A few Tweets aside, I haven’t said much about the metaverse. This is entirely because I think the metaverse as currently advertised is incredibly stupid. Some see a sort of merger of the corporeal and virtual worlds, somehow different from Second Life. I see it as, at best, a gimmick and, at worst an ad-supported hellscape we are forced into by people who think it’s cool.
It’s very hard to see the metaverse as proposed by Mark Zuckerberg as anything other than a new graphical interface for the same stuff we already do digitally. We have video calls, video games, chat programs, online banking, email, and other online tools that replace physical counterparts. I no longer need to go to an ATM to deposit a check. I don’t want to go to a virtual ATM in the metaverse to deposit a digital check.
Sure, it’s possible the metaverse could have a utility I don’t yet understand. It took a global pandemic for me to consider QR codes useful for general consumers. But the best applications I can think of are essentially digital screens, and a VR whiteboard in a VR room isn’t so different from a digital display.
This article by Mason Pelt of Push ROI. First published in MasonPelt.com on March 26, 2022. Photo by GuerrillaBuzz Blockchain PR Agency on Unsplash