14 ms·

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in an

by clpm4j 5y ago

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in any type of digital world / metaverse experience. If I was a teenager or in college, then yeah I can see it... but there are so many things to do in the 16hrs we have each day, and I already kick myself for not finishing that book, or getting an extra workout in, and just sitting in the backyard and resting my eyes. And I don't even have children...

rocho 5y ago
People already spend hours and hours per day on social media, very often just to fill time and avoid boredom. I can absolutely see the metaverse taking up some of that time.
gauchojs 5y ago
As a parent of a 2 year old, I think I'll play again when he plays!
- nottorp 5y ago
  Haha guess how I got into MC. I bought it for myself about 2 years after the kid wanted it for herself.
herval 5y ago
Given how much time everyone I interact with (and myself) spend with our heads buried on phones, mindlessly scrolling, I’d say an extremely large number of people would gladly transition to an augmented reality world, and stare at walls for an equally long amount of time
PicassoCTs 5y ago
Unless.. its super easy to convert what obsesses ones day into 3d and park it in the world. But then its just humanitys meme & memory junkyard.. kind of like a book with sad faces.
cbhl 5y ago
The ones that I have met did so because their children were into it. An hour or two a day adds up pretty quickly if you're building
mmmeff 5y ago
I think the end vision for the metaverse is to swallow up a lot of those time sinks in a typical lifespan. Working, shopping, socializing, etc. could theoretically be supplanted by a metaverse (for better or worse).
bluedino 5y ago
The amount of 25-35 year old adults that play video games is pretty huge.
- pugworthy 5y ago
  Don’t discount 35-65 (or beyond) either.
- BTCOG 5y ago
  The amount of 6-60 year old video gamers is huge. 25's a strange number to start, and 35 is far too young to cut off.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vmception 5y ago
  and a lot of people that don't think they are gamers are the most lucrative set of gamers. they are the freemium and mobile segment. dismissed by both the toxic gaming communities and themselves, but noticed by the companies who will change their whole trillion dollar business name to snag them further.
vineyardmike 5y ago
I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring reality for entertainment in a fake world already. thats a few hours people can dedicate. 2) The metaverse can be more than traditional video game type entertainment. WFH has turned the office as a destination into a keyboard/monitor as a destination. You can use VR to have a much more immersive/focused work destination than either office or WFH desk. Thats 8+ hours a day you can spend in metaverse. (I have tried the Oculus workrooms and if the virtual screen resolution was higher then i'd personally work in it.)
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  I have a Quest 2 and had a Vive before that. The Quest 2 is way more convenient. But I'm still too tired/lazy to put it on most of the time and would rather veg out on the couch. I can't be the only one who feels this way?
- kibwen 5y ago
  I'm frustrated that everywhere I look I keep seeing "metaverse" and "VR" used interchangeably. All of the things described above are VR, and none of them are the metaverse. Watching TV or playing a game in an immersive, distraction-free VR environment sounds great, and will happen, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. Working in a virtual home office has the potential to be extremely productive, ergonomic, and space-saving, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. A metaverse involves some kind of shared space and shared experience across a networked medium. Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    I think part of the plan is to build VR spaces and then connect them together. Take the "things" in that space and expose them to non-vr software clients. eg. maybe your vr home has digital art, but that art can also exist and be viewed in other mediums. Or you can all sit at home and watch VRTV with friends, but one friend just watches on their phone on the bus. Or a virtaul office desk, that can have coworkers visiting. The office server can be hosted on your corp servers (or, the social networking, maybe you self host your personal office), but when you leave to go virtually home, you're now in your home, hosted by fb nee meta.
Grimm1 5y ago
How many people spend a lot of time on social media? Billions, this is just providing a more immersive interaction for that. VR is only a tiny portion of that and I'm expecting AR and haptics and a whole bunch of other tech that enable more diverse sensory experiences to play a part here. I don't really want "Meta" to own all of that largely because what made the internet successful was having no gatekeeper and a very low barrier to entry. Not that that's true anymore, but having no initial gatekeeper let people do crazy things for 30 years while the current gatekeepers were establishing themselves.
beebmam 5y ago
The time I spend in Minecraft is either meditation time or social time. It's an even better experience when there's a modpack on the server with a near-infinite number of things to do, too.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
  > near-infinite number of things to do I've been having a great time going the other way - Skyblock! Start with very little, build up from there.
pdog 5y ago
With software improvements, our perception of time will eventually be slowed down in the metaverse to such an extent that one hour in the material world will equate to several days of perceived elapsed time in meta-reality.
- derac 5y ago
  Do you have any context which would indicate this is possible?
  - colordrops 5y ago
    Might be sarcasm?
  - rakejake 5y ago
    Only if we are cloned and are pure software beings. In that case, it is possible to run at a faster "clock speed". Of course, this is all in the realm of sci-fi.
- Matrixik 5y ago
  It's hard for me to believe one hour to several days but one hour (material world) to two hours would, probably, be already achievable. Now I watch most videos on youtube at 2x speed.
headcanon 5y ago
Metaverse may not end up being something that you end up glued to for a long period of time exclusively, the interactions will also bleed into other parts of your life. The main example would be that you could buy items for a Metaverse game in an online store on, and you would browse around there on your phone while you're waiting in line for coffee or the bus or whatever, just like we would do online shopping. Metaverse would also wrap itself around a lot of the things people do already, like watch movies or concerts, coupled with games of any size and type. So as opposed to a stereotypical 6-hour WoW raid lifestyle, you could, for example, watch a virtual concert with friends, then afterwards jump onto a couple rounds of some Fortnite game variant, similar to how we do it today but just within the 'verse. But you could also immerse yourself for longer if you want to. Honestly Metaverse seems more to me like a digital version of a big shopping mall with a bowling alley, arcade, and movie theater. You can hang out all day there or just drop in to get something from a store, or just get dinner and a movie.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mikewave 5y ago
Agreed. There's way too many things to do in reality. I have about 30-60 minutes a day of Me Time, and the last thing I want to do is piss it away in front of a computer when I've already spent 70% of my time doing exactly that. Go outside, people. Talk to your friends in reality if possible. Experience the place you live in; participate in something physical to improve it materially. There's no end of socialization and minigames in reality, the graphics are better, and it's free.
one_off_comment 5y ago
You're preaching to the choir. This is why I'd always rather read an article or a book than watch a video if I'm trying to learn something. I'll watch TV or a movie if I'm only aiming to be entertained. But for something I want to try to retain or if I'm trying to get business done, text wins for me.
kelnos 5y ago
More like 6 hours, if you consider work time, commute time (for folks who'll still have to do that), meal prep, etc. But I don't think that's really the point. People use those 6 hours in a bunch of different ways. Some of those hours might be replaced by a metaverse experience entirely (as in, "I used to do play video games on my console, but I can get the same experience, but better, playing games in the metaverse"), and other activities might get nudged out because they aren't as (subjectively) enjoyable as the metaverse to some people. And other people will just not do the metaverse thing, because other activities are more fun to them. FB is betting on the user group being very large, and I don't know that I'd disagree with them. And the same thing will always happen: people will continue to kick themselves for not finishing that book, or getting that extra workout in. That will continue to be the case with or without the metaverse. Also consider that something like a metaverse could become the standard way for remote knowledge workers to get in a "room" together to collaborate. That alone seems like a large user base.
masona 5y ago
You answered your own question - it's a play for the next generation. My kids bounce between a multitude of shared digital spaces (games, chat, social, videos etc) and they would be right at home at some kind of metaverse that would bridge them all (if that's even possible).
xrobledo84 5y ago
Most people don’t read books or exercise.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
  That's sad. I love a good book.
jonas21 5y ago
The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts the American Time Use Survey [1], which tracks how people spend their time. This includes a breakdown by age (see table 9). In every single age group, the average person spends over 4 hours per day on leisure and sports activities, the majority of which is watching TV (and very little of which is exercise or reading). This is true even for people with children, with the exception of those with a child under 6 years of age. They spend an average of 3.86 hours/day on leisure and sports activities, 1.91 hours/day of which is watching TV. It seems as though there is plenty of time for the metaverse. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf
SavantIdiot 5y ago
Now you can read the book in the metaverse! Kidding. Kinda. Obligatory Futurama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6eRqMiAxQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6eRqMiAxQ0
Kiro 5y ago
I also kick myself for not finishing things. Namely programming projects, my game backlog and lots of other things that are strictly digital. While you seem to want to get away from the computer I want to spend more time in front of it.
mastazi 5y ago
I'm 43, I don't play regularly because of work/kids/etc. but every now and then I log into one of my favourite servers and spend some time there. Two years ago I have built a base on 2b2t[1], located millions of blocks away from spawn, it took many hours of travelling through nether highways to get there. Before starting the journey, I had to escape spawn (a very dangerous area since 2b2t is an anarchy server) and I had to find valuable items from scavenging abandoned bases. After I finished my base, I made friends on the server, I have also helped building one of the highways, using a hacked Minecraft client that includes tools to build tunnels automatically[2]. There is also another server that I have visited regularly, MinecraftOnline[3], I built a house there and I made some friends, this one has rules and moderators unlike 2b2t which is an anarchy server. On both servers there is a rich community, a subculture specific to the server, and even specific activities that stem from each server's subculture[4][5] Based on my experience, I have to agree with the article, Minecraft is an amazing and diverse metaverse. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2b2t https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2b2t [2] Highway Tools demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkDk_Xn2Y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkDk_Xn2Y4 [3] https://minecraftonline.com/ https://minecraftonline.com/ [4] https://minecraftonline.com/wiki/Pigchinko_(Game) https://minecraftonline.com/wiki/Pigchinko_(Game) [5] Guide to Crystal PvP on 2b2t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOImrm9ldTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOImrm9ldTY
- skerit 5y ago
  2b2t is amazing, you just keep on discovering things everywhere you go. It's just a shame the chat is so toxic. MinecraftOnline isn't much better just because there's no griefing, they really stick to their "100% free speech" rule.
  - mastazi 5y ago
    Most "hacked" clients that are commonly used on anarchy servers have additional options for chat, including spam filters and even options for hiding the chat completely. I use spam filters a lot and sometimes hide the chat completely. One option that I like is hiding all messages except private messages.
id 5y ago
Working remotely? That's 8 hours of digital world / metaverse experience right there. Most people have at least another 2 hours of screen time on top of that. I know I have days that are just screen time essentially.
Barrin92 5y ago
29 years old no kids here, have lots of coworkers in the same cohort. During the pandemic in particular a lot of friends started to pick up VRChat, and a majority of people in my age group still regularly play games. I think that's not that untypical honestly, I can see quite a few adults sinking at least a few hours per week into it if it gets interesting enough.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  Seconding this - have used VRChat a lot during the pandemic. Asking me why I’d spend time on the metaverse is like asking why I’d go to a bar. I won’t defend it as the best possible use of my time, but it’s fun to go meet people.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
lol don't worry, zuck wants us to work in the metaverse too
SLWW 5y ago
tbf I think that there's something special about games like MC, I still like it even well into my twenties. I don't play much but I do like spending a few hours on occasion spending time with friends, playing a game we started to when we were teens. My recommendation to anyone who wants to play something creative, get on a voice call and get with your friends.
gameswithgo 5y ago
as an adult with kids i have managed periods to deeply immerse in minecraft with friends and also pubg. it is fun but hard to sustain
AndrewKemendo 5y ago
This article and most people I have seen so far, get the concept of metaverse wrong. It's much simpler conceptually (though exceptionally hard technically) than people understand. The metaverse is the result of instrumenting the real world to capture and interact with the data the real world provides. Think "Digital Twin" of the world that refreshes at 100Hz. It's not a place you go, it becomes the landscape you live in, because everything becomes a data source.
hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
you will have time. it will be your workday. pack up bed. unfold desk. eat breakfast. put on headset. take off headset. eat dinner. pack up desk. set up bed. go to sleep.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
I don't mean this as a criticism of anyone. I do find though that there are types of people (likely including you and I) who feel compelled to move and do things such that our down time is extremely valuable. I do have kids which makes it quite a bit more challenging. I feel motivated on an hourly basis to accomplish things, though - it matters to me to make progress on the things I care about. There are other people who very much don't care. To them, progress might be watching the next episode of a show, or grinding in some game they love. I'm fine with either type of person, really. It does explain why what seems like an impossible use of time to us is actually very appealing to others. Why would we be in there when there's a book to read, a concept to learn, people we don't see often enough, etc? And yet, why wouldn't they? I think the metaverse aims to appeal to us as well eventually; imagine interactive classes on X or Y to help you learn faster with tools that are currently impossible? What if we could save time by seeing loved ones more easily in the metaverse, making more time for those things we want to make progress on? I'm not bullish on that, though. It sounds creepy. I want to hug the people I love, hear them laugh in person, make them nice food. I'm not interested in expediting that facet of my life. Even now, despite growing up with webcams around I still find FaceTime fairly impersonal and uninteresting. I use it only when I really need to.
spoonjim 5y ago
Depends what you mean by “metaverse.” I have 3 kids and use my Oculus maybe 3 times a week for 30-45 minutes each time. Lovely escapism. I can go to the beach and the mountains and back in a half hour.
irrational 5y ago
Seriously. I don’t have time to do the things I need to do, much less the things I want to do. I haven’t had time for TV, books, movies, etc. in years.
nathias 5y ago
We don't have 16h each day if we're working and sleeping, we have 8.
itronitron 5y ago
Maybe thinking of it as a separate experience is limiting how people make use of it. I wonder if anyone has run remote team meetings or virtual classrooms in Minecraft as I imagine it would be a lot less fatiguing than Zoom style teleconferencing. The fact that in MC you can easily see where other players are looking adds a lot to the experience.
- moffkalast 5y ago
  I think that's partially how the education edition is supposed to be used, but I've never actually seen it happen.
nottorp 5y ago
You make time for the things that interest you. Also it does sound like you're mixing your run of the mill grindy MMO with Minecraft. Your MC world will still be there if you don't touch it for a week. Even on a server. Okay, it may depend on the culture of said server, but that's exactly the point of the article. I play MC on an 18+ server that's building oriented. That means everyone has a job and other interests. We just show up and place our blocks when we feel like it. I just logged in yesterday after a 2 week break. People disappear for months. Nobody sees a problem with it.
jgilias 5y ago
I feel the same. The other day there was a video submit to HN that I didn't watch because I wasn't in a situation where I could watch a video. Basically making pancakes for kids, having an IRL conversation in the background, and checking HN while waiting to turn the pancake. If HN was on metaverse where I have to get an immersive headset on to use it... Yeah, I wouldn't be using it nearly as often as I do. As you get older, the best feature of our existing 'metaverse' is its ability to integrate with the 'meat-a-verse' seamlessly. The higher the barrier of moving between the *verses, the harder it is to use the one in which we can't actually keep our meat fit and fed. But what do I know (old man yelling at clouds).
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
And what about videogames? Some people spend thousands of hours each year playing videogames, and not all of them are high school or college students.
nels 5y ago
The concept of the metaverse also involves doing those activities (e.g., work, fitness, entertainment) inside the metaverse. For instance, the home workout videos that people watch on their TVs these days could someday be replaced by an immersive fitness experience on AR glasses.

by clpm4j 5y ago

rocho 5y ago

People already spend hours and hours per day on social media, very often just to fill time and avoid boredom. I can absolutely see the metaverse taking up some of that time.

gauchojs 5y ago

As a parent of a 2 year old, I think I'll play again when he plays!

nottorp 5y ago
Haha guess how I got into MC. I bought it for myself about 2 years after the kid wanted it for herself.

herval 5y ago

Given how much time everyone I interact with (and myself) spend with our heads buried on phones, mindlessly scrolling, I’d say an extremely large number of people would gladly transition to an augmented reality world, and stare at walls for an equally long amount of time

PicassoCTs 5y ago

Unless.. its super easy to convert what obsesses ones day into 3d and park it in the world. But then its just humanitys meme & memory junkyard.. kind of like a book with sad faces.

cbhl 5y ago

The ones that I have met did so because their children were into it. An hour or two a day adds up pretty quickly if you're building

mmmeff 5y ago

I think the end vision for the metaverse is to swallow up a lot of those time sinks in a typical lifespan. Working, shopping, socializing, etc. could theoretically be supplanted by a metaverse (for better or worse).

bluedino 5y ago

The amount of 25-35 year old adults that play video games is pretty huge.

pugworthy 5y ago
Don’t discount 35-65 (or beyond) either.
BTCOG 5y ago
The amount of 6-60 year old video gamers is huge. 25's a strange number to start, and 35 is far too young to cut off.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vmception 5y ago
and a lot of people that don't think they are gamers are the most lucrative set of gamers. they are the freemium and mobile segment. dismissed by both the toxic gaming communities and themselves, but noticed by the companies who will change their whole trillion dollar business name to snag them further.

vineyardmike 5y ago

I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring reality for entertainment in a fake world already. thats a few hours people can dedicate. 2) The metaverse can be more than traditional video game type entertainment. WFH has turned the office as a destination into a keyboard/monitor as a destination. You can use VR to have a much more immersive/focused work destination than either office or WFH desk. Thats 8+ hours a day you can spend in metaverse. (I have tried the Oculus workrooms and if the virtual screen resolution was higher then i'd personally work in it.)

nsxwolf 5y ago
I have a Quest 2 and had a Vive before that. The Quest 2 is way more convenient. But I'm still too tired/lazy to put it on most of the time and would rather veg out on the couch. I can't be the only one who feels this way?
kibwen 5y ago
I'm frustrated that everywhere I look I keep seeing "metaverse" and "VR" used interchangeably. All of the things described above are VR, and none of them are the metaverse. Watching TV or playing a game in an immersive, distraction-free VR environment sounds great, and will happen, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. Working in a virtual home office has the potential to be extremely productive, ergonomic, and space-saving, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. A metaverse involves some kind of shared space and shared experience across a networked medium. Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  I think part of the plan is to build VR spaces and then connect them together. Take the "things" in that space and expose them to non-vr software clients. eg. maybe your vr home has digital art, but that art can also exist and be viewed in other mediums. Or you can all sit at home and watch VRTV with friends, but one friend just watches on their phone on the bus. Or a virtaul office desk, that can have coworkers visiting. The office server can be hosted on your corp servers (or, the social networking, maybe you self host your personal office), but when you leave to go virtually home, you're now in your home, hosted by fb nee meta.

Grimm1 5y ago

How many people spend a lot of time on social media? Billions, this is just providing a more immersive interaction for that. VR is only a tiny portion of that and I'm expecting AR and haptics and a whole bunch of other tech that enable more diverse sensory experiences to play a part here. I don't really want "Meta" to own all of that largely because what made the internet successful was having no gatekeeper and a very low barrier to entry. Not that that's true anymore, but having no initial gatekeeper let people do crazy things for 30 years while the current gatekeepers were establishing themselves.

beebmam 5y ago

The time I spend in Minecraft is either meditation time or social time. It's an even better experience when there's a modpack on the server with a near-infinite number of things to do, too.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
> near-infinite number of things to do I've been having a great time going the other way - Skyblock! Start with very little, build up from there.

pdog 5y ago

With software improvements, our perception of time will eventually be slowed down in the metaverse to such an extent that one hour in the material world will equate to several days of perceived elapsed time in meta-reality.

derac 5y ago
Do you have any context which would indicate this is possible?
- colordrops 5y ago
  Might be sarcasm?
- rakejake 5y ago
  Only if we are cloned and are pure software beings. In that case, it is possible to run at a faster "clock speed". Of course, this is all in the realm of sci-fi.
Matrixik 5y ago
It's hard for me to believe one hour to several days but one hour (material world) to two hours would, probably, be already achievable. Now I watch most videos on youtube at 2x speed.

headcanon 5y ago

Metaverse may not end up being something that you end up glued to for a long period of time exclusively, the interactions will also bleed into other parts of your life. The main example would be that you could buy items for a Metaverse game in an online store on, and you would browse around there on your phone while you're waiting in line for coffee or the bus or whatever, just like we would do online shopping. Metaverse would also wrap itself around a lot of the things people do already, like watch movies or concerts, coupled with games of any size and type. So as opposed to a stereotypical 6-hour WoW raid lifestyle, you could, for example, watch a virtual concert with friends, then afterwards jump onto a couple rounds of some Fortnite game variant, similar to how we do it today but just within the 'verse. But you could also immerse yourself for longer if you want to. Honestly Metaverse seems more to me like a digital version of a big shopping mall with a bowling alley, arcade, and movie theater. You can hang out all day there or just drop in to get something from a store, or just get dinner and a movie.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mikewave 5y ago

Agreed. There's way too many things to do in reality. I have about 30-60 minutes a day of Me Time, and the last thing I want to do is piss it away in front of a computer when I've already spent 70% of my time doing exactly that. Go outside, people. Talk to your friends in reality if possible. Experience the place you live in; participate in something physical to improve it materially. There's no end of socialization and minigames in reality, the graphics are better, and it's free.

one_off_comment 5y ago

You're preaching to the choir. This is why I'd always rather read an article or a book than watch a video if I'm trying to learn something. I'll watch TV or a movie if I'm only aiming to be entertained. But for something I want to try to retain or if I'm trying to get business done, text wins for me.

kelnos 5y ago

More like 6 hours, if you consider work time, commute time (for folks who'll still have to do that), meal prep, etc. But I don't think that's really the point. People use those 6 hours in a bunch of different ways. Some of those hours might be replaced by a metaverse experience entirely (as in, "I used to do play video games on my console, but I can get the same experience, but better, playing games in the metaverse"), and other activities might get nudged out because they aren't as (subjectively) enjoyable as the metaverse to some people. And other people will just not do the metaverse thing, because other activities are more fun to them. FB is betting on the user group being very large, and I don't know that I'd disagree with them. And the same thing will always happen: people will continue to kick themselves for not finishing that book, or getting that extra workout in. That will continue to be the case with or without the metaverse. Also consider that something like a metaverse could become the standard way for remote knowledge workers to get in a "room" together to collaborate. That alone seems like a large user base.

masona 5y ago

You answered your own question - it's a play for the next generation. My kids bounce between a multitude of shared digital spaces (games, chat, social, videos etc) and they would be right at home at some kind of metaverse that would bridge them all (if that's even possible).

xrobledo84 5y ago

Most people don’t read books or exercise.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
That's sad. I love a good book.

jonas21 5y ago

The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts the American Time Use Survey [1], which tracks how people spend their time. This includes a breakdown by age (see table 9). In every single age group, the average person spends over 4 hours per day on leisure and sports activities, the majority of which is watching TV (and very little of which is exercise or reading). This is true even for people with children, with the exception of those with a child under 6 years of age. They spend an average of 3.86 hours/day on leisure and sports activities, 1.91 hours/day of which is watching TV. It seems as though there is plenty of time for the metaverse. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf

SavantIdiot 5y ago

Now you can read the book in the metaverse! Kidding. Kinda. Obligatory Futurama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6eRqMiAxQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6eRqMiAxQ0

Kiro 5y ago

I also kick myself for not finishing things. Namely programming projects, my game backlog and lots of other things that are strictly digital. While you seem to want to get away from the computer I want to spend more time in front of it.

mastazi 5y ago

I'm 43, I don't play regularly because of work/kids/etc. but every now and then I log into one of my favourite servers and spend some time there. Two years ago I have built a base on 2b2t[1], located millions of blocks away from spawn, it took many hours of travelling through nether highways to get there. Before starting the journey, I had to escape spawn (a very dangerous area since 2b2t is an anarchy server) and I had to find valuable items from scavenging abandoned bases. After I finished my base, I made friends on the server, I have also helped building one of the highways, using a hacked Minecraft client that includes tools to build tunnels automatically[2]. There is also another server that I have visited regularly, MinecraftOnline[3], I built a house there and I made some friends, this one has rules and moderators unlike 2b2t which is an anarchy server. On both servers there is a rich community, a subculture specific to the server, and even specific activities that stem from each server's subculture[4][5] Based on my experience, I have to agree with the article, Minecraft is an amazing and diverse metaverse. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2b2t https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2b2t [2] Highway Tools demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkDk_Xn2Y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkDk_Xn2Y4 [3] https://minecraftonline.com/ https://minecraftonline.com/ [4] https://minecraftonline.com/wiki/Pigchinko_(Game) https://minecraftonline.com/wiki/Pigchinko_(Game) [5] Guide to Crystal PvP on 2b2t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOImrm9ldTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOImrm9ldTY

skerit 5y ago
2b2t is amazing, you just keep on discovering things everywhere you go. It's just a shame the chat is so toxic. MinecraftOnline isn't much better just because there's no griefing, they really stick to their "100% free speech" rule.
- mastazi 5y ago
  Most "hacked" clients that are commonly used on anarchy servers have additional options for chat, including spam filters and even options for hiding the chat completely. I use spam filters a lot and sometimes hide the chat completely. One option that I like is hiding all messages except private messages.

id 5y ago

Working remotely? That's 8 hours of digital world / metaverse experience right there. Most people have at least another 2 hours of screen time on top of that. I know I have days that are just screen time essentially.

Barrin92 5y ago

29 years old no kids here, have lots of coworkers in the same cohort. During the pandemic in particular a lot of friends started to pick up VRChat, and a majority of people in my age group still regularly play games. I think that's not that untypical honestly, I can see quite a few adults sinking at least a few hours per week into it if it gets interesting enough.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
Seconding this - have used VRChat a lot during the pandemic. Asking me why I’d spend time on the metaverse is like asking why I’d go to a bar. I won’t defend it as the best possible use of my time, but it’s fun to go meet people.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

lol don't worry, zuck wants us to work in the metaverse too

SLWW 5y ago

tbf I think that there's something special about games like MC, I still like it even well into my twenties. I don't play much but I do like spending a few hours on occasion spending time with friends, playing a game we started to when we were teens. My recommendation to anyone who wants to play something creative, get on a voice call and get with your friends.

gameswithgo 5y ago

as an adult with kids i have managed periods to deeply immerse in minecraft with friends and also pubg. it is fun but hard to sustain

AndrewKemendo 5y ago

This article and most people I have seen so far, get the concept of metaverse wrong. It's much simpler conceptually (though exceptionally hard technically) than people understand. The metaverse is the result of instrumenting the real world to capture and interact with the data the real world provides. Think "Digital Twin" of the world that refreshes at 100Hz. It's not a place you go, it becomes the landscape you live in, because everything becomes a data source.

hazza_n_dazza 5y ago

you will have time. it will be your workday. pack up bed. unfold desk. eat breakfast. put on headset. take off headset. eat dinner. pack up desk. set up bed. go to sleep.

steve_adams_86 5y ago

I don't mean this as a criticism of anyone. I do find though that there are types of people (likely including you and I) who feel compelled to move and do things such that our down time is extremely valuable. I do have kids which makes it quite a bit more challenging. I feel motivated on an hourly basis to accomplish things, though - it matters to me to make progress on the things I care about. There are other people who very much don't care. To them, progress might be watching the next episode of a show, or grinding in some game they love. I'm fine with either type of person, really. It does explain why what seems like an impossible use of time to us is actually very appealing to others. Why would we be in there when there's a book to read, a concept to learn, people we don't see often enough, etc? And yet, why wouldn't they? I think the metaverse aims to appeal to us as well eventually; imagine interactive classes on X or Y to help you learn faster with tools that are currently impossible? What if we could save time by seeing loved ones more easily in the metaverse, making more time for those things we want to make progress on? I'm not bullish on that, though. It sounds creepy. I want to hug the people I love, hear them laugh in person, make them nice food. I'm not interested in expediting that facet of my life. Even now, despite growing up with webcams around I still find FaceTime fairly impersonal and uninteresting. I use it only when I really need to.

spoonjim 5y ago

Depends what you mean by “metaverse.” I have 3 kids and use my Oculus maybe 3 times a week for 30-45 minutes each time. Lovely escapism. I can go to the beach and the mountains and back in a half hour.

irrational 5y ago

Seriously. I don’t have time to do the things I need to do, much less the things I want to do. I haven’t had time for TV, books, movies, etc. in years.

nathias 5y ago

We don't have 16h each day if we're working and sleeping, we have 8.

itronitron 5y ago

Maybe thinking of it as a separate experience is limiting how people make use of it. I wonder if anyone has run remote team meetings or virtual classrooms in Minecraft as I imagine it would be a lot less fatiguing than Zoom style teleconferencing. The fact that in MC you can easily see where other players are looking adds a lot to the experience.

moffkalast 5y ago
I think that's partially how the education edition is supposed to be used, but I've never actually seen it happen.

nottorp 5y ago

You make time for the things that interest you. Also it does sound like you're mixing your run of the mill grindy MMO with Minecraft. Your MC world will still be there if you don't touch it for a week. Even on a server. Okay, it may depend on the culture of said server, but that's exactly the point of the article. I play MC on an 18+ server that's building oriented. That means everyone has a job and other interests. We just show up and place our blocks when we feel like it. I just logged in yesterday after a 2 week break. People disappear for months. Nobody sees a problem with it.

jgilias 5y ago

I feel the same. The other day there was a video submit to HN that I didn't watch because I wasn't in a situation where I could watch a video. Basically making pancakes for kids, having an IRL conversation in the background, and checking HN while waiting to turn the pancake. If HN was on metaverse where I have to get an immersive headset on to use it... Yeah, I wouldn't be using it nearly as often as I do. As you get older, the best feature of our existing 'metaverse' is its ability to integrate with the 'meat-a-verse' seamlessly. The higher the barrier of moving between the *verses, the harder it is to use the one in which we can't actually keep our meat fit and fed. But what do I know (old man yelling at clouds).

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

And what about videogames? Some people spend thousands of hours each year playing videogames, and not all of them are high school or college students.

nels 5y ago

The concept of the metaverse also involves doing those activities (e.g., work, fitness, entertainment) inside the metaverse. For instance, the home workout videos that people watch on their TVs these days could someday be replaced by an immersive fitness experience on AR glasses.