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Little wonder Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on the idea of the metaverse as his recent brushes with commercial and financial realities don’t appear to have gone down altogether too well. The problem, in a nutshell, is that Meta (parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) is losing users (specifically to the Chinese-owned TikTok) and Apple’s continued changes to privacy settings mean a massive $10bn hit to its digital ad revenue. Notwithstanding there always comes a time in every bull market where the dreams of investors and speculators collide with the changing facts on the ground, the company would appear to be experiencing decelerating growth, a relatively stale core product suite and spiralling costs. So what exactly is this metaverse that he’s gambling big on?
He himself describes it as “an internet you’re inside of, rather than just looking at”. Apparently, it’s a Matrix-like future where virtual realities are readily accessible to everyone, whether undertaking daily corporate business or slaying the fire-breathing dragon. Zuckerberg’s hope is that in the none-too-distant future more and more of us will find the real world increasing squalid and unfriendly and migrate towards his virtual realm where we will all live in sprawling mansions, drive the latest Lamborghini and spend time, virtually and virtuously, with those we truly love.
Facebook already owns the market-leading VR headset manufacturer, Oculus, and it’s developing Horizon Workrooms, where up to fifty colleagues in their wacky, cartoony and completely unrealistic avatar guises can gather, talk, work and goon-about just as they, er… would in the office. To further enhance the experience the company is pinning its hopes on a new range of smart-glasses that supposedly seamlessly meld the real and digital worlds. Probably.
The holy grail of that particular ‘meld’ is that the virtual world should feel ‘persistent’ ie that they shouldn’t freeze or end, and that they should offer a feeling of ‘presence’, which both kinda sound to me like another word for real? These developments, along with a greater degree of interoperability between the likes of Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation, would apparently complete his view of a simulated universe where we work, attend meetings, play, buy and sell (remember Libra, his crypto?), hang-out and all live happily ever after.
Now, cards-on-the-table, I’ve never had a Facebook account, have yet to manage my footie dream team on FIFA and have so far resisted the temptation to snapchat a dick-pic to you all, so maybe I’m not the best person to comment on future tech movements but, hand-on-heart, it’s a prospect that chills me to the core and makes me thank my lucky-stars I’m neither shareholder nor stakeholder in the supposed great visionary’s new plaything.
