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First, the metaverse - Meta's "vision" is a bleak, dystopian colored world without much fun except a few mini-games. It's core idea was/is implemented in way

First, the metaverse - Meta's "vision" is a bleak, dystopian colored world without much fun except a few mini-games. It's core idea was/is implemented in way better ways - Dreams was a great step, Fortnite & Roblox are currently trying to do the same thing, and hell, even old GTA San Andreas and Garry's mod were more of a metaverse than Horizon Worlds ever came to be. On the concept of fun - of course it doesn't understand it. The tech scene has move from the fun, hacker ways into the dark pit of standardisation, processes, bureaucracy and average. Creativity gets sapped out of it to conform to a kafkaesque mind of your average stakeholder. Designer's and developer's opinions get overridden by glorified paper pushers. You can see it happen in every startup, and the valley is the same - to conform to the largest possible market, as it grows, everything has to be averaged out and greyed out - making stuff colorful might exclude a market and we don't want that. Especially if the market is a trillion dollar enterprise-ridden bureaucratic hellhole, since those hellholes are where the easy money is.

imgabe 3y ago
Second Life is probably the most successful metaverse to date. Probably in large part because people could do things like create flocks of flying dicks.
- willis936 3y ago
  I think the best thing Facebook has done for the world has been to not take over Second Life. It's a move that makes perfect business sense but it would destroy an interesting piece of culture.
  - mcny 3y ago
    It might make sense depending on how they structure it? For example, from what I understand when Walmart e-commerce bought jet, they actually gave meaningful autonomy to the acquired jet team. I watched a talk by a guy who seemed genuinely enthusiastic about reading existing code and rewriting it for scalability. I guess my point is if Facebook could give second life money and not exert control / strangle second life people it might work but knowing facebook, that’s not possible.
- MrRolleyes 3y ago
  I think Roblox passed Second Life a while ago. Granted, it isn't targeted towards adults and has a level of moderation second life never had.
- bemmu 3y ago
  VRChat is also still like this, people just creating stuff for no monetary gain, and you’ll see things created for shock value occasionally as well.
  - herbst 3y ago
    IMO one of the things that made second life great was exactly the monetary gain while doing fun things. I literally bought my first Cryptocoins with linden dollars I earned trough reselling in second life. Great times :D
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  I was on SL for a while. Apart from the weird code, where prims would download and appear around you in a more or less random order, it was a dystopian nightmare of consumerised homogeneity and boredom. Mile after virtual mile of people "living" in prims they couldn't afford in real life - boats, fast cars, big houses, perfect clothes and bodies. Flying dicks or no, it was a soul-destroyingly tedious hellscape of people acting out shallow lifestyle compulsions and grifting for lindens. Fun was very much not part of the deal.
  - ohyes 3y ago
    I was blue and I made self replicating prims that could crash the server (not on purpose). And cool looking swords to wear. I had fun.
  - Kye 3y ago
    VRChat is a stronger contender for a non-commercialized virtual space. The most commercial aspect is people commissioning and buying avatars. Otherwise, it's mostly fun making and exploring worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSEtKnU_vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSEtKnU_vw Or hosting entire conventions (furry conventions are non-profit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKd1ZL4K5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKd1ZL4K5Q https://www.youtube.com/@Furality https://www.youtube.com/@Furality Second Life does have some oddball worlds, but they're mostly abandoned art projects that vanish when the owner's card finally declines.
  - pimlottc 3y ago
    What’s a prim?
    - Kye 3y ago
      The basic building block of Second Life before they moved to mesh-based models.
    - dale_glass 3y ago
      Short for "primitive", a building block. Can be a box, sphere, torus, etc. Comes with a bunch of parameters. It results in very particular looks because prim counts are limited and the parameters are not flexible enough. So you get things that look like this: https://www.s-config.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Riot-Ornitz-SL-Gen1-Gryphon.jpg https://www.s-config.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Rio... The point of prims is that they're mathematically generated. You have something that says "Sphere of radius 5, colored green and squished by 20%". Then the client generates the geometry for that, and so it's very easy to vary the level of detail as needed.
- teeray 3y ago
  Minecraft is a strong contender, albeit not a single, unified experience.
  - kawhah 3y ago
    Minecraft perhaps gives us an opportunity to adjust our experience of what a metaverse is, based on how it works and how it is used. Unlike Second Life, everyone doesn't play in one single instance. But there are multiple different notions of replication and simultaneity between players. For example, there are lots of different servers, some with persistent universes, but many with unlimited replicable throwaway universes. Some shared universes are highly coordinated for specific purposes. People play using each other random seeds thereby using parallel universes with identical starting configurations. Arguably this is simply how artificial experiences in information space should happen, and the notions of things like monolithic instances or scarcity of 'land' are simply carry-overs from physical space.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      > notions of things like monolithic instances or scarcity of 'land' are simply carry-overs from physical space Humanity has spent so long scrabbling for scarce resources that we have a hard time even conceiving of systems that are built around abundance. See also DRM and NFTs, which are shamefully evil attempts to re-impose scarcity on post-scarce resources.
    - meheleventyone 3y ago
      This is why I think the broader landscape of multiplayer games and other game-like things is the actual metaverse and we’ve had it since early MUDs that predate Snow Crash. Everything else tends to be a platform and whilst platforms can be part of the metaverse they’ll (hopefully) never be the metaverse.
- kawhah 3y ago
  No, Roblox is by far the most successful metaverse along pretty much any reasonable metric. If it doesn't conform to your ideas about what a metaverse is, or something that Vannevar Bush or Neal Stephenson pictured, that's a reflection on how your own prejudices don't match reality.
  - foobarian 3y ago
    I keep waiting for the Meta-Roblox acquisition. For one, Roblox is the social network for the under 12 demographic, and two, batteries included metaverse.
    - HaZeust 3y ago
      I'll put money on the fact they're in talks of it, the IPO valuation and subsequent movement even shows that they're playing a public-buyout move.
gs17 3y ago
> First, the metaverse - Meta's "vision" is a bleak, dystopian colored world without much fun except a few mini-games. Which always reminds me of the jobs where they use a foosball table or whatever as a selling point.

imgabe 3y ago

Second Life is probably the most successful metaverse to date. Probably in large part because people could do things like create flocks of flying dicks.

willis936 3y ago
I think the best thing Facebook has done for the world has been to not take over Second Life. It's a move that makes perfect business sense but it would destroy an interesting piece of culture.
- mcny 3y ago
  It might make sense depending on how they structure it? For example, from what I understand when Walmart e-commerce bought jet, they actually gave meaningful autonomy to the acquired jet team. I watched a talk by a guy who seemed genuinely enthusiastic about reading existing code and rewriting it for scalability. I guess my point is if Facebook could give second life money and not exert control / strangle second life people it might work but knowing facebook, that’s not possible.
MrRolleyes 3y ago
I think Roblox passed Second Life a while ago. Granted, it isn't targeted towards adults and has a level of moderation second life never had.
bemmu 3y ago
VRChat is also still like this, people just creating stuff for no monetary gain, and you’ll see things created for shock value occasionally as well.
- herbst 3y ago
  IMO one of the things that made second life great was exactly the monetary gain while doing fun things. I literally bought my first Cryptocoins with linden dollars I earned trough reselling in second life. Great times :D
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
I was on SL for a while. Apart from the weird code, where prims would download and appear around you in a more or less random order, it was a dystopian nightmare of consumerised homogeneity and boredom. Mile after virtual mile of people "living" in prims they couldn't afford in real life - boats, fast cars, big houses, perfect clothes and bodies. Flying dicks or no, it was a soul-destroyingly tedious hellscape of people acting out shallow lifestyle compulsions and grifting for lindens. Fun was very much not part of the deal.
- ohyes 3y ago
  I was blue and I made self replicating prims that could crash the server (not on purpose). And cool looking swords to wear. I had fun.
- Kye 3y ago
  VRChat is a stronger contender for a non-commercialized virtual space. The most commercial aspect is people commissioning and buying avatars. Otherwise, it's mostly fun making and exploring worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSEtKnU_vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSEtKnU_vw Or hosting entire conventions (furry conventions are non-profit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKd1ZL4K5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKd1ZL4K5Q https://www.youtube.com/@Furality https://www.youtube.com/@Furality Second Life does have some oddball worlds, but they're mostly abandoned art projects that vanish when the owner's card finally declines.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  What’s a prim?
  - Kye 3y ago
    The basic building block of Second Life before they moved to mesh-based models.
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    Short for "primitive", a building block. Can be a box, sphere, torus, etc. Comes with a bunch of parameters. It results in very particular looks because prim counts are limited and the parameters are not flexible enough. So you get things that look like this: https://www.s-config.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Riot-Ornitz-SL-Gen1-Gryphon.jpg https://www.s-config.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Rio... The point of prims is that they're mathematically generated. You have something that says "Sphere of radius 5, colored green and squished by 20%". Then the client generates the geometry for that, and so it's very easy to vary the level of detail as needed.
teeray 3y ago
Minecraft is a strong contender, albeit not a single, unified experience.
- kawhah 3y ago
  Minecraft perhaps gives us an opportunity to adjust our experience of what a metaverse is, based on how it works and how it is used. Unlike Second Life, everyone doesn't play in one single instance. But there are multiple different notions of replication and simultaneity between players. For example, there are lots of different servers, some with persistent universes, but many with unlimited replicable throwaway universes. Some shared universes are highly coordinated for specific purposes. People play using each other random seeds thereby using parallel universes with identical starting configurations. Arguably this is simply how artificial experiences in information space should happen, and the notions of things like monolithic instances or scarcity of 'land' are simply carry-overs from physical space.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    > notions of things like monolithic instances or scarcity of 'land' are simply carry-overs from physical space Humanity has spent so long scrabbling for scarce resources that we have a hard time even conceiving of systems that are built around abundance. See also DRM and NFTs, which are shamefully evil attempts to re-impose scarcity on post-scarce resources.
  - meheleventyone 3y ago
    This is why I think the broader landscape of multiplayer games and other game-like things is the actual metaverse and we’ve had it since early MUDs that predate Snow Crash. Everything else tends to be a platform and whilst platforms can be part of the metaverse they’ll (hopefully) never be the metaverse.
kawhah 3y ago
No, Roblox is by far the most successful metaverse along pretty much any reasonable metric. If it doesn't conform to your ideas about what a metaverse is, or something that Vannevar Bush or Neal Stephenson pictured, that's a reflection on how your own prejudices don't match reality.
- foobarian 3y ago
  I keep waiting for the Meta-Roblox acquisition. For one, Roblox is the social network for the under 12 demographic, and two, batteries included metaverse.
  - HaZeust 3y ago
    I'll put money on the fact they're in talks of it, the IPO valuation and subsequent movement even shows that they're playing a public-buyout move.

gs17 3y ago

> First, the metaverse - Meta's "vision" is a bleak, dystopian colored world without much fun except a few mini-games. Which always reminds me of the jobs where they use a foosball table or whatever as a selling point.