Limits of the Metaverse

The metaverse is talked about more in our lifetime now than ever before. Even though the metaverse has been around for quite some time now, its widespread application is more relevant now. The metaverse can be traced back to 1992 from a novel called Snow Crash. This novel talks about a “virtual reality dataspace called the matrix”. The metaverse in the novel was accessed through one of the ways it is accessed today—virtual reality goggles. The image users saw when they put on these goggles in the matrix was a single road called, “the Street”. The author, Neal Stephenson, writes: “Like any place in Reality, the Street is subject to development. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality, such as vast hovering overhead light shows, special neighborhoods where the rules of three-dimensional spacetime are ignored, and free-combat zones where people can go to kill each other.” This matrix that came out in 1992 was nothing more than an idea. Metaverse-like technology never really materialized until 2003. Nothing really happened with the metaverse until 2003. 

This is when Second Life was born. Second Life is best described as a virtual reality world where users are able to meet other players, own virtual real estate, and exchange virtual goods. Second Life has been around for two decades now, and it is still going strong. In 2021, the website reported that it has around 64.7 million active users and described itself as a “protometaverse”. The prefix “proto” means the earliest form of, or the first. So Second Life is considered to be the first version of the metaverse. Another reason people call Second Life the protometaverse is because in Second Life you're not able to take your virtual assets out of the virtual reality. This means that if you owned a pair of shoes in one metaverse, you won’t be able to bring them with you if you go to another. Mark Zuckerburg wants to create; not just a virtual experience like Second Life, but the next version of the internet. 

In late 2021, Mark Zuckerburg wrote a letter to his employees which elaborated on his plans for Meta: “ We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn’t the end of the line. The next platform will be even more immersive — an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.” If Zuckerburg is talking about building the next platform, does that mean the metaverse doesn’t already exist? To put it simply, there is no way for an individual to access the metaverse yet, or at least Zuckerburg’s version of it. The metaverse that he is trying to create will be massively scaled compared to Second Life. This new virtual world will be interoperable, have real-time rendering, have an unlimited number of users, an individual sense of presence, and continuity of data. All of these characteristics will be possible by different forms of technology, which are virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and brain computer interfaces (BCI). The metaverse will offer many different user experiences, such as gaming, social interactions, and education. 

There is much talk about the metaverse, but consumers are still wondering when they will be able to enter and use it. Mark Zuckerburg has stated that he intends his metaverse to be ready by the end of the decade but the arrival of it could be sooner than that. All of the major foundational elements are already in place. We can already see how today’s internet infrastructure is based on it being able to have millions of users on the same server. This concept is seen by virtual concerts within the Fortnite game. Fortnite is a game where 100 people compete in a player versus player combat till there’s one player left. This game shows how many users can be on the same server at once and compete in real time. The vice president and general manager of Unreal Engine, a game engine developed by Epic Games which helps make animations for games, stated that the metaverse will require “shared virtual worlds that incorporate persistence”. In other words, the metaverse will be able to have users that can move between virtual universes while bringing all their stuff with them. This means that a user should be able to purchase hats as an NFT and be able to wear them in other universes. Another way the metaverse could evolve is by having different virtual worlds, which could be different servers or places in the metaverse. One world that has already been created is called Decentraland. Decentraland is a world where all the rules will be fabricated by the users in it. The world has its own currency which can be exchanged for cryptocurrency, usable in other worlds. When the metaverse is fully created, decentraland could be a small portion of it where your digital assets can be exchanged between worlds,  like how people in the real world can change goods from different countries. 

The metaverse has the ability to change our lives forever. It will give us the option to express ourselves in new, exciting, and unrestricted ways. Instead of having to go to the same old conference room for meetings, you will be able to transport to an exotic location and completely emerge yourself there. There will be no more boring days at work if we don’t want there to be. We will be able to experience places we have never been before and it will feel like we’re actually there. The metaverse could be where our imaginations can actually become reality. Imagine inviting all your friends to your dream spot. This is what the metaverse could accomplish. 

The metaverse has a long way to go but there are no limits for what could happen. It started with a novel in 1992, and  is now being put into reality due to many big companies betting on it to be bigger than the internet we have today. Time will tell how this all pans out?