10 ms·

Stop taking "the metaverse" seriously, please. It's a rich idiots dream, like a digital Fordlandia. I can hardly blame people for trying to follow trends, becau

Stop taking "the metaverse" seriously, please. It's a rich idiots dream, like a digital Fordlandia. I can hardly blame people for trying to follow trends, because following trends can be lucrative. "The metaverse" is just not the one to follow. It's nintendos virtualboy, vision getting ahead of substance, fixing problems we don't have. If it succeeds at all, it will be a testament to societies ability to bend to the whims of rich idiots. In Facebooks case, they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die before they try to expand on the whole reality thing.

loa_in_ 5y ago
I'm getting really angry at companies squatting names that are basically common nouns. This practice should be banned. It's something I though was more cyberdystopian-esque not reality, but here we are in the future.
- epistasis 5y ago
  A land value tax solves this.
  - intrasight 5y ago
    A land value tax in the metaverse - I hadn't considered that before. I wonder what cryptocurrency will be used in the metaverse?
    - gomox 5y ago
      You should probably google "Decentraland".
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    A land value tax for names? Or well copyrighted ones. I suppose brand reputation could have a value. It could also lead to companies cycling names for cheapness. Imagine say using Toyota-2022 as the offical name for Toyota. The notion sounds a bit silly on the surface, but good enough at least for serious classroom discussions and evaluation.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      Perhaps a land value tax only for dictionary words that relate to the field of use. If Toyota builds a brand reputation, then they should be able to hold on to that brand value without being taxed on it.
  - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
    Good point! Someone should invent a more general term though; at first I was wondering what taxing Facebook's land would do. Perhaps "self-appraisal tax"?
    - cosmojg 5y ago
      Maybe "inelastic resource tax" or "squatting tax"?
    - epistasis 5y ago
      One general term, though it's kind of unsatisfying, is "economic land," and it can refer to things like electromagnetic spectrum too. Any finite resource that that is a factor of production and can not be expanded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_(economics) For namespaces, there is extra value for particular names that come not from any work the owner of the name performed, but rather that comes from the productive activity of others. If I squat "olives.com" in 1994 and wait for the web to get big, and then sell the domain in 2000 to a hottest new direct to consumer olive startup, then any profit from that should really be taxed away. All that "value" came from the work of others that made the web into a valuable place to own some "land."
- Mezzie 5y ago
  As somebody whose primary intellectual interest is how digital communities conceive of themselves and how cultures are curated online, I am not thrilled about 'Meta' to say the least. Thanks for stealing the shorthand I had for explaining what interested me. And never mind what a mess it's going to make for any of us who are interested in metadata versus data. Thanks, Mark. I love it.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  >"squatting names that are basically common nouns" I feel like we should be using the term "scalping" instead. It is much more accurate.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    That's probably not an ideal solution given the history of that word.
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      Perhaps, but scalping in the modern vernacular applies to people buying limited items and then price gouging because of scarcity. And, now that I think about it, "squatting" is also capable of carrying negative connotations when it comes to history in North America.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die The problem is, the "idiot's metrics", that is the engagement time as the ultimate metric of financial success, clearly show that negative content that is bad for your well-being favors them. They literally earn money from your suffering. How could you expect them to give up on that?
zpeti 5y ago
I used to think this but Ben Thompson changed my mind. This meta verse thing really could be the way we work remotely soon. It works as a working space. It works for companies, it could create good work environments, and companies can afford expensive hardware to get people to work more effecively. Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom, not as a Minecraft/Roblox alternative.
- azangru 5y ago
  > Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom What do you think is missing from today's slack+zoom (or discord +jitsi/google meet, or whatever) combo that would make you more productive?
  - zpeti 5y ago
    2010 - what do you think is missing from your work skype group chats that would make you more productive?
    - NikolaNovak 5y ago
      Nothing.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Well, IRC worked well enough as a chat app back the day as well. Besides large group chats, I didn't miss any features compared to Teams. And let's be honest, those group chats aren't that productive most of the time.
  - andreilys 5y ago
    Have you joined any company happy hours with 6+ attendees? It inevitably turns into an awkward mess. Sure you can use breakout rooms but the social happy hour via zoom/slack is not a solved problem.
    - 5y ago
jakupovic 5y ago
You must be able to predict future since you seem very convinced in your view. Maybe you can tell us other things? Will k8s succeed? How about crypto too? You must have so much knowledge /s
- Larrikin 5y ago
  Why is every single one of your posts defending cryptocurrency or k8s?
  - jakupovic 5y ago
    Because personal experience for the last 8 and 5 years leaves me no other choice. Especially concerning k8s, it's simply not believab6 that someone could not use it for modern computing architectures.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      Well I hate to burst your bubble but I don’t use k8s, and I can point to a very large quantity of engineers that don’t either. I also work for a very large company, and k8s is rarely used on other teams. Other things exist and k8s has some interesting problems that make usage in edge cases next to impossible.
      - jakupovic 5y ago
        You are not bursting anything because I value your opinion as much as you do mine(0%). As always time will tell. Also, being used rarely means it's used and growing by simple fact of being existing, therefore you have no standing to "burst my bubble", and only expose yourself as ignorant and uninformed by your own admission.
        tekknik 5y ago
        I was trying to give you insight but you’re clearly a fanboy (Which is a first for me to see in k8s world). When you’re ready to join the rest of us look at things called functions as a service, AWS, GCP and Azure.
wonderwonder 5y ago
Zuckerberg has proven extremely effective at predicting future trends. Look at Instagram and Whatsapp, perfectly timed investments. Zuck has taken long term bets on the metaverse starting with Occulus and now seemingly betting the whole company on it. He could very well be wrong but there are a lot of very smart people at Facebook and on their board I have to think they did some very intensive validation before doing so. It could all go up in flames but I think they are going to take a very real run at it backed by billions and billions of dollars. Don't get me wrong I very much dislike Facebook and the oxygen it provides to extreme and uninformed groups but to think that Zuckerberg is an idiot taking a stab in the dark with the fortunes of a publicly traded FAANG company is not a serious take. "In Facebooks case, they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die before they try to expand on the whole reality thing." No arguments from me, there is a ton of moderation that needs to be added to Facebook.
- tenpies 5y ago
  I always say that if you're interested in the Metaverse, I have many acres of land in Second Life for sale, and as many Linden Dollars as you'd like. This whole Metaverse thing reminds me of when IBM purchased 12 islands and opened a virtual office in Second Life. Of course, as was tradition at the time, someone inevitably showed up with a flying gentlemen's sausage. Eventually IBM decided the whole thing was too costly and abandoned the project. The lesson here is that when IBM gets involved, that's probably the top.
  - geoduck14 5y ago
    Oh wow. Someone already did this! How have I not heard about this yet?
  - prashantsengar 5y ago
    There's a difference in Second Life and the whole "metaverse" just as there is a difference between the time and tech then and now. Not every tech is going to be successful at every time. The same solution can fail once and succeed some other time when there's a change in the market and/or the underlying technology. There's a much larger number of human beings on the internet now. And they are not just on the internet, but they actively use it for a large amount of time. That's the chance in market right now and what will drive the adoption of metaverse soon. The thing that we should focus on right now is whether we want a metaverse owned by Facebook or something that is defined by open protocols.
3maj 5y ago
As far as I'm concerned they're recreating Club Penguin.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Hot take. You're comparing a video game company in the 90's vision and ability to deliver that vision to one of the largest companies in the world ability to deliver? While you may not want the Metaverse, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "If it succeeds at all, it will be a testament to societies ability to bend to the whims of rich idiots.", plenty of people are happy to try new things. Facebook, the social network, is a estimate to massive amounts of people willing to get on board with an idea that is new, at least to them.
xwdv 5y ago
Frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Seems more like because you don’t like Metaverse you don’t want it taken seriously. But it will be serious business.
Hippocrates 5y ago
I'm pretty sure you're wildly wrong about this. Comparing metaverse to virtualboy is a big mistake. Metaverse is not vision over substance. Substance is already there and driving technology to a more refined vision. We’re already spending significant parts of our days working, playing, exploring and communicating digitally. Dating is online. Commerce has moved online. Art and creators are online. Entertainment is online. Exercise is an AR experience. Connecting with IRL and new virtual-only friends is online. What is left? Food, sleep, sex, and odors? Important things, but a relatively small portion of what we do during our awake hours. The substance part of the metaverse is already here and proven. We are in a period of refinement which includes technological advancements in the ways we experience it. More compact wearables (e.g. AR/VR headsets), 3D audio, High res displays and better visuals/graphics and most importantly, bridging these different types of experiences in some way, which is a software problem. These are the areas in which tech is trying to gain control and offer the cohesive experience. I highly recommend you listen to this podcast episode with Bill Gurley (second life creator): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/invest-like-the-best-with-patrick-oshaughnessy/id1154105909 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/invest-like-the-best-w...
- fartcannon 5y ago
  His point is that Facebooks new take on AOL isn't going to be that future, not that that future isn't coming.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- heavenlyblue 5y ago
  We already have a metaverse: it's called "reading books".
  - Hippocrates 5y ago
    That's a wholesome idea and nothing more.
- 5y ago
eric_cc 5y ago
Hot take but I think you are incredibly wrong. Remember that Today show clip from the 90's where they laugh off this new Internet thing? That's you. Ignorance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg
nunez 5y ago
Magic Leap keeps getting GIANT amounts of funding despite not having dropped anything that people can buy (I think they took a DOWN round of $500M this year.) Apple is investing significant amounts of capital on ARkit and AI/ML optimizations at the die level. Google has been dabbling in this space for years and years. Second Life, the non-AR version of the metaverse, was hugely popular back in the day despite the tech at the time (i.e. having to carve time to use it on your computer). Pokemon GO (a Google bet) is still wildly popular. With Facebook doubling-down in this space, yes, I am going to take this very seriously.
- tekknik 5y ago
  AR != VR AR has a very clear and useful future. Metaverse is a gimmick to get people to work and live in a world where facebook, err Meta, can nickel and dime everything. Let’s be clear here, the metaverse is useful for separating idiots from their money (see how much people are spending on fake land atm)

loa_in_ 5y ago

I'm getting really angry at companies squatting names that are basically common nouns. This practice should be banned. It's something I though was more cyberdystopian-esque not reality, but here we are in the future.

epistasis 5y ago
A land value tax solves this.
- intrasight 5y ago
  A land value tax in the metaverse - I hadn't considered that before. I wonder what cryptocurrency will be used in the metaverse?
  - gomox 5y ago
    You should probably google "Decentraland".
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  A land value tax for names? Or well copyrighted ones. I suppose brand reputation could have a value. It could also lead to companies cycling names for cheapness. Imagine say using Toyota-2022 as the offical name for Toyota. The notion sounds a bit silly on the surface, but good enough at least for serious classroom discussions and evaluation.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Perhaps a land value tax only for dictionary words that relate to the field of use. If Toyota builds a brand reputation, then they should be able to hold on to that brand value without being taxed on it.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  Good point! Someone should invent a more general term though; at first I was wondering what taxing Facebook's land would do. Perhaps "self-appraisal tax"?
  - cosmojg 5y ago
    Maybe "inelastic resource tax" or "squatting tax"?
  - epistasis 5y ago
    One general term, though it's kind of unsatisfying, is "economic land," and it can refer to things like electromagnetic spectrum too. Any finite resource that that is a factor of production and can not be expanded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_(economics) For namespaces, there is extra value for particular names that come not from any work the owner of the name performed, but rather that comes from the productive activity of others. If I squat "olives.com" in 1994 and wait for the web to get big, and then sell the domain in 2000 to a hottest new direct to consumer olive startup, then any profit from that should really be taxed away. All that "value" came from the work of others that made the web into a valuable place to own some "land."
Mezzie 5y ago
As somebody whose primary intellectual interest is how digital communities conceive of themselves and how cultures are curated online, I am not thrilled about 'Meta' to say the least. Thanks for stealing the shorthand I had for explaining what interested me. And never mind what a mess it's going to make for any of us who are interested in metadata versus data. Thanks, Mark. I love it.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>"squatting names that are basically common nouns" I feel like we should be using the term "scalping" instead. It is much more accurate.
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  That's probably not an ideal solution given the history of that word.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Perhaps, but scalping in the modern vernacular applies to people buying limited items and then price gouging because of scarcity. And, now that I think about it, "squatting" is also capable of carrying negative connotations when it comes to history in North America.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

> they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die The problem is, the "idiot's metrics", that is the engagement time as the ultimate metric of financial success, clearly show that negative content that is bad for your well-being favors them. They literally earn money from your suffering. How could you expect them to give up on that?

zpeti 5y ago

I used to think this but Ben Thompson changed my mind. This meta verse thing really could be the way we work remotely soon. It works as a working space. It works for companies, it could create good work environments, and companies can afford expensive hardware to get people to work more effecively. Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom, not as a Minecraft/Roblox alternative.

azangru 5y ago
> Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom What do you think is missing from today's slack+zoom (or discord +jitsi/google meet, or whatever) combo that would make you more productive?
- zpeti 5y ago
  2010 - what do you think is missing from your work skype group chats that would make you more productive?
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    Nothing.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Well, IRC worked well enough as a chat app back the day as well. Besides large group chats, I didn't miss any features compared to Teams. And let's be honest, those group chats aren't that productive most of the time.
- andreilys 5y ago
  Have you joined any company happy hours with 6+ attendees? It inevitably turns into an awkward mess. Sure you can use breakout rooms but the social happy hour via zoom/slack is not a solved problem.
  - 5y ago

jakupovic 5y ago

You must be able to predict future since you seem very convinced in your view. Maybe you can tell us other things? Will k8s succeed? How about crypto too? You must have so much knowledge /s

Larrikin 5y ago
Why is every single one of your posts defending cryptocurrency or k8s?
- jakupovic 5y ago
  Because personal experience for the last 8 and 5 years leaves me no other choice. Especially concerning k8s, it's simply not believab6 that someone could not use it for modern computing architectures.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    Well I hate to burst your bubble but I don’t use k8s, and I can point to a very large quantity of engineers that don’t either. I also work for a very large company, and k8s is rarely used on other teams. Other things exist and k8s has some interesting problems that make usage in edge cases next to impossible.
    - jakupovic 5y ago
      You are not bursting anything because I value your opinion as much as you do mine(0%). As always time will tell. Also, being used rarely means it's used and growing by simple fact of being existing, therefore you have no standing to "burst my bubble", and only expose yourself as ignorant and uninformed by your own admission.
      - tekknik 5y ago
        I was trying to give you insight but you’re clearly a fanboy (Which is a first for me to see in k8s world). When you’re ready to join the rest of us look at things called functions as a service, AWS, GCP and Azure.

wonderwonder 5y ago

Zuckerberg has proven extremely effective at predicting future trends. Look at Instagram and Whatsapp, perfectly timed investments. Zuck has taken long term bets on the metaverse starting with Occulus and now seemingly betting the whole company on it. He could very well be wrong but there are a lot of very smart people at Facebook and on their board I have to think they did some very intensive validation before doing so. It could all go up in flames but I think they are going to take a very real run at it backed by billions and billions of dollars. Don't get me wrong I very much dislike Facebook and the oxygen it provides to extreme and uninformed groups but to think that Zuckerberg is an idiot taking a stab in the dark with the fortunes of a publicly traded FAANG company is not a serious take. "In Facebooks case, they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die before they try to expand on the whole reality thing." No arguments from me, there is a ton of moderation that needs to be added to Facebook.

tenpies 5y ago
I always say that if you're interested in the Metaverse, I have many acres of land in Second Life for sale, and as many Linden Dollars as you'd like. This whole Metaverse thing reminds me of when IBM purchased 12 islands and opened a virtual office in Second Life. Of course, as was tradition at the time, someone inevitably showed up with a flying gentlemen's sausage. Eventually IBM decided the whole thing was too costly and abandoned the project. The lesson here is that when IBM gets involved, that's probably the top.
- geoduck14 5y ago
  Oh wow. Someone already did this! How have I not heard about this yet?
- prashantsengar 5y ago
  There's a difference in Second Life and the whole "metaverse" just as there is a difference between the time and tech then and now. Not every tech is going to be successful at every time. The same solution can fail once and succeed some other time when there's a change in the market and/or the underlying technology. There's a much larger number of human beings on the internet now. And they are not just on the internet, but they actively use it for a large amount of time. That's the chance in market right now and what will drive the adoption of metaverse soon. The thing that we should focus on right now is whether we want a metaverse owned by Facebook or something that is defined by open protocols.

3maj 5y ago

As far as I'm concerned they're recreating Club Penguin.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

Hot take. You're comparing a video game company in the 90's vision and ability to deliver that vision to one of the largest companies in the world ability to deliver? While you may not want the Metaverse, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "If it succeeds at all, it will be a testament to societies ability to bend to the whims of rich idiots.", plenty of people are happy to try new things. Facebook, the social network, is a estimate to massive amounts of people willing to get on board with an idea that is new, at least to them.

xwdv 5y ago

Frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Seems more like because you don’t like Metaverse you don’t want it taken seriously. But it will be serious business.

Hippocrates 5y ago

I'm pretty sure you're wildly wrong about this. Comparing metaverse to virtualboy is a big mistake. Metaverse is not vision over substance. Substance is already there and driving technology to a more refined vision. We’re already spending significant parts of our days working, playing, exploring and communicating digitally. Dating is online. Commerce has moved online. Art and creators are online. Entertainment is online. Exercise is an AR experience. Connecting with IRL and new virtual-only friends is online. What is left? Food, sleep, sex, and odors? Important things, but a relatively small portion of what we do during our awake hours. The substance part of the metaverse is already here and proven. We are in a period of refinement which includes technological advancements in the ways we experience it. More compact wearables (e.g. AR/VR headsets), 3D audio, High res displays and better visuals/graphics and most importantly, bridging these different types of experiences in some way, which is a software problem. These are the areas in which tech is trying to gain control and offer the cohesive experience. I highly recommend you listen to this podcast episode with Bill Gurley (second life creator): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/invest-like-the-best-with-patrick-oshaughnessy/id1154105909 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/invest-like-the-best-w...

fartcannon 5y ago
His point is that Facebooks new take on AOL isn't going to be that future, not that that future isn't coming.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
heavenlyblue 5y ago
We already have a metaverse: it's called "reading books".
- Hippocrates 5y ago
  That's a wholesome idea and nothing more.
5y ago

eric_cc 5y ago

Hot take but I think you are incredibly wrong. Remember that Today show clip from the 90's where they laugh off this new Internet thing? That's you. Ignorance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg

nunez 5y ago

Magic Leap keeps getting GIANT amounts of funding despite not having dropped anything that people can buy (I think they took a DOWN round of $500M this year.) Apple is investing significant amounts of capital on ARkit and AI/ML optimizations at the die level. Google has been dabbling in this space for years and years. Second Life, the non-AR version of the metaverse, was hugely popular back in the day despite the tech at the time (i.e. having to carve time to use it on your computer). Pokemon GO (a Google bet) is still wildly popular. With Facebook doubling-down in this space, yes, I am going to take this very seriously.

tekknik 5y ago
AR != VR AR has a very clear and useful future. Metaverse is a gimmick to get people to work and live in a world where facebook, err Meta, can nickel and dime everything. Let’s be clear here, the metaverse is useful for separating idiots from their money (see how much people are spending on fake land atm)