Is the Metaverse a dystopian nightmare? | Matthew Ball

Two-thirds of our days are spent alone. The Metaverse will bring us together, argues leading Metaverse thinker Matthew Ball.

Will the metaverse lean more toward dystopia or utopia? If you base your answer solely on Hollywood’s vision of the future, you might say the former, considering that blockbusters like “The Matrix” and “Blade Runner” paint an ominous future where technology has helped fuel massive inequality and human suffering.

But that’s just one vision. In many ways, humans have been exploring metaverse-like worlds for decades, through text-based role-playing games to “Second Life” to the consumer-grade VR systems that have become popular over the past decade — and we’ve done it all without ushering in a dystopia.

The metaverse will soon enable immersive, collaborative, and social experiences that could change not only leisure, but also learning. For young students, the technology could replace paper mache models of volcanoes with something very much like “The Magic School Bus.”

That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate concerns about the metaverse, especially when it comes to questions about who owns what in this emerging world. Matthew Ball, author of “The Metaverse,” explains more in this interview with Big Think.

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About Matthew Ball:
Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion, a diversified holding company which makes angel investments, provides advisory services, and produces television, films, and video games. Ball is also a Venture Partner at Makers Fund, Senior Advisor to KKR, Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, and sits on the board of numerous start-ups. His first book, “The Metaverse and How it Will Revolutionize Everything”, was published in July 2022 and became an instant national and international bestseller. Ball is also an “Occasional Contributor” to The Economist, holds bylines at Bloomberg, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and wrote the August 8, 2022 cover story for Time Magazine.

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Read more of our stories on the Metaverse:
The case for demanding “immersive rights” in the Metaverse
Why the Metaverse can’t exist without a blockchain
Is a lack of creativity already ruining the Metaverse?

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[stre]

The day I deleted my account on the meta (FB), I felt something wonderful, a feeling of freedom and inner peace. I recommend it to everyone!👍

[gazesalso]

I can't help but notice how technogies such as the internet started with so much promise also. But unless we are honest about the failings of the internet how can we lean into anything? Metaverse will be dystopian, no doubt, but the sad thing is we won't even recognize it.

[NothingIsKnown]

The problem with Facebook was always its incentives. It could benefit humanity but it was more profitable to spread abuse and rage. So they did. So will the meta verse, as long as a corporation is running it.

[couchpotatoe]

Thinking that people who barely have access to enough food and water can now profit from the metaverse shows the world this guy lives in. Even if they did have access to internet, it'd likely nor be at a speed that supports the metaverse nor would there be any reason for people to not just watch recorded classes. Why would anyone need Meta for that?

[sethsmith]

A digital universe isn't the problem. ZUCKERBERG'S universe is a problem.

[fantasyfener]

This video is doing the bidding of Meta Inc great job

[ColinPBurke]

The whole point of Meta being Dystopic is that is does NOT appear dystopic to most- and is subtle

[ForAnAngel]

This guy feels inherently untrustworthy.

[clwho]

Biggest myth in the metaverse: That it is a thing. It is not it is just a word co-opted by people looking for the next big thing, Zuckerburg, cryto bros, etc and they can not agree on what the metaverse is because it isn't an idea or a thing, it is just a vague word for the something that "will be the next big thing".
Also all of the criticisms he's trying to dispel have already happened.

[KarlMarcus]

"the metaverse will be the wonderful new frontier of the human experience, all the bad stuff you felt and heard and read? nah bro, look how cool this is, going to a concert but worse? hell yeah my dude. we didn't think we were sucking enough attention from you and then selling it to advertisers with regular social media and youtube so the metaverse is gonna be awesome you guys, I really mean it.
- Guy who has large amounts of money invested in a metaverse crypto index

[ryanmilliken]

No of the VR use cases he talks about here require a metaverse.

[norapeace]

Instagram and TikTok are super toxic and people are addicted to them. Some people don’t even know how addictive and toxic it is to them but they still go on. So I find it hard to believe that we’re not gonna go on Metaverse even if it’s bad for them

[Fnidner]

Dystopian? Maybe.
Boring? Unnecessary? Stupid? Definitely!

[BusterDarcy]

Maybe there a version of a metaverse that at some point could be the next version of the internet that we all naturally gravitate towards and want to be a part of, but it won’t come from meta (Facebook) and it won’t involve us putting on a clunky headset and holding controllers in our hands — way too much effort and discomfort involved.

The internet evolved from something you needed to take over your phone line with and sit at a desk in front of a desktop computer to use, to something you can access anytime, anywhere, from the palm of your hand. We expect that kind of ease and comfort now. We’re not willing to go backwards on that, especially for a half baked experience that looks like garbage and serves no real purpose as of yet other than to try to enrich a single company with a terrible track record for privacy abuse.

[broadsword]

I'm old enough to have been active online when the internet went from niche academic/military platform to a widespread information space and onwards to the intrinsic societal network it is today. People have feared and fantasised over it at every stage. Eventually, the fantasies always turned out to be less imaginative than reality. Sadly, so did the fears. The metaverse will be the same: simultaneously far better and far worse than what is predicted.

[Leo_Fender]

The Myth: people will like it and it will be successful.

The Reality: well………

[db.exploring]

An example of irony is Matthew's act of bringing attention to the drama which underlies dystopian storylines. Drama calling out drama. Meta is continuing in its parasitical predecessor's footsteps (Facebook's footsteps). Predatory business models appear to be the norm. I hope that our species, well, those who are influencing the future of communication, will evolve away from preying upon the clients of the technologies that they create. That they as well as I evolve towards lessening the suffering of others. Wishful thinker am I.

[nikhilverma]

I am not convinced with the education example. We already have adequate technology today to provide free video lectures and gamified apps. Providing education to the poor and unprivileged is an economic problem that should not be grossly simplified like this.

[tanookilondon]

There are some enormous misconceptions going on in his argument here. First of which is the dystopian angle; no-one is saying the metaverse itself will be a dystopia, it's the outside world that will become a dystopia as we leave it behind to live more and more of our lives in this virtual world (in a scenario where the metaverse takes off as a concept, which it's highly unlikely to do), becoming neglectful of reality around us. As an aside, I also find it creepy as fuck that he says "Quote unquote reality".
Secondly, the idea that it will replace television as a leisure activity is flawed. The act of watching TV is PASSIVE. We do it (as couples, as families - sometimes by ourselves but not as much as he is purporting, I suspect) passively. Strapping on some VR headset and diving into virtual worlds owned by all the giant tech companies would be an ACTIVE engagement. When people watch TV they want to relax, they want to disengage from being active, perhaps because they've worked a long day already. People won't want to come home from an 8-hour work shift and then "relax" with virtual reality all around them. Some folks play video games, and a small portion of those use VR headsets, that's true, but look at adoption rate: The number of people engaging in VR is a tiny, fractional amount of people who enjoy video games.
This 'The Metaverse is definitely coming' narrative is bullshit, plagued with flaws, falsehoods and insurmountable problems (eg. He's still not giving CLEAR examples of what the metaverse can do that can't already be done without it. Interactivity? We already do that with computers, we don't need to be INSIDE the computer to do things like looks at 3D models or diagrams. This is to say nothing of exactly HOW everything is going to be interconnected - what, is every tech corporation suddenly going to open up their walled gardens and play nice with each other?).
It's yet another glorified tech-bro pipe dream corporate-greedy-as-fuck snake oil piece of bullshit turd trying to be polished to within an inch of its life by peddlers such as this dude and Zuck because they've already invested heavily in it (whether financially or conceptually) and now are desperate to pass it off as some fatalistic, inevitable next step in human technological evolution. No, it's not. All of the things you will supposedly be able to do in the Metaverse can already be done without it, and have been for a ages. This is a solution looking for a problem, and the sooner it pisses off, the better.

[PoofyKittyPants]

Clicked expecting an ad for meta. Not disappointed.