Facebook’s Metaverse Is A Nightmare

Facebook is now officially a Metaverse company after announcing its rebrand to Meta at its Connect 2021 keynote. Its collection of apps and projects will all fall under this umbrella, a move the company hopes will put out some of the fires burning on its doorstep, drawing attention away from Facebook. (Nice try.)

But the name change was only part of the show. The real meat of the presentation was the Metaverse. While we’ve already seen the Horizon Workrooms demo, which looked like being trapped inside a world with Nintendo Wii avatars (without the fun sports games), here we were given further glimpses into how Zuckerberg sees the technology working and integrating with our lives.

It was less of a dream and more of a dystopian nightmare.

The demo began with Mark going full Ready Player One, as he metaphorically put on his Oculus/Smart Glasses/insert future technology and stepped into the Metaverse. The visuals turned futuristic — it looked like he was entering the Matrix, perhaps very fitting — and suddenly, everything was virtual. He walked around his ‘homespace,’ a lush home filled with views of palm trees and water before his bliss was interrupted by a notification. After choosing something to wear — an opportunity for Facebook to make billions selling digital items? — he is suddenly floating in space with friends’ avatars, one of whom happens to be a giant robot. Next, friends (real people) appeared in the Metaverse through video calls in a strange mashup of virtual, audio and video. We caught glimpses of other things including Horizon Home, essentially a social hub, Horizon Worlds, where users can build virtual worlds that they can enter, and saw how digital items could be shown in the real world through AR.

I’ll admit. It looked fun… at least for a minute. If someone gave me an Oculus and let me roam around space, or take a trip to the beach, or build my dream home, I’d certainly give it a whirl to satisfy my curiosity. But then, I’d take my headset off and be immediately confronted with the reality that none of it is reality.

It’s important to consider why the company is moving in this direction. Yes, the branding makes business sense. But why the Metaverse? The cynic in me can’t help but wonder if the motive is just to put Facebook’s array of products on and in front of your face, a virtual world full of notifications and adverts, constantly keeping our attention and engagement. If we worked, lived and played under the roof of one company, it would also allow Facebook — sorry, Meta — to gather every last drop of data from every last human being on earth. What do we like looking at? What do we do for downtime? What do we talk about? All more data to sell adverts — a perfect remedy as the company struggles with Apple’s privacy changes. While the keynote touched on privacy, it hardly put these concerns to rest. Finally, it could also be a pivot to make the company more appealing to younger users. Growth is stagnating amongst younger users, and a move into technologies primarily used by that very demographic could reverse the trend.

I’d take my headset off and be immediately confronted with the reality that none of it is reality.

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, the possibilities are almost endless; the bottom line is that this is another step away from physical interaction with people — i.e., the most important experience of them all. A Metaverse world is a potential danger to society, breeding depression, addiction and mental health issues. When we make the virtual world better than the real world, the implications are huge.

We have to ask ourselves, where does it end? Once it’s fully realized, does the Metaverse become our sole means of accessing the world? Do we wake up and plug in for the day? Is the future world one where we perform our work, conduct our relationships, enjoy our activities, all virtually?

It’s impossible to halt the progress of technology. The last couple of years have seen currency, artwork, and work go online, at an incredible speed, with little thought for the consequences. Now it seems our lives are next. As someone who quite likes the physical world, that is a nightmare I want no part of.

So what does this mean for crypto?

According to the company announcement, Meta’s metaverse leverages augmented reality and virtual reality, alongside the possibility of integrating the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Based on the public information of Meta so far, here are the two key differences between Meta’s metaverse and blockchain-based metaverse:

1. Users do not seem to own their assets in Meta’s metaverse

Meta does not mention the use of blockchain technology in its metaverse. While Meta allows multiple content creators to build its metaverse, it does not state that creators will own their assets. The assets in the metaverse are likely under Meta’s control, which is different from decentralized metaverses such as the Sandbox and decentraland.

While Meta mentions the use of NFTs in its metaverse, the company does not reveal further details on how NFTs will be integrated into the ecosystem.

2. Meta’s metaverse is neither crypto-native nor interoperable

According to Meta’s announcement, the metaverse aims to enhance online social experiences in areas such as business, fitness and entertainment. John Carmack, the CTO of Meta’s VR headset company Oculus, believed that Meta’s metaverse should not be considered as a completely open crypto-friendly platform. This presents a stark difference compared to the blockchain-based metaverse, in which the latter focuses on digital asset property right protection and an open, interoperable virtual environment. NFTs are essential to fulfill the vision of a truly open metaverse.

Take the Sandbox as an example. The Sandbox allows players to share, play and display with their NFTs from other blockchain-based metaverses. For instance, users can display CryptoPunks and NBA Top Shot collectibles in the Sandbox. This shows that the Sandbox is a crypto-native metaverse and provides an interoperable environment for users to display their NFTs.

While Meta’s metaverse is likely a centralized one, metaverse-related tokens have benefitted from the announcement. For instance, the price of Decentraland’s MANA and the Sandbox’s SAND rose 47% and 23%, respectively. Meta’s announcement also indicates that metaverse begins to go mainstream, regardless of the degree of decentralization.

So, it’s still the early days of the Metaverse, but things are already getting interesting. More to come.