8 ms·

I’ve seen the metaverse – and I don’t want it

36 points by jrepinc 5y ago

excalibur 5y ago
People are talking about the metaverse? I thought it was just a punchine in the robot clown's schtick.
dhr 5y ago
The one definition of the metaverse the authour put in is: > If a metaverse is where the real and virtual worlds collide, then Instagram is a metaverse: you create an avatar, curate your image, and use it to interact with other people. In that case, seems like they have a problem with the present state of the internet, not the future.
herbst 5y ago
So far every metaverse project I've seen has zero idea what they are going for. I don't even get Facebook's concept. Meanwhile we have things like Second Life or even WoW that serve a perfect example for a metaverse already and for years. At this point nobody really seems to know what a metaverse is. Especially not journalists
- dkersten 5y ago
  I really can't figure how metaverse differs from Second Life, especially if SL added VR support. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Or maybe its just hype.
  - lowlevel 5y ago
    I'm thinking of it like Amazon's mechanical turk.. where you become enslaved to do work and solve tasks in a virtual world for fractions of pennies in the form of credits you can't pay your rent with. Zero point one star.
    - herbst 5y ago
      This is also reality for some in second Life and wow too. Hence why they are great examples
    - ikr678 5y ago
      Neal Stephenson wrote a novel (Reamde) about pretty much that exact scenario - companies putting mechanical turkish tasks into an mmo-type interface for players to grind out digital currency.
      - 7thaccount 5y ago
        Makes you wonder if Zuck read it and was like "this sounds like a great idea".
  - herbst 5y ago
    Nothing. No metaverse concept differs from second Life other than better graphics and less loading pains. VR also ist just a visual layer.
  - treesprite82 5y ago
    My guess as to what will concretely emerge is protocols/standards for things like 3D user avatars and world hopping, so that worlds hosted by anyone can be linked up, rather than only uploaded to a proprietary game with rules/technical limitations decided by the game's devs. The "Metaverse" would be to 3D environments what the Web is to HTML pages. But the article's "Ask 50 people what the metaverse means, right now, and you’ll get 50 different answers" is very true. I have no idea if this is what Facebook or Epic Games have in mind.
- smt88 5y ago
  I think the metaverse concept is supposed to enable you to cross between virtual worlds (like WoW and Second Life) without losing your assets or identity. That's the "verse" part: a universe. But also that might not be what Meta means. I don't know.
  - tchock23 5y ago
    This video by a game dev does a decent job explaining why transferring assets won't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8&t=3s It's in the context of games, but virtual worlds have similar dynamics.
    - smt88 5y ago
      Sorry, I should have been more clear: I think the decentralization of shared digital assets is nonsense in theory, and it's even more absurd in practice because of the realities of software. I was just trying to present my understanding of the vision these people seem to have of it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - herbst 5y ago
    Thing is nobody is actually planning to do that. Right now some are trying to build their own small 'metaverses' but a connection, like a open standard is delusional at this point.
    - smt88 5y ago
      I am not delusional enough to think Zuckerberg wants an open standard. I think he wants "Login with Facebook" to apply to cross-platform immersive digital spaces.
  - brettdeveffect 5y ago
    This is similar to an idea we have been playing with: https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse For instance, here is a video of a shared canvas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA
- gruturo 5y ago
  > So far every metaverse project I've seen has zero idea what they are going for. I don't even get Facebook's concept. Neither did 99% of those who jumped on this World Wide Web thing about 20-25 years ago, and yet it turned out to be a big deal after all. Not saying this is clearly headed in the same direction, and I couldn't think of a worse steward than Facebook, but there's a chance this will also be a big deal so people (and companies) are staking claims, associating themselves with it and hyping things up. It sounds like a load of bullshit, but hey, I've been wrong before. On the other hand, I have been wrong about being wrong before, too.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > Neither did 99% of those who jumped on this World Wide Web thing about 20-25 years ago Since when was this true? As I remember it there were many strong and obviously articulated visions of what the web could be.
- brettdeveffect 5y ago
  Here is a different model that we have been working on: https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse Connecting existing worlds that people already choose to participate in.
HellDunkel 5y ago
Who wants to be in that facebook metaverse anyway? The fact that they could not evey make it look attractive in the video is telling. I almost wish magic leap back.
- herbst 5y ago
  Either it will flop or split the world (once again) I too have zero interest in visiting a porn free, 'child friendly', ad invested Facebook metaverse while I have much fun exploring existing ones.
kirykl 5y ago
Metaverse is just strapping a screen to your face
tchock23 5y ago
I really wish the idea of a metaverse hadn't been coopted by the crypto community to sell tokens and NFTs. The author mentions crypto a few times, which is clearly coloring their opinion. I always envisioned the metaverse as a large scale virtual world accessed largely through VR/AR devices, which is a vision that existed long before crypto was popularized.
- heyitsguay 5y ago
  That's basically what I've envisioned and it's how metaverse-like concepts have mostly been treated in literature, but I think the problem comes from a tiny part of that vision - the one where the metaverse is "a" virtual world. It's an intuitive analogy to our physical world but it doesn't really square with how digital technology works - we have lots of virtual worlds today, built with different purposes, different graphics and physics engines, etc. Second Life, Minecraft, WoW, Roblox, Fortnite, etc. It's easy to imagine there being popular virtual worlds accessed through VR that benefit from network effects to become dominant, but that'd basically just be a different interface to commercial technologies that already exist. Viewed in that light, "the metaverse" is evolutionary, not revolutionary - cooler 3D worlds, with more fun stuff to do in them as our computing power keeps growing, some of which may be accessed through VR and not just a screen and keyboard and mouse. But to see the metaverse as anything bigger than that is to succumb to a marketing blitz, I believe.
brettdeveffect 5y ago
We have been working on a different model, where we connect worlds people already participate in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA More here: https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse

36 points by jrepinc 5y ago

People are talking about the metaverse? I thought it was just a punchine in the robot clown's schtick.

dhr 5y ago

The one definition of the metaverse the authour put in is: > If a metaverse is where the real and virtual worlds collide, then Instagram is a metaverse: you create an avatar, curate your image, and use it to interact with other people. In that case, seems like they have a problem with the present state of the internet, not the future.

herbst 5y ago

So far every metaverse project I've seen has zero idea what they are going for. I don't even get Facebook's concept. Meanwhile we have things like Second Life or even WoW that serve a perfect example for a metaverse already and for years. At this point nobody really seems to know what a metaverse is. Especially not journalists

dkersten 5y ago
I really can't figure how metaverse differs from Second Life, especially if SL added VR support. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Or maybe its just hype.
- lowlevel 5y ago
  I'm thinking of it like Amazon's mechanical turk.. where you become enslaved to do work and solve tasks in a virtual world for fractions of pennies in the form of credits you can't pay your rent with. Zero point one star.
  - herbst 5y ago
    This is also reality for some in second Life and wow too. Hence why they are great examples
  - ikr678 5y ago
    Neal Stephenson wrote a novel (Reamde) about pretty much that exact scenario - companies putting mechanical turkish tasks into an mmo-type interface for players to grind out digital currency.
    - 7thaccount 5y ago
      Makes you wonder if Zuck read it and was like "this sounds like a great idea".
- herbst 5y ago
  Nothing. No metaverse concept differs from second Life other than better graphics and less loading pains. VR also ist just a visual layer.
- treesprite82 5y ago
  My guess as to what will concretely emerge is protocols/standards for things like 3D user avatars and world hopping, so that worlds hosted by anyone can be linked up, rather than only uploaded to a proprietary game with rules/technical limitations decided by the game's devs. The "Metaverse" would be to 3D environments what the Web is to HTML pages. But the article's "Ask 50 people what the metaverse means, right now, and you’ll get 50 different answers" is very true. I have no idea if this is what Facebook or Epic Games have in mind.
smt88 5y ago
I think the metaverse concept is supposed to enable you to cross between virtual worlds (like WoW and Second Life) without losing your assets or identity. That's the "verse" part: a universe. But also that might not be what Meta means. I don't know.
- tchock23 5y ago
  This video by a game dev does a decent job explaining why transferring assets won't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8&t=3s It's in the context of games, but virtual worlds have similar dynamics.
  - smt88 5y ago
    Sorry, I should have been more clear: I think the decentralization of shared digital assets is nonsense in theory, and it's even more absurd in practice because of the realities of software. I was just trying to present my understanding of the vision these people seem to have of it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- herbst 5y ago
  Thing is nobody is actually planning to do that. Right now some are trying to build their own small 'metaverses' but a connection, like a open standard is delusional at this point.
  - smt88 5y ago
    I am not delusional enough to think Zuckerberg wants an open standard. I think he wants "Login with Facebook" to apply to cross-platform immersive digital spaces.
- brettdeveffect 5y ago
  This is similar to an idea we have been playing with: https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse For instance, here is a video of a shared canvas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA
gruturo 5y ago
> So far every metaverse project I've seen has zero idea what they are going for. I don't even get Facebook's concept. Neither did 99% of those who jumped on this World Wide Web thing about 20-25 years ago, and yet it turned out to be a big deal after all. Not saying this is clearly headed in the same direction, and I couldn't think of a worse steward than Facebook, but there's a chance this will also be a big deal so people (and companies) are staking claims, associating themselves with it and hyping things up. It sounds like a load of bullshit, but hey, I've been wrong before. On the other hand, I have been wrong about being wrong before, too.
- zepto 5y ago
  > Neither did 99% of those who jumped on this World Wide Web thing about 20-25 years ago Since when was this true? As I remember it there were many strong and obviously articulated visions of what the web could be.
brettdeveffect 5y ago
Here is a different model that we have been working on: https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse Connecting existing worlds that people already choose to participate in.

HellDunkel 5y ago

Who wants to be in that facebook metaverse anyway? The fact that they could not evey make it look attractive in the video is telling. I almost wish magic leap back.

herbst 5y ago
Either it will flop or split the world (once again) I too have zero interest in visiting a porn free, 'child friendly', ad invested Facebook metaverse while I have much fun exploring existing ones.

kirykl 5y ago

Metaverse is just strapping a screen to your face

tchock23 5y ago

I really wish the idea of a metaverse hadn't been coopted by the crypto community to sell tokens and NFTs. The author mentions crypto a few times, which is clearly coloring their opinion. I always envisioned the metaverse as a large scale virtual world accessed largely through VR/AR devices, which is a vision that existed long before crypto was popularized.

heyitsguay 5y ago
That's basically what I've envisioned and it's how metaverse-like concepts have mostly been treated in literature, but I think the problem comes from a tiny part of that vision - the one where the metaverse is "a" virtual world. It's an intuitive analogy to our physical world but it doesn't really square with how digital technology works - we have lots of virtual worlds today, built with different purposes, different graphics and physics engines, etc. Second Life, Minecraft, WoW, Roblox, Fortnite, etc. It's easy to imagine there being popular virtual worlds accessed through VR that benefit from network effects to become dominant, but that'd basically just be a different interface to commercial technologies that already exist. Viewed in that light, "the metaverse" is evolutionary, not revolutionary - cooler 3D worlds, with more fun stuff to do in them as our computing power keeps growing, some of which may be accessed through VR and not just a screen and keyboard and mouse. But to see the metaverse as anything bigger than that is to succumb to a marketing blitz, I believe.

brettdeveffect 5y ago

We have been working on a different model, where we connect worlds people already participate in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVzxgjJNdA More here: https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse https://www.betabytes.io/blog/introducing-the-metaverse