What is the metaverse? [Analysis for beginners]

The term “metaverse” has been around for a while now. Recently, major companies like Microsoft have made moves in favor of the metaverse, after acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also bet on the metaverse and renamed his social networking company Meta. Google, on the other hand, has been working on metaverse-related technology for years, while Apple has its own related devices in the works.

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But what does the metaverse really mean and does it really exist?

The metaverse is the convergence of two ideas that have been around for many years: virtual reality and digital second life. For decades, technologists have dreamed of a time where our virtual lives play just as important a role as physical reality.

In theory, we would spend a lot of time interacting with our friends and colleagues in a virtual space. As a result, we would also spend money there, buying clothes and items for our digital avatars. In what techies like Mr. Zuckerberg call the metaverse, virtual reality serves as a computing platform for living a second life online. In virtual reality, users simply wear a headset that immerses them in a three-dimensional world.

Motion-sensing controllers are available to interact with virtual objects and use a microphone to communicate with others. According to Matthew Ball, an entrepreneur who has worked on the topic, the metaverse represents the fourth wave in computing. It is about being always online rather than always having access to an online world. So essentially it is you and your avatar interacting with others in a digital environment.

To some extent, some elements of the metaverse already exist in video games. For example, in Fortnite, an online shooter game played on computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. The average Fortnite player spends hundreds of hours playing with a personal avatar, battling and interacting with other players’ avatars. Players also accumulate virtual currency that unlocks clothing and other goodies to customize their avatars.

A precursor to the metaverse could also be found in Second Life, an online social platform developed by Linden Lab nearly two decades ago. Second Life is largely a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It fulfills many of the roles that people have imagined for the metaverse of the future, and has done so since its launch.

Users are embedded in avatars and hang out with each other in virtual spaces.

They enjoy virtual versions of real-life experiences, from business meetings to clubbing. Users can create their own content and services and transact with each other. There is a virtual economy with its own currency, which can be exchanged for real currency. In this virtual space, users can shop and create properties to enrich their virtual lives.

Virtual reality is also somewhat advanced in video games.

In 2016, Sony released the $400 PlayStation VR, a virtual reality headset that connects to the PlayStation 4 console to play virtual reality games.

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Earlier this year, Sony said a second-generation headset was coming for the PlayStation 5, though it didn't give a release date. But those were just baby steps toward the full metaverse, which is still taking shape.

Technologists say that thanks to many things, including fast internet connections, powerful virtual reality headsets and a large audience of gamers, it's now more possible to live in a rich, realistic 3D simulation.

However, there are limitations that may be impossible to overcome.

When tech companies like Microsoft or Meta show off fantastical videos of their visions of the future, they often tend to gloss over how people will interact with the metaverse. VR headsets are still very clunky, and most people experience nausea or physical pain if they wear them for too long. Augmented reality glasses face a similar problem, beyond the issue of finding a more discreet way for people to wear them in public spaces. The paradox of defining the metaverse is that in order to be the future, it must be defined in the present.

There are also legal and commercial challenges: such as circumventing intellectual property rights and getting countless businesses to invest in this technology.

We already have technology that essentially offers entire virtual worlds, digital concerts, video calls with people from all over the world, online avatars, and trading platforms. So, in order for these things to be sold as a new vision, there has to be some element of what is new. The combination of the pop culture general idea of ​​holograms and heads-up displays serves as an imaginative reference point for what the metaverse is. A metaverse that tech companies could actually sell as something new.

Whether in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), or simply on a screen, the promise of the metaverse is to enable a greater overlap of our digital and physical lives in wealth, socialization, productivity, shopping, and entertainment. These two worlds are already intertwined, without requiring special equipment. Think of the Uber app that lets you know via location data how far away your cab is. Think of how Netflix measures what you’ve watched in the past to make recommendations. Think of how the LiDAR scanner in newer iPhones can perform a 3D scan of your surroundings.

At its core, the metaverse (also known to many as “web3”) is an evolution of our current internet. However, if the metaverse is essentially an extension of the internet we have right now, we also need to think about the problems we have yet to solve in our online existence. These include hacking, catfishing, harassment, hate speech, which are all very likely to exist in the metaverse world. True fans of the metaverse believe that it can have benefits for everyone, expanding access, opportunities, social networks, and mental health for people.

However, we must admit that much of the good that the metaverse can do is still speculative and depends on hardware development to data infrastructure developments, on very vague timelines. What is certainly there is the already realized potential of the metaverse to increase empathy and inspire kindness. A few years ago, a surreal YouTube video made the rounds. In the middle of a typical VRChat session, a user wearing a full-body tracking suit had a seizure.

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The episode highlighted not only the real distance between people in virtual spaces, but also the explosion of concern about the person who might actually be hiding behind an avatar.

Despite the maturity of the idea and the current obsession with it in boardrooms, the technology still needs a lot of work. Especially if it is to become the “next internet” envisioned by Ball and Zuckerberg. And despite the pandemic that has confined so many of us to our homes, the strong consumer desire for an experience that is not just a video game has yet to be proven.

From there, people need to be convinced that this is something they want.

The technology through which we access these worlds needs to be at least as comfortable and convenient to use as a smartphone, otherwise it will seem like a step backward from the Internet it is supposed to replace.