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> Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR. I'm sorry, I think if you want to broaden this term like this you're g

> Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR. I'm sorry, I think if you want to broaden this term like this you're going to have to stipulate some new boundaries. Else, we've got the metaverse: it's just the internet, and metaverse is just the latest in a long line of silly names for it back to the "internet superhighway". And when Di died or 9/11 happened I had a "shared experience across a networked medium" about them, for concrete examples. Metaverse comes from Snowcrash, and there it was... very unquestionably a VR experience as far as I can remember? So I'm not sure where this idea even comes from.

kibwen 5y ago
> Else, we've got the metaverse: it's just the internet, and metaverse is just the latest in a long line of silly names for it back to the "internet superhighway". Yes, this is absolutely correct. A "metaverse" exists in contrast to meatspace. In meatspace I walk down the street, I look through a shop window, I see you browsing inside, I spray some graffiti on the wall, you see the graffiti when you come out of the shop. We have a shared space with the qualities of presence (I passively saw you while you were browsing) and persistence (the graffiti will be there for anyone to see). In the metaverse, I open some application on a computer, I look at some window or readout, I see that you're online (maybe I just see a light next to a username, or maybe I see your WoW character dancing shirtless outside of Goldshire), I leave something persistent (maybe a comment on a blog post, maybe a spray on the wall in an MMOFPS), which is available for you to see at some point. There are hundreds of metaverses (that's nearly the whole point; a metaverse is a virtual space that isn't bound by the rules and limits of physical space, so why not inhabit a few dozen?) of varying complexity (many websites, IRC, BBSes) and immersiveness (Minecraft, Second Life, PlayStation Home). VR isn't intrinsic to the idea of a metaverse, it's just one potential realization of the idea. > Metaverse comes from Snowcrash, and there it was... very unquestionably a VR experience as far as I can remember? Stephenson depicted his metaverse as a virtual space for the sake of the reader's imagination, so that they could envision something real and familiar instead of just a bunch of people clacking away on keyboards. The "virtual street" metaphor used in Snow Crash was always just a convenient literary device, and not at all the point of the metaverse, which to reiterate is the idea of a virtual shared universe in which to exist that is unbound from the restrictions of the physical universe.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  The depiction was as relevant to the WWW as the browser is: the presentation is up to the client, remember that Lynx and Firefox are both perfectly good web clients (in principle, we've killed that aspect of the web for the most part by insisting on pixel perfect copies instead of broad rendering hints). But depending on bandwidth and rendering capability of your device you could have the entirety of the gamma ranging from text-only all the way to full immersive 3D and everything in between.
  - jimmySixDOF 5y ago
    You have the right take here - the Metaverse is basically the internet with a Z axis in the DOM - and anyone is free to do with that as they may. Its been around for longer than Second Life in pancake kvm forms but the latest iteration is based on Immersion or Embodied experience facilitated by the new hardware price/performance advances. VR hardware is just about over the chasm and proper wide fov AR is on the horizon although semi AR/MR is possible today (e.g. Pokemon Go as a shared overlay of digital world space on to a shared real world space). The Immersive Embodied Metaverse is available over the internet using open W3C WebXR standards today and this will get better as the space and infrastructure matures.
    - alehlopeh 5y ago
      “The internet with a Z axis in the DOM” doesn’t really make sense when you consider that the DOM already has a Z axis, and it’s a web thing not an internet thing.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Incidentally, those of us old enough may remember the number of websites having "streets" and "neighbourhoods" in the 90s while people were still trying to figure out how to translate things from offline to online. Virtual shopping malls where you would "walk" around by clicking around websites.
Closi 5y ago
I think metaverse is just a fancy name for communicating with people online supported by technology (both present technology, future technology and meatspace communications supported by technology). It’s clear from Facebook’s presentations for instance that they consider text messaging via WhatsApp to class as part of the metaverse. It’s not anything new, but I think the metaverse strategy is basically Facebook saying “we want to own all communications, and push the boundaries of what owning communications even means”. That’s my take anyway, but I have found most people are focused on the VR aspect and have missed the more scary all-encompassing and broader definition.
- kibwen 5y ago
  I would classify it as slightly more than communication; a metaverse also has to give you some way to "inhabit" it. We're communicating on HN, but HN doesn't really have a way to inhabit it, so I wouldn't call HN a metaverse.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Every registered user is an inhabitant, every passerby an observing alien that might convert into an inhabitant at some point.
- whoisthemachine 5y ago
  This was my understanding as well. In many ways, it feels like the "metaverse" is already here and has been for a while, it's mostly Facebook and their ancillary apps + Twitter for me.
- elcano 5y ago
  Yeah. We still need to see how Facebook/Meta wants to materialize this. Maybe they want to break the boundaries between your real self (as you consume apps like WhatsApp and Instagram), your social profile (true self in virtual world like the closed garden in Facebook) and the avatar in a world like Second Life. This would be a gold mine, because they already can target ads to you in the real world, so they could do it there too. Doing it were the people use fake avatars is not so easy. So think that every user is an inhabitant, a citizen, a potential buyer in the virtual and the real world, but also a potential business owner in the virtual world. Business owners will be tax payers that must pay fees to operate on this city-state that will have internal laws that except for few cases (at most) will not be subject to government laws and constitutional protection, and if you are difficult or problematic the authority will be able to expatriate you without prior notice, regardless of time or money invested in the platform. Maybe, at most, they could offer arbitration with a company that knows that if they don't favor Meta the contract will not be renewed. So yeah. It is a good idea, if they can pull it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
JimDabell 5y ago
> Metaverse comes from Snowcrash, and there it was... very unquestionably a VR experience as far as I can remember? There was a two dimensional interface called Flatland that worked like a CLI. Hiro used it to manipulate the virus without viewing it.

kibwen 5y ago

> Else, we've got the metaverse: it's just the internet, and metaverse is just the latest in a long line of silly names for it back to the "internet superhighway". Yes, this is absolutely correct. A "metaverse" exists in contrast to meatspace. In meatspace I walk down the street, I look through a shop window, I see you browsing inside, I spray some graffiti on the wall, you see the graffiti when you come out of the shop. We have a shared space with the qualities of presence (I passively saw you while you were browsing) and persistence (the graffiti will be there for anyone to see). In the metaverse, I open some application on a computer, I look at some window or readout, I see that you're online (maybe I just see a light next to a username, or maybe I see your WoW character dancing shirtless outside of Goldshire), I leave something persistent (maybe a comment on a blog post, maybe a spray on the wall in an MMOFPS), which is available for you to see at some point. There are hundreds of metaverses (that's nearly the whole point; a metaverse is a virtual space that isn't bound by the rules and limits of physical space, so why not inhabit a few dozen?) of varying complexity (many websites, IRC, BBSes) and immersiveness (Minecraft, Second Life, PlayStation Home). VR isn't intrinsic to the idea of a metaverse, it's just one potential realization of the idea. > Metaverse comes from Snowcrash, and there it was... very unquestionably a VR experience as far as I can remember? Stephenson depicted his metaverse as a virtual space for the sake of the reader's imagination, so that they could envision something real and familiar instead of just a bunch of people clacking away on keyboards. The "virtual street" metaphor used in Snow Crash was always just a convenient literary device, and not at all the point of the metaverse, which to reiterate is the idea of a virtual shared universe in which to exist that is unbound from the restrictions of the physical universe.

jacquesm 5y ago
The depiction was as relevant to the WWW as the browser is: the presentation is up to the client, remember that Lynx and Firefox are both perfectly good web clients (in principle, we've killed that aspect of the web for the most part by insisting on pixel perfect copies instead of broad rendering hints). But depending on bandwidth and rendering capability of your device you could have the entirety of the gamma ranging from text-only all the way to full immersive 3D and everything in between.
- jimmySixDOF 5y ago
  You have the right take here - the Metaverse is basically the internet with a Z axis in the DOM - and anyone is free to do with that as they may. Its been around for longer than Second Life in pancake kvm forms but the latest iteration is based on Immersion or Embodied experience facilitated by the new hardware price/performance advances. VR hardware is just about over the chasm and proper wide fov AR is on the horizon although semi AR/MR is possible today (e.g. Pokemon Go as a shared overlay of digital world space on to a shared real world space). The Immersive Embodied Metaverse is available over the internet using open W3C WebXR standards today and this will get better as the space and infrastructure matures.
  - alehlopeh 5y ago
    “The internet with a Z axis in the DOM” doesn’t really make sense when you consider that the DOM already has a Z axis, and it’s a web thing not an internet thing.
vidarh 5y ago
Incidentally, those of us old enough may remember the number of websites having "streets" and "neighbourhoods" in the 90s while people were still trying to figure out how to translate things from offline to online. Virtual shopping malls where you would "walk" around by clicking around websites.

Closi 5y ago

I think metaverse is just a fancy name for communicating with people online supported by technology (both present technology, future technology and meatspace communications supported by technology). It’s clear from Facebook’s presentations for instance that they consider text messaging via WhatsApp to class as part of the metaverse. It’s not anything new, but I think the metaverse strategy is basically Facebook saying “we want to own all communications, and push the boundaries of what owning communications even means”. That’s my take anyway, but I have found most people are focused on the VR aspect and have missed the more scary all-encompassing and broader definition.

kibwen 5y ago
I would classify it as slightly more than communication; a metaverse also has to give you some way to "inhabit" it. We're communicating on HN, but HN doesn't really have a way to inhabit it, so I wouldn't call HN a metaverse.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Every registered user is an inhabitant, every passerby an observing alien that might convert into an inhabitant at some point.
whoisthemachine 5y ago
This was my understanding as well. In many ways, it feels like the "metaverse" is already here and has been for a while, it's mostly Facebook and their ancillary apps + Twitter for me.
elcano 5y ago
Yeah. We still need to see how Facebook/Meta wants to materialize this. Maybe they want to break the boundaries between your real self (as you consume apps like WhatsApp and Instagram), your social profile (true self in virtual world like the closed garden in Facebook) and the avatar in a world like Second Life. This would be a gold mine, because they already can target ads to you in the real world, so they could do it there too. Doing it were the people use fake avatars is not so easy. So think that every user is an inhabitant, a citizen, a potential buyer in the virtual and the real world, but also a potential business owner in the virtual world. Business owners will be tax payers that must pay fees to operate on this city-state that will have internal laws that except for few cases (at most) will not be subject to government laws and constitutional protection, and if you are difficult or problematic the authority will be able to expatriate you without prior notice, regardless of time or money invested in the platform. Maybe, at most, they could offer arbitration with a company that knows that if they don't favor Meta the contract will not be renewed. So yeah. It is a good idea, if they can pull it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

JimDabell 5y ago

> Metaverse comes from Snowcrash, and there it was... very unquestionably a VR experience as far as I can remember? There was a two dimensional interface called Flatland that worked like a CLI. Hiro used it to manipulate the virus without viewing it.