Into The Meta: Thoughts on the Metaverse

The title of this article is telling of what it’ll entail: my honest thoughts about the metaverse as a whole, and Facebook’s recent shift to become something much bigger than itself, bigger than any one of us really could have imagined. Before delving deep into a bunch of “meta-terminologies”, allow me to first provide a definition, or rather, elucidate what the metaverse really is. Sit tight, this is where things get a lot techy.

WHAT is the Metaverse?

The Metaverse, is uh, well, I’ll try to explain this simply before getting into a more technical definition that definitely isn’t copy-pasted from Google, hehe. Think of the world as you know it, the Earth, everything about it, from the social to the economic. Now imagine all of it connected in a deeply immersive digital space, so interaction isn’t limited by space, or really, by anything at all. You’re probably thinking, “Wait, isn’t that what the internet is?”, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The Metaverse is a digital reimagining of the internet, within a virtual/augmented reality space. If you’ve seen the popular anime, Sword Art Online, or read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, then you already have an idea of what the Metaverse will be.

It’s your life, but within a digital space. You could socialise, work, and learn, all on the Metaverse. At some point, the Metaverse was entirely theoretical and hypothetical but for a while now, it’s become less science-fiction and more reality. Think VRChat, it’s a popular game, that’s only a mere fraction of what the Metaverse will inevitably turn out to be. When the internet was new, it was huge, and it changed everything. The Metaverse is coming, and it’s going to be even bigger, and it’s going to change a lot more.

If there’s a part of you thinking the Metaverse sounds way too huge, or way too unrealistic to ever become a big thing then allow me to remind you that the only reason you’re reading this article is because something too huge and too unrealistic became a big thing. If the Metaverse had no future, companies wouldn’t be investing fortunes in metaverse-related research. Mark Zuckerberg certainly wouldn’t.

Ready Player One is what I personally imagine the Metaverse will be like. Switching with ease from socializing, to working, or to embarking on grand quests in the entirely fictional, digitally-generated, outer reaches of space, on alien outposts, either for fun or to earn digital money. The Metaverse is going to be everything, and the only thing you’ll need is an internet connection [a really good one. You don’t want to experience lag while engaged in digital intergalactic war, trust me.], and a virtual-reality headset, and really, those aren’t difficult things to obtain. The internet’s a global technology, and virtual reality headsets are popular these days.

HOW would you work in the Metaverse?

Okay, so maybe you understood my attempt to define the Metaverse, but I wouldn’t fault you if you didn’t, but if you did, you’re now probably wondering how exactly one would work digitally? Well, since 2020, the world’s learned to function almost completely through the internet after a particularly nasty little pandemic changed all of our lives as we knew it. Digital business isn’t a problem, what you’re most likely more worried about is how you would earn money in a digital environment.

The answer to that? Cryptocurrency.

It’s been around a really long time, okay, maybe not that long but long enough. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Ripple, these are only a handful of the popular cryptocurrency technologies out there today. Digital money that can be used to trade online, but is more commonly traded for profit. Cryptocurrencies make use of strong cryptography which secures online transactions. It’s a peer-to-peer system which completely negates the relevance of banks and allows digital currencies to be traded, or transferred with ease, with servers doing all of the work [this has led to complaints about the enviromental consequences of cryptocurrency.]

That’s my definition of it, and if you can’t tell, it’s entirely basic and stripped down for simpler understanding, and it still sounds pretty complicated. There are a number of YouTubers you could watch if you need a more thorough explanation of cryptocurrency, such as Andrei Jikh, who I actually fancy watching from time to time.

Okay, so I’ve explained cryptocurrency, how then do you make money digitally through it? It’s simple. Say you’ve just done something within the Metaverse that earns you, say, a thousand bucks, and you’re wondering if the money’s real, or just purely digital. Well, it’s both.

Let’s say the Metaverse uses a digital stable coin [a stable coin is a cryptocurrency that’s tethered to the dollar. One of it would be equal to a dollar.] called the MVC [short for Metaverse Coin]. If you earned 1000 MVC which would be equivalent to a thousand dollars, it would be stored within a digital wallet which is where cryptocurrencies are stored [there’s multiple options you could use], and you could then, with the use of exchanges, convert the MVC to actual fiat currency [an actual dollar] and use it in the real world on whatever you’d like to. Or you could keep it in the wallet to spend digitally within the Metaverse, and if the Metaverse does become as big as I believe it could be, a lot of people are going to fancy spending money within it, perhaps on avatar customizations, or to own digital property.

This is purely hypothetical, and for all we know, the Metaverse could handle finances in a completely different manner, but however it does choose to do it, rest assured that it’s going to be money you can spend, both physically and virtually.

How Would you Own Something?

Earlier, I mentioned you could spend money on digital property within the Metaverse. So maybe you’re thinking: how would your ownership of said property be legitimate?

Well, think NFTs [Non-fungible tokens]. I won’t go deep into NFTs in this, because that’s probably a subject for another article, but recently, we’ve seen people splash huge sums of money on digital collectibles or digital art which are NFTs, and a lot of people seem to not understand the reasoning behind this, especially since they could have just saved a picture of the art, or taken a screenshot.

Allow me to explain. When you screenshot an image, sure you have that image in your possession, but you do not own it. When you purchase an NFT, it’s cryptographically signed to you, essentially meaning that you are the one true owner of said NFT. This could be applied to the Metaverse where if you were to purchase a home, or a store in a game or something, it would be digitally signed and linked to you, essentially verifying your ownership of the property.

Again, purely hypothetical, it could be done in an entirely different manner in the future.

META

The big stuff. It was pretty huge news when Facebook announced that it would be rebranding, marking a sort of change in strategy and a shift in focus to the Metaverse. It became Meta, which isn’t actually an innovative name but then again, neither was Facebook.

Zuckerberg featured in a very robotic manner in a video that outlined the new focus of the company, and you’ve probably seen that video by now. If you haven’t, here it is. [It’s a pretty lengthy video]

I, for one, think the concept of a Metaverse is pretty cool, and one that’s been the subject of many of my fantasies, especially after watching Sword Art Online. I’m a huge geek, and I am completely obsessed with science-fiction and many of the concepts introduced within the genre, so yeah, the Metaverse is cool. But everytime I imagined living within a virtual reality, I did not, for once, imagine that it would be Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg behind it, and that’s kind of a dealbreaker for me.

That said, here’s a number of my genuine concerns about the Metaverse, as well as Facebook/Meta’s place in building this brave new digital world:

i. Sci-Fi Has Warned Us Against It: See when I mentioned Sword Art Online and Ready Player One earlier? Well, that’s because the concept of the Metaverse was the main focus in both SAO and RPO, and here’s the thing: it didn’t work out great in either universe. The depiction of the Metaverse is darker in SAO, than it is in the world of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One so we’ll focus on that instead.

In Sword Art Online, users were unable to log off the virtual reality world they’d hooked up into and things took an even darker turn when they found out those who died in the game also died out in the real world. Sheesh. It’s unlikely that this happens in reality, but then again, the Metaverse itself was also unlikely a few years ago so it still is a genuine concern.

ii. Privacy Concerns: Facebook was plagued with controversies. Hell, before its rebranding, it was dealing with a lot of complaints about its handling of user data and violation of privacy, and that’s something they’ve been accused of since like forever. They’re not the most secure with user data, and they aren’t transparent enough about what they do with user data. Rebranding isn’t going to suddenly make them respect user data and privacy, it’s only going to carry over into a digital world, and trust me, you do not want your data compromised within a digital world.

You’re going to potentially be letting Facebook know exactly what you look like, where you live, and a number of other things about you that you just don’t want compromised. It’s easy to be a ghost on social media, but you can’t be a ghost in the Metaverse.

The simple truth is, the Metaverse could very easily turn the world into one of the dystopian realities we see in books and in movies. Whoever becomes the master of the Metaverse will have access to a mindblowing amount of data and information about its users, and with this comes a kind of power that no one entity should wield. As it stands, it looks like Facebook/Meta is shaping up to be the master of the Metaverse, and that’s terrifying news for the world.

iii. Invasive Ads: Remember those Eve Online ads? Or the ads that show Lvl 1 Crook vs Lvl 100? Those invasive ads that interrupt your social media scrolling experience way too frequently or disrupt YouTube videos for you? Well, no one likes ads being shoved in their faces, and it’s why a lot of us take steps to ensure we can’t be plagued by those ads.

The following is an excerpt from an article published on the New York Times, written by Mike Isaac:

“Facebook said on Wednesday that revenue rose 56 percent to $29 billion in the three months ending in June compared with the same period last year, while profits rose 101 percent to to $10.4 billion, as the social network continues to benefit from a surge of users spending more time online during the pandemic.

Advertising revenue, which continues to be the bulk of Facebook’s income, rose 56 percent to $28.6 billion, easily surpassing Wall Street expectations. Roughly 3.51 billion people now use one of Facebook’s apps every month, up 12 percent from a year earlier.”

Ad Revenue is a massive percentage of Facebook’s income and they’re not going to do away with ads anytime soon. Could you imagine how that translates to the Metaverse?

Could you be in the middle of a quest, or a boss fight in a virtual game when you’re interrupted by an ad promoting a platformer video game available on the App Store and Google Play Store? And since it’s in a virtual world, it would be quite literally, shoved in your face.

If ads are jarring and deeply irritating in the real world when you’re staring at them on a smartphone screen, think how much worse it is when it’s quite literally being shoved right in front of you. Yikes.

iv. We’re Going to Get Lazier: You know how there’s a lot of people who get so caught up in scrolling through social media that they don’t have time or space on their minds for literally anything else? If you’re one of those people, no offence, but it’s a deeply unhealthy habit, and it can also be deeply aggravating to attempt speaking to someone who’s completely absorbed by their smartphones, gawking at whatever outlandish outfit Kanye West has donned in public yet again.

Well, it’s going to be worse with the Metaverse. Maybe not at first, but eventually. Social media created some sort of dependence and addiction in its users to keep them scrolling all day because that’s how the social media organizations make their money, and that’s exactly what the Metaverse is going to do. The Metaverse will be so huge, and satisfactory that the real world will pale in comparison and will simply seem boring and empty. I mean, why would I want to inhale fresh air and see the real world around me when I could be battling a Xenomorph with friends within the Metaverse? WHY?

If you can interact with your friends, and engage in wild quests digitally, why would you do anything else? The Metaverse is going to make us much lazier, and unhealthier, and there’s really nothing we can do about it.

v. Facebook should have picked a different name: I think one thing I find most irritating about Facebook’s rebranding is the name they’ve opted for. The Metaverse exists already, albeit on a small scale, but nonetheless, it’s there and it’s growing. Facebook’s decision to use the name Meta simply means that in the future, they will undoubtedly be credited for the Metaverse, despite not being the ones responsible for creating it. It’s a good strategy, to be honest. An unsurprising one too, considering this sort of move is exactly what the world has come to expect from Mark Zuckerberg.

vi. Cyberbullying: The internet is filled with toxicity and cyberbullies and despite the efforts of social media platforms, it just seems impossible to completely eliminate cyberbullies. Well, chances are cyberbullying will carry on into the Metaverse where it will no doubt be amplified and be much worse within a virtual reality space.

vii. What Can It Do To Us?: Chances are if someone pointed a gun in your face, you would be terrified. If an explosion went off right outside your home, that would scare the bejeezus out of you. The Metaverse will blur the line between reality and fiction in a way that you can’t begin to imagine. If someone in the Metaverse were to point a digital gun at you and fire, chances are it would make you react exactly like you would react to being shot at in real life. With fear.

Even though it’s not actually happening, it’s going to look real and there’s a chance you might get so immersed that you forget it’s not, so you continue to react to things exactly like you would in the real world. That surge of adrenaline you feel when in a scary situation, you’ll feel it even while in the Metaverse. Maybe over time, you’ll adapt to being shot at in a digital world and just won’t be scared by it anymore.

But what could that do to us?

I don’t have the answer to that. But I do know it’s bound to mess with our heads, if only a little bit.

There’s a lot more concerns and criticisms I have about the Metaverse but then this would seem like a never-ending article, and this seems like a great stopping point.

The Metaverse is wild, and it’s big, bigger than anyone could imagine and it’s going to change all of our lives in so many ways. The internet was a paradigm-shift in the course of human development, the Metaverse will be another. A much bigger shift.

There’s a part of me that’s overexcited and deeply in awe about the enormous potential the Metaverse has, and all the ways it could make life so much better and much more fun. I also can’t overlook the part of me that’s deeply worried about all the ways in which the Metaverse could have nasty consequences on our lives and end up being the stuff of nightmares. At this point in time, we can’t tell for sure exactly how it’ll end up and can only keep our fingers crossed and hope that we don’t end up living in a twisted dystopia.

No one likes a dystopia.

Right?