystem together. Its government has already pledged almost USD8 billion to accelerate digital transformation such as the metaverse through this alliance.

So in a nutshell, with the demand, supply and infrastructure criteria boxes all checked, what can stop the metaverse coming into fruition?

But what implications will there be with the metaverse?

This is an extremely, ridiculously, gi-normous question.

I really don’t think anyone can answer it concretely but I can give a few examples.

For instance, imagine a prized set of your avatar’s digital clothes in the metaverse that’s worth 2 Bitcoins, which can be further valued at about USD84,000, gets stolen by a hacker, do you call the police or Facebook?

Will governments be able to tax people on income earned in the metaverse?

Do children still need to “go to school” when they can simply do it virtually and be in a classroom that previously existed only in their wildest fantasies and choose to wear literally anything they want? (This goes for work as well)

And if a significant proportion of the global population commutes so much less than pre-metaverse times, will we finally make a real difference in climate change?

But what will happen to industries like aviation and automobile?

The list, unfortunately, goes on…

Sure, questions regarding cybersecurity, governmental regulations and existential ones remain unanswered. But here’s the thing with technology: It almost always moves ahead of any perceived red tape first and then lets these mitigating factors manage it later. Automobile laws were only enacted after automobiles became a norm, and cybersecurity was not even a word before the Internet.

In any case, the next jump in tech will be a revolution, not an evolution.

We will not simply be interconnected, but hyper-connected.

It would be immersive, and not just interactive.

And in my opinion, it would be the metaverse.

Thanks for reading my article!

In return, here are some useful links for you:

1)????https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJecbZWSbVs (A pretty succinct video explanation of what the metaverse is and how it would end the Internet)

2)????https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IutVq6cPBX0&t=122s (A video proving Adobe’s entry into the metaverse. Watch from 2.00 – 3.52)

3)????https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltd7RlTeaZM (A short video of Mark Zuckerberg explaining Horizon Workrooms in a Horizon Workroom)

4)????https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview (An article that explains Facebook’s intentions for the metaverse)

5)????https://www.reuters.com/technology/south-koreas-gen-mz-leads-rush-into-metaverse-2021-09-08/ (An article on the K-Metaverse Alliance)

6)????https://www.cbinsights.com/research/5g-next-gen-wireless-system/ (An extremely thorough article on 5G and its possibilities)

Hey by the way, I run a company in Singapore that offers a mobile gamification platform for employee learning and engagement.

So do check out ripple.right-impact.com if you are interested!