What Is The Metaverse?

Everyone's talking about the Metaverse, but what is it? It's poised to be the next evolution of the internet, and we'll experience it in fully immersive 3D virtual worlds and mixed and augmented reality. Facebook has zeroed in on this idea so much it changed its name to Meta to reflect it. In this video, I'll look at the potential for this future, the promises it holds, and, of course, the dystopian nightmare it could become if we get it wrong.

Here's Facebook's full Metaverse announcement:

Matthew Ball's Metaverse primer:

Tim Ferriss' interview with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant on Web3:

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Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:10 - Facebook's Problems
2:45 - The Meta Announcement
6:11 - Meta is not The Metaverse
10:10 - The Potential For VR
12:30 - AR and MR
13:47 - Smart Glasses
18:37 - Does Anybody Really Want This?
19:24 - Web3
22:05 - One More (Contrarian) Thing
23:30 - Sponsor message
24:30 - Close

[InservioLetum]

"a company nobody likes, offering a product nobody wants, to solve problems that nobody has"
This ALONE is worth a sub..

[BenjaminKibbey]

After all this time of working virtually from home, the idea of being forced to let an AR virtual workplace invade my home honestly sent chills down my spine.

[asemi]

Things happening in real time is the complete opposite of what I want from the internet. When livestreams first became a thing I didn't understand the appeal, having to live by someone else's schedule is what old school tv was about, and I felt like we moved past that. I never managed to get into twitch because I want to do things on my own time

[incredimazing]

Yeah, really have to agree with you in the end there. I'm part of the crowd that wants less interactivity, and instead prefer privacy & control over social media so we can minimize our time online and maximise time to actually live real life. Imagine if companies were pushing technology to make online interactions more efficient and less intrusive in our lives, rather than pushing for it to completely consume our lives.

[eekos]

"I watched the whole thing" Five words conveyed so much emotion

[recentlydeleted]

"Imagine if a website only worked on Chrome or only worked on Firefox."
We don't have to imagine that. Some websites actually do that

[francoistrempe]

I'm surprised that there was no mention of "the Oasis" from ready player one. This was a very detailed metaverse where everything was integrated with the virtual world. In that book, kids would exclusively go to school in the virtual world and most businesses only had a virtual office.

[tommyjacolbe-jrgensen]

My thoughts: As a tech nerd and a person with some socio anxiety, the metaverse is both interesting and scary.
I guess my dream is to live in a self sustaining house out in a forest, and only enter the metaverse occasionally to buy stuff (delivered by drones) and to interact with a few people. And otherwise live completely alone in peace.

[CapnSnackbeard]

The best part of the old internet was the sensation that nobody owned anything.

[Quijanos]

Dude, you're killing me with hilarity. You're correct, the Mark Z. Interview with the leather jacket girl was surreal.

[ianwilbanks]

I agree with your considerations at the end of this video so much. Why would I want something to be synchronous rather than asynchronous. We have been constantly working toward making this asynchronous. One of the big reasons streaming services decimated cable is that you can watch whatever you want whenever you want. Why would we want to move away from that.

[SixofQueens]

I decided long ago that I will side with interacting with the real world over the digital one wherever possible (my music library is about the only purely digital media I possess). I just wonder if, when I'm 50, that'll still be an option.

[lemming]

I would say that the optimist in me sees the potential to "augment" our every day lives. Cooking food? Have the recipe and instructions right in front of you while you do so kinda thing. Sounds fantastic honestly. Then the real world me interjects with, "Have you seen how invasive technology and especially the companies using said technology have become?" And its at this point i remember that I have to run an adblocker just so a lot of websites are even tolerable these days. I remember that i no longer answer my phone because I can't stand essentially being on call 24/7 to anyone and everyone. Like imagine you have a rough month and can't pay a bill on time. And now the electric company or whatever can invade your everyday life with reminders that you owe them money being actually seen 24/7, like you didn't have enough stress already lol. So yeah, the optimist in me wants to believe, the realist in me is bloody terrified xD

[alpha_ornativum]

I did not yet watch the video, just one quick remark: If the current internet is not already considered a dystopian nightmare I don't even want to see the next one.

[KariahBengalii]

When I was younger, my dream was to have contacts that allowed me to browse the web while I was doing (or supposed to be doing) something else. As I get older, I realize that those would necessarily come with advertisements everywhere, with being constantly accessible to people, with a sort of corporate hellscape of always being monitored because data, and I feel an almost uncontrollable urge to move to the middle of nowhere and swap my laptop for a typewriter. I don't want this. More importantly, I am now at the point where I would refuse it. It would not be healthy for me involved in the 'metaverse' and I don't believe it would be healthy for most other people either.

[GregK]

Hey Joe! Heavy VR user here. Been into it since 2016 and I have owned 6 different headsets. I also was a Invite only Beta tester for Horizon Worlds by Meta. I also own a pair of Vuzix Blade Updated glasses and man they are cool, Still not there yet but the Shield will be awesome. If you have questions about any of these things I think I can answer. I would love to give you a personal tour of the things my friends and I have created.

[diyeana]

This makes me think of The Oasis from Ready Player One. I don't think the metaverse will only cost 25 cents to set up, though.

[enthusia]

But VRchat, Steam Home and Oculus Home already exist.

They're pushing "invite people to hang out at your virtual house" like it's a new thing.

[testedTransgressor]

Okay so while I love the potential applications, I really recommend you check out the short story The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. The people of that live in their own little bubbles and have basically an entirely virtual world surrounding them, and the concept when I read it in 2009 seemed absolutely buckwild, but now...
Now, it sounds like the next step to our current reality. And if you read the story, you'll understand why that's actually sort of scary.

[ollywright]

Interesting video, thank you for making it! Small detail: MMOs have been around since the 1990s (i played them then! Check out Ultima Online from 1997) and MUDS (multi user dungeons) since the 1970s. As for the company that cracks the consumer friendly AR glasses - my bet would be Apple, though i hope we see a new company do it instead. I'm with you on the contrarian part however - self care in the 2020s means being offline.