Yeah sure, the Metaverse will be bigger than the Internet.

I really believe that. Short of a system collapse, there's nothing which will stop some Web/VR/AR amalgam from eventually going mainstream. If anything, a prolonged pandemic will make humans hunger for more digital entertainment and socializing options.

Might take 5 years, or 25, but it will happen in some form. Eventually, people will even readily accept various augmentations to their bodies to further immerse themselves and connect to digital experiences.

BUT:

We're still pre-bubble.

Does no one remember the dotcom crash?

Facebook/Meta will become the new Yahoo, decimated to a sliver of its former glory. Million dollar hype NFTs will become the new $10 parked domain names. 99.99% of all current efforts and content will end up like a modern day Geocities Archive.

So yeah... when I read that my pension fund is considering "investing in metaverse technologies"...

...you fucking bet it's time to transfer to a different fund!

Some of us can see through this bullshit. A lot of people are waking up to the fact that digital lives are meaningless and devoid of humanity. Some will get entrapped by this garbage, but just like TV, some will just reject it altogether.

@Demolishun

I think there's some good, some bad.

An eventual interconnected VR-universe will be like the internet on steroids: Amazing communities, wonderful games, near-infinite educational content. But also fearmongering, exploits and hate, all turned up to 11.

But today's hardware is still clunky. I've never seen anyone use a VR headset on a train. And holding up a phone in the air to catch a pokemon, or point your cam at a sign to have it translated, that *barely* classifies as AR.

There's several barriers to cross:

HUDs which blend VR/AR, and are so intuitive and comfortable that people walk around the city with them. Controls and force feedback so good that you can pick up a virtual pen and comfortably write, etc.

Until that moment, the "metaverse" is like 1995 internet.

A fun idea, a glimpse, an ambition, but above all: A multibillion dollar economical bubble in the making.

@bittersweet It will create a whole new segment of criminals taking advantage of distracted people. Right now in the city I work it is illegal to look at your phone while crossing the street. Why? Because people keep getting hit by cars. I cannot imagine how stupid people will be in with AR. Viruses will make people think shit that ain't happening seem like it is happening. People right now in 2021 are so glued to media that they can say ANYTHING and they will think its real. I used to think people were sheep. I now believe they are lemmings. Yes, I am focused more on the downside. So my view is probably skewed.

@Demolishun

As a coworker recently said: "Until I can feel the saliva of an half-orc dripping over my testicles while tasting some influencer's Instagram cupcakes, facebook should STFU about this meta shit"

We're not there yet. It will probably take a while.

And yeah, I agree, people will probably sell their whole identity and belief system if it means they can actually "take a bath with a gamer girl"

-- or even just empty their complete bank account on metaverse gacha game gems and shiny MMO armor.

I have to admit: My self control might also falter, if I run across Tamriel as a Dragonborn, actually feeling the wind in my hair, and a Khajiit offers me a really nice bow for $20.

@bittersweet and @Demolishun guys, you are assuming VR would be portable.
Given the hardware limitations around immersive tech, I would rather think that those are not here to replace phones, but to replace workstations.

Imagine an office chair with a clunky HUD mounted in the headrest, litke a salon hairdryer. No battery limitations and no miniaturization of processing components.
But you could get intuitive interfaces, countless screens, 3D visualizations, virtual meeting rooms. Heck, you could forget even about keyboards and mouses, if the interface is neat enough. Can you imagine coding with some gestures? It's all about comfort.

So, yeah, it would be more like The Segway. It was never to become "the next method of transportation, to unseat the car!". It just became "the way mall cops and park rangers and airport workers move around on medium-distances". A much more grounded and realistic business.

AR/VR could be the ultimate tax-forms-filling ergonomic hardware Xp

@bittersweet
"an eventual interconnected vr universe"

... you mean an eventual single monopoly similar to what would happen if FB would functionally replace all of internet.

yeah, sounds really nice
* explodes from the galactic overpressure of sarcasm *

the mistake people keep making when they're happy about some new tech and its possibilities is that they keep forgetting we are being ruled, and the tech is being controlled and monopolized, by a cult of megalomaniacal, narcissistic, powerhungry, moneyhungry, ideologically fundamentalist lizards who give exactly ZERO shits about people, or the quality of their products, or some vision/ambition of making things better for people/humanity.

you think "vr metaverse", and you imagine Oasis because you think it's being made by James Halliday, while, in reality it's being made by a team of Cthulhus so it would be closer to reality if you imagined the people pods that ensure your lifetime connection to The Matrix.

AR - something that was born 20 years ago when flash allowed use compiled c++ as a library and someone compiled opencv, that’s nothing new. VR is also nothing new there were people running around university with computers on their backpacks and playing doom in VR googles 20 years ago.

This would fail.

They’re presenting nothing new.

Fuck feelings, fuck graphics, fuck touching and stuff like that I want to run and jump without going out, without pain or die jump between buildings, have superpowers and fly by putting my hands up. That’s a real problem they should solve.

If someone would make such gear and even sell it for 100k-200k just to let you play minecraft by running around like you do it outside he would win the world. There’s like 100k rich people right now that would buy it for 100k, companies would buy it like they were buying PC or pinballs so you can come and play.

I see real VR as human connected to machine, trapped in small space that tracks every move and with advanced machinery that let you move freely in the virtual reality so you won’t go out and everything will be delivered to you.

Second step would be replay your relatives conversations with avatars and emotions in their voices. So you can see people that passed away as like they live today, if they are recorded with such machinery you can play with them.

Last step would be get your excrements from your body without leaving VR.

Sega was going in right direction in 1991

oh btw, if you wanna know how the vr metaverse will function, regarding the owner-dev-consumer dynamics, go learn a bit about Roblox, because that's basically it, without the vr part. everything else is there, though.

People Make Games yt channel did a nice two-parter about it, very informative. welcome to how your vr metaverse will function.

@Midnight-shcode I watched that, that was amazing how they use kids to make content for them and that they’re already bigger than nintendo lol

@Midnight-shcode

I don't think it could ever function as a complete monopoly though.

Considering the world has forgotten about internet protocols and data portability, I wouldn't be surprised if it's going to be more "walled garden" than the internet.

But — assuming facebook/meta will even survive — they'll hold a market share. Maybe Google buys Valve and Neuralink so the Google Assistant can nag your brain directly about the Christmas Steam Sale, and Samsung is like "fuck you guys we start our own universe with blackjack and hookers".

But yeah, a true repeat of the early decentralized open internet... There's too much vertical integration for that.

@GeorgeBool

With most humans being much more sensitive to addiction than they realize, let's hope skooma delivered through neural interface won't become a thing.

@GeorgeBool toss a coin to your witcher

Hopefully the meraverse gets traction and I can finally use an avatar which fits me: a half decomposed demon with an UwU face and a commercial space on my knees. It’s name is Jeff, and it’s the accounting demon.

But jokes aside, I believe meta has more potential than you give it credit for, as it lured a good customer base with the oculus quest (edit) and quest 2

@piratefox

Well, I would cheer on any mission to increase VR/AR adoption, especially if it means connecting ecosystems using open protocols.

But I doubt the company "meta" truly has such an altruistic motive.

@bittersweet company and altruistic in general don’t fit well in the same sentence

@piratefox

True.

But there are plenty of examples where many companies successfully collaborate on open standards.

the USB-IF, the W3C, the IETF, etc

It would make sense if VR/AR protocols and standardization would be at least specced out by a similar industry-wide consortium -- Not by one company.

If it's just one brand pushing their own thing, it will not become "An evolved internet" at all.

It will just end up like i-mode, the centralized, highly proprietary, parallel mobile internet alternative created by DoCoMo, which was kind of popular for mobile phone users in Japan and the EU in the 00's.

@bittersweet i agree in principle, but I’m not sure what could be standardised… not because I have no idea, just because meta isn’t well defined yet

Sorry for being a little off-topic. How do you track your pension funds' investment ? I kinda never bother with this stuff because I'm usually happy with whatever my company hooks me up with -- now that you mention it, I'm curious

@StackSmasher123

I think it differs per country/jurisdiction.

Here (NL) you have state pension (basically a minimal guaranteed pension), a company/sector pension plans, and individual ("third pillar") pension, and they're all trackable through a single government digital oAuth service (In NL we have DigID, which is gov oAuth for things like this)

My employer has no pension plan, so I told them "pay me more salary and I'll take care of that myself", so I have a third pillar pension plan. Depending on salary, you can dump a certain percentage of your salary into pension investments before paying taxes, so from gross salary.

I think the US "401k" thing is similar. Not sure how other countries do this.

@bittersweet most countries have a "you should die the day you cannot work any longer" approach to retirement.