When Facebook bought Oculus way back in 2014, people were skeptical about Zuckerberg’s ability to make the company and virtual reality successful. Now, with Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, we finally have clarity on how he plans to turn the company around.
What Is The Metaverse?
If you haven’t seen Zuck’s Metaverse demo, let me give you the rundown. Essentially, he entered the Matrix, a realm where everything is virtual. He walks around a home before being interrupted by a notification. After choosing something to wear, he is suddenly floating in space with a giant robot.
Then, some of Zuck’s friends (who are real people) appeared in the Metaverse through a mix of virtual, audio, and video calls.
How Meta Plans To Use The Metaverse
I’ll admit. It looked fun… at least for a minute.
Zuckerberg wants to create a virtual world that isn’t just a metaphor for the real world, but sort of “on top of” the real world using augmented and virtual reality. However, I’ve got a couple of reasons as to why the Metaverse won’t even be all that:
- This merely allows Meta to gather every last drop of our data.
- This is another step away from physical interaction with people
As I said, it could be pretty cool. One can imagine seeing Minecraft structures used to decorate tables or turning office desks into challenging obstacle courses for video game cars. But, Facebook is more likely to be putting ad banners on your coffee mug or selling you digital pens that can run out of ink.
If we worked, lived, and played under the roof of one company, it would also allow Meta to gather every last drop of data from every last human being on earth. Whatever we like looking at, whatever do we do for downtime, and whatever we talk about will be data sold to sell adverts.
The most troublesome thing about the impending Metaverse is the ironic purpose of the technology.
During the keynote, Zuckerberg said the Metaverse is about “the most important experience of them all; connecting with people.”
While there will be some interesting uses for the technologies, at its core, Meta is just another step away from physical interaction with people, which is the most important experience of them all.
Final Thoughts
When we make the virtual world better than the real world, the implications are huge. As someone who likes the physical world, the Metaverse is something I want no part of.
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