Meta (Facebook) is arguably the company that, due to its media and socioeconomic impact, is generating the most interest on the topic, but the concept, from a commercial standpoint, is not new. Second Life, created by Linden Lab in 2003, was the first truly serious and successful attempt to monetize the metaverse. In this virtual world, users could adopt any appearance they desired through their avatars; build castles, apartments, or whatever they could imagine; and trade virtual objects using the metaverse's currency, the Linden Dollar, which was exchangeable for fiat currencies such as dollars and euros.
Difference between metaverse and virtual reality
These are terms with blurred boundaries, sometimes used interchangeably. The concept of virtual reality developed around generally closed digital virtual spaces, while the metaverse emerged linked to next-generation internet connectivity. The metaverse develops within information technology networks and has a distinctly social focus. It's no surprise, then, that Meta wants to evolve its successful two-dimensional social network (Facebook) into the three dimensions of the metaverse. A metaverse with enormous monetization potential, but not without economic risks for its users, as we can see in both Ready Player One and Upload.
There are already reports indicating that major companies are spending significant sums of money on 'virtual terrains'. What possibilities does the metaverse offer if it is developed and implemented as currently planned?
Again, this isn't entirely new, as Second Life was already selling these 'virtual lands' (islands) 20 years ago. Part of Second Life's success lay in the arrival of brands and institutions that "built" virtual versions of their stores and products on these digital islands: from car dealerships to virtual recreations of universities. The possibilities for brands are enormous, as they can create a virtual space in which to present their new products to a global audience that simply needs to connect to this metaverse from the comfort of their living room. Since the only limit to the digital realm is imagination, a car brand can present its latest model in a recreation of Mars or on the summit of the Himalayas. The metaverse allows for the creation of intense virtual experiences from the comfort and safety of our own armchairs. Imagine an astronomy class taught from inside a galaxy where we can contemplate stars and planets in a way that would be impossible otherwise. The possibilities for education are clearly exciting.
And the flip side: What dangers might this technological construct entail?
One danger already mentioned is the economic risk in a metaverse commercially dominated by corporations, where users pay off their debts with forced labor, as seen in Ready Player One. Potential addictions lurk within an idyllic virtualized world from which we never want to escape, fleeing a less pleasant physical reality. If the film The Matrix showed us a metaverse dominated by a machine that had created a virtual reality in which it kept human beings alive solely to use them as "batteries," a more real risk is that human beings themselves will voluntarily chain themselves to the metaverse, renouncing any other kind of reality.
When could it become a reality, that is, when could we access it?
The development of the internet and the technologies for mass data dissemination, necessary for these virtualizations, is growing exponentially year after year. The development of interfaces (haptic suits and gloves, virtual reality glasses, etc.) to make our interaction with the metaverse as comfortable and simple as film or television portrays it, is not progressing as rapidly. However, if companies with the financial resources of Meta (Facebook) attract investors seeking new markets, the turning point in the formation of the metaverse could occur at any moment. We have seen this in other fields, such as space tourism. Who would have imagined the existence of companies like SpaceX or Blue Origin just 20 years ago?
Author: Dr. José Martí Parreño, Vice-rector for Research and Transfer of VIU
