Imagine you meet with your family members or your friends, but not really, rather in a virtual 3D world. One that is created artificially. You enter this world while you're sitting in your room, using a special headset or glasses. Similarly, you're working or studying or shopping, you do almost all the things that you do in the real world, but not in the real world, instead of in this virtual, artificially created world, using this special headset or glasses right from your room. How does it sound? Doesn't it sound a little depressing? Friends, the Metaverse promises something akin to this for the future. It is touted to be a technology that would replace the internet in the future and will become the future of humanity.
What is Metaverse?
The word Metaverse is made up of two words. Meta + Verse. The word Meta is derived from Greek, it is a prefix that means 'Beyond.' And the Verse comes from the word 'Universe.' We live in this Universe and it will be the Metaverse that will be beyond this universe. This word is used to refer to an artificial world. You might recall another word related to this, the Multiverse. The one talked about in the latest Spiderman film. Multiverse is the concept where there are multiple existing universes, It is something that is even scientifically discussed. Some people believe that there isn't only one universe, rather there are multiple universes, thus the Multiverse.
But anyway, Metaverse means an artificially created universe. The Internet can also be said to be a distinct universe but when you go on the Internet, it is mostly limited to 2 Dimensions only. Whether you're using your phone or your computer, these are 2-dimensional screens. But when Metaverse is talked about, Metaverse would be a world where you can be completely in it. In 3 Dimensions. Like when you watch a film, you wouldn't be watching the film merely as a viewer, you would experience being in the film. For example, you're watching the Dandi March happening, you wouldn't just see the photo of it, or the video of the Dandi March, rather it would be as if you're sitting in a boat nearby and watching the Dandi March as it is happening.
Or when you watch a cricket match on the television, it is in 2 dimensions, but technically, if we use virtual reality, then you would get a 360° experience of watching the cricket match around you. It will try to create an experience that would make you feel as if you're actually at the match. The word Metaverse was first used in the year 1992. In the science fiction book Snow Crash. Written by Neal Stephenson. In this novel, he talked about a dystopian world, a world where real-life has been destroyed the outdoors wasn't livable for humans anymore, so everyone lives confined to their buildings and rooms, and spends their life in virtual reality. That virtual reality, the artificial world, was referred to as Metaverse by him.
After this, a game was released in 2003 called the Second Life. You could play this game on the computer, and create a second life in this game on the computer. Meeting people virtually, buying items, buying properties in the game, exchanging goods and services, and creating realistic-looking avatars. By the way, an interesting fact here, the word Avatar, was first popularised in the 1992 book Snow Crash. This word comes from the Hindi/Sanskrit word Avtar when we call someone a reincarnation of a deity. Similarly, the word Avatar was used here for the characters in the virtual reality that you could create.
They'd be your Avatars. Like this 3-D animation of Mark Zuckerberg created by him, this 3D character is the Avatar of Mark Zuckerberg. This word became more popular in the rest of the world with the release of the 2009 film Avatar. Recently though, many companies tried to create their virtual worlds and Metaverses, but this word was made popular again by Facebook. When Facebook decided to change the name of their company to Meta. Saying that they want to adopt the Metaverse. That they want to expand from being a social media company to a Metaverse company. And Mark Zuckerberg defined the Metaverse in this manner.
"And you're gonna be able to do almost anything you can imagine. Get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create, as well as entirely new categories that don't fit how we think about computers and phones today."
If it were up to Mark, he would've said that you could eat and have bodily functions in the Metaverse itself. Because the more you spend time in the Metaverse, the more data they would be able to collect on you. More they earn. The cons and dangers of it.
Technologies of Metaverse
First, let's see how the Metaverse is created. Various technologies are used here, to create the Metaverse. The first is Virtual Reality. This technology already exists today. But to use this, you have to wear these heavy headsets. And if you have them on for more than half an hour, they start causing headaches, and motion sickness. As claimed by many users. On top of it, the things that you can see in virtual reality now, the level of technology that we have today, is quite poor. The quality of animation that you see in the virtual reality games, the videos that you can see on there, Although it is something that would improve with time.
It is also being hoped that these heavy headsets with the new technologies, would keep getting smaller and slimmer, and eventually, they'd be the size of normal glasses. Where it wearing it and taking it off would be as easy as wearing and taking off a pair of glasses. Whether this would be possible, time will tell. The second technology is AR. Augmented Reality. It would mean that some artificial elements mixed with our real world. It wouldn't be a complete Virtual Reality. An excellent example of it is the Pokémon Go smartphone game. On it, you can use the smartphone to look at the real world around you, but when you look at it through the smartphone, you can see the artificial Pokémons in there.
It seems like they are mixed in the real world around you. Another good example of it is the Google Glass which was released once upon a time. Remember? A product that was released and taken back without people finding out about it. But Google Glass had a huge hype around 2013-14, glasses with which you could add virtual elements in the real world. When you look at the road in front of you, you can have a map at the corner of the glasses, You could take it to someone through the camera, while looking in front of you, even while walking, this feature was heavily criticized. This was mocked so much that eventually, the Google Glass was a huge flop. Apart from this, having 5G technology in the Metaverse is also talked about.
If we're to create a huge virtual world, we'd need to constantly upload and download a huge amount of data, for this, we'd need extremely high internet speeds, we'd need 5G. Additionally, Blockchains and cryptocurrencies are also mentioned, when talking about the Metaverse. When money would be spent to buy anything in the Metaverse, they can't be real money, of course, because everything is digital, so there would be a need for digital currency. This is where Cryptocurrencies come into play. And because there's a large number of transactions constantly, they'd need to be kept secure. There would be a threat of hackers, or the threat of data breaches too, To keep these secure, Blockchains might be used. Apart from it, if you want to buy land in the Metaverse, or some other property, or any asset in the Metaverse, how should that be accomplished?
It is said that it'll be accomplished through NFTs. Non Fungible Tokens. You can think of NFTs as tokens, that exist on the blockchain, and can prove the ownership of any digital asset. How would you prove that you own a particular digital land in the Metaverse? An NFT will prove it. Nowadays, it is being used to buy or sell the ownership of memes. NFTs can be used to verify the tickets to a concert also. If someone holds a virtual concert in the Metaverse. It is something that some singers have already done it. Virtual reality concerts. In it, they get up on a digital stage and perform, and you see them as animated figures and see them perform. It can be used there as well. Last year in September, singer Arianna did this by virtually performing in Fortnite.
When we can get Metaverse?
Although all these technologies exist individually on a basic level, combining them, and creating a true Metaverse will take a lot of time. Mark Zuckerberg estimates that it would take about 5 to 10 years, for the key features of Metaverse to become a part of the mainstream. Several experts believe that it would take decades before something akin to the Metaverse could become so popular, that majority of people would be using it. Many people believe that Metaverse is inevitable. It is bound to happen someday. The next thing after the internet would be the Metaverse. But a critical question arises here. Will this Metaverse be successful? Is there a demand for it? Does anyone want it?
And it is a very interesting question. Because if you look at the technologies like Google Glass, there were a lot of efforts put into making it popular around 2014, Many celebrities went around wearing it, it was handed out to influencers, people made tech reviews of it, showing how cool they were. But eventually, the Google Glass was a flop. There are many reasons for the lack of response. One of the reasons was that they had a battery life of 3 hours only. They looked weird. There was the issue of privacy because they had a camera. Many places had already banned them because with people wearing them, no one knew who was being recorded when. Many countries went about banning them. People couldn't wear them to certain restaurants and bars.
But in my opinion, there was an even more important reason behind the failure of Google Glass. They didn't have any feature that the people truly needed. It did look very cool, a futuristic piece of technology. And the people who owned one of these could show off the features of the Glass, but actual, real-life use was next to none. Anything you could do on Google Glass, you could already do it on your smartphone. And you could do it better on the smartphone. Whether it is looking at maps or talking on video calls, You could do it on the Glass at the corner of the lens, but why wouldn't you just take your phone out of your pocket and use it? There was no use case for the Google Glass.
Something similar can be said about the Metaverse too. It is very cool to try it for the first time, seeing how you can sit in a 3D virtual environment and communicate with others, having 3D meetings, but realistically, why would you go through so much trouble? Everyone needs to put on the glasses, and call everyone else on the 3D setup, it's easier to simply take out the phone and get on a normal video call. It is much easier to do so. Who would go through with preparing for all of it? The same thing for meeting up with friends, You can meet them actually in real life, but even if you want to meet virtually, have a video call with them. Or talk to them via messaging. Is there something extra this special 3D world offer?
Is Metaverse useless?
The technology that is the most popular among people, Is the easiest to use. And provides a clear benefit to the user. If that's not the case, then it would be very difficult for technology to become mainstream. Another example of it was the 3D glasses. There was a time when 3D became the latest trend. Every other film that was released was in 3D, there are many 3D pictures released now as well, but I'm talking about the time when 3D TVs were very popular too. People wanted to have a 3D TV in their homes. It sounds very cool. To have a 3D TV! But realistically, it was bothersome to put on glasses for watching TV. No one wants to put in so much effort. Things should be kept simple. Only the simple things would be successful. If you have the simple option of simply turning on the TV to watch it, you wouldn't care about 3D.
And the additional eye strain and headache while wearing the 3D glasses are unacceptable for many people. This is the reason why the popularity of 3D cinema is sinking. People have started preferring watching 2D movies again. Because there aren't many additional benefits of watching 3D movies. And the feeling of being stuck with the glasses, and the strain on the eyes isn't worth it for the additional advantage of watching the movie in 3D.
The second point of criticism is perhaps more significant. Do we want to distance ourselves from real life so much that we forget how to live real lives? That we spend all our lives in this fake artificial world. If this virtual world becomes so addictive and immersive, somewhere or the other, people will stop worrying about the real world. It is truly dystopian. It will be very depressing. And the book that I talked about, Snow Crash, is a Dystopian Novel, it wasn't something to draw inspiration from. To create something of that sort. It tried to show the Metaverse in a negative light. The third problem is specific to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.
Conclusion
The threat to privacy and data theft, You are tracked on Facebook by all possible means. The exact pixel you click, the content that you like, the accounts you follow, based on it, you are shown similar content. This creates bubbles. You remain in your bubble. You are shown only the things that you like. Because of this, what eventually happens is that, as we witness riots in the real world. Polarisation of people takes place. Left-wing and Right-wing this religion versus that religion, this political party and that political party, people start fighting. And there are literal riots in the world. The blame for the genocide in Myanmar was put largely on Facebook. And because Mark Zuckerberg talks about creating the Metaverse, this same thing will increase 10 or 100 times.
Because they want you to work in the Metaverse, talk to your friends, every movement would be tracked. Each word that you utter, they will track it to sell ads. You will be shown things that you like. You can imagine the same thing on a much bigger scale. Think how dangerous it would be. On top of it, when such a virtual world is being created, a new type of universe is being created here, and it's created by one company. Think how the owner of that universe would be Mark Zuckerberg. In the real world, there is no such owner at least. Mark Zuckerberg would become the literal God of the Metaverse. If he gets control over everything.
If the Metaverse truly becomes successful, suppose 60% of the world's population starts using it, and they start doing everything in the Metaverse, think about the level of power with that one person, that one company, that would own the majority shares in the Metaverse. It is very unethical and highly dangerous. What is your opinion on the Metaverse? What do you think? Will it become popular in the future? Comment below to let me know. If you ask for my opinion, I think some technologies from it that would be popular in the future. But they will be popular in their sectors.
For example, the technology of AR. Augmented Reality. I think it has a very productive use case in engineering, architecture, or even in the field of medicine. Where you need to think in 3D. Using 3D models would make the work more efficient and overall better. Especially if you could interact with 3D models. I believe it has great potential in many business areas and industries, these types of technologies.
