3 ms·

I think so too. Even in the face of radical abundance, there is a bit of the monkey brain that won’t be satisfied unless it has something that others don’t. I’

I think so too. Even in the face of radical abundance, there is a bit of the monkey brain that won’t be satisfied unless it has something that others don’t. I’m not sure it will matter for all goods, we just need some avenue for expressing status. So maybe personalized/generated content completely dominates some media like movies and news. I could see in-person art like plays and live shows becoming way more valued. One potential “new” art form is the ‘ractive from Diamond Age, where a real actor participates in an interactive VR story/play; inasmuch as there remains a “human touch” that you can notice when talking to someone, I’d expect the premium experience to involve interacting with a real human actor. Even if we do start spending more time in the Metaverse, we will still find ways of making items rivalrous, even though they don’t have to be. Fortnite skins will continue to exist in some form, basically. I don’t think NFTs as currently construed will persist but something similar will take their place; the missing piece was that you don’t have a digital mantle place to show off your NFT to your friends, so there wasn’t actually much status in owning one.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
The key problem with NFTs wasn't the "digital property" part of the equation. It was the cryptocurrency aspect. Digital property, like say CS:GO skins or Roblox stuff, have a thriving market despite only existing as database entries on Valve or Roblox's servers. Importantly, though, they exist in a space that people otherwise want to be in. The big failings of all the current metaverse projects is that they focus too much on the cryptoproperty angle and not enough on establishing spaces people actually want to inhabit. This makes sense: the crypto scene is complicated, but has a lot of money to throw at things. To get that money, you have to deal with that complexity, which ends up committing large amounts of your time and energy into the cryptoproperty angle. Then, when it comes time to attract users, all you have to offer is the crypto stuff. Meanwhile, the crypto stuff doesn't actually solve any problems on the developer's end that existing MMOs face. So you're trying to compete in a ruthlessly hard to break into market, while ignoring the people who have a demonstrated preference for products like yours, because you're busy focusing on the people who want to invest in your product. As long as the metaverse is being built as a cash-grab first, it'll never succeed.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

The key problem with NFTs wasn't the "digital property" part of the equation. It was the cryptocurrency aspect. Digital property, like say CS:GO skins or Roblox stuff, have a thriving market despite only existing as database entries on Valve or Roblox's servers. Importantly, though, they exist in a space that people otherwise want to be in. The big failings of all the current metaverse projects is that they focus too much on the cryptoproperty angle and not enough on establishing spaces people actually want to inhabit. This makes sense: the crypto scene is complicated, but has a lot of money to throw at things. To get that money, you have to deal with that complexity, which ends up committing large amounts of your time and energy into the cryptoproperty angle. Then, when it comes time to attract users, all you have to offer is the crypto stuff. Meanwhile, the crypto stuff doesn't actually solve any problems on the developer's end that existing MMOs face. So you're trying to compete in a ruthlessly hard to break into market, while ignoring the people who have a demonstrated preference for products like yours, because you're busy focusing on the people who want to invest in your product. As long as the metaverse is being built as a cash-grab first, it'll never succeed.