No, I'm not talking about the latest excuse for plot contortions in the Marvel studios movie franchises.
We are being told to prepare for the Metaverse. We are being told that the Metaverse is coming. Facebook, indeed, has changed its name to Meta, the better to cash in on the Metaverse. Whenever it arrives. Or to create it, and sell it to us.
What is the Metaverse? Well, it seems to be a sort of virtual reality interface to, well, who knows? Social media in general? A social media platform, in the same mode as Facebook? But with avatars? (Instead of faces?)
(Today I saw an article about an artificial intelligence program to turn your image, into an avatar, that looks something, not completely dissimilar to, but not really like, you.)
It's all very meta.
We are already being sold the Metaverse. Perhaps not quite for cold hard cash, quite yet, but we are being prepared for heavy duty sales pitches as soon as somebody comes up with an acceptable platform.
(Maybe that will be a bit of protection for us. None of the existing social media giants, or indeed technical giants, want somebody else to be the Metaverse. As long as they are fighting about it, we are safe from it. Well, relatively safe. I'm sure they'll still try to sell us little bits of it.)
Why should you be concerned? Well let me start off with a different question: why would you need it? As analyst, pundit, and social commentator Neil Postman has said, what is the problem to which this technology is the solution?
But, all right. Let me address the question of why you should be concerned. They are going to sell you the Metaverse. Or, they are going to sell you little bits of it. They are already starting to sell Metaverse "real estate." Even the phrase "Metaverse real estate" is misleading. Metaverse real estate is completely unreal. In the real world real estate has real value because it's real. And because you need it. To have a place to live, or a place to work, or a place to build a factory, or a place to build roads to get goods from one factory to another, or from a factory to the homes. As Mark Twain famously said, buy land, they are not making any more. (Well, except for the Dutch, of course.)
Metaverse real estate isn't real. When they want to sell you more Metaverse real estate, they just make it. And it's easy to make. Because it's not real. It's all just ones and zeros. They are selling you nothing.
Speaking of selling you nothing, the Metaverse will probably be using cryptocurrencies. And NFTs. And using decentralized finance (or defi, for short). Remember cryptocurrencies? That system where you pay in real money, to buy cryptocurrency, with no inherent value of its own, because the people who have created the cryptocurrency are telling you that many people will want to buy cryptocurrency, and you will be able to get real money out of the system, because of the new people, who come in after you, and pay real money, to buy cryptocurrencies with no inherent value. Your return, and the inflation on your investment, depends upon the new people who come in after you and pay real money to buy in. You will be paid from the money that they deposit.
Didn't someone named Charles Ponzi invent something similar a while back?
Metaverse real estate is not the only unreal thing that the vendors of the Metaverse will want you to pay real money for. If you want a house on the unreal real estate, they will sell you an unreal house. If you want artworks in your unreal house they will sell you unreal artworks (at unreal prices). (But charge you real money.)
The vendors will sell you entertainments. These entertainments will be popular. Even if you are the only one attending. It's easy to create a whole bunch of avatars, filling a theater, and creating a whole bunch of applause. Pre-recorded applause. The vendors will sell you games. The vendors will sell you opportunities to interact with your friends. The same friends that you can interact with now for free. Or possibly new friends. Who may or may not be real.
The vendors may sell you opportunities to work, and therefore make money. It'll probably be in cryptocurrency, but they'll probably sell you the opportunity to convert it to real money as well. (For a reasonable fee.) The opportunities to work will probably be real. You will probably have real clients or real employers, so that they can pay you the real money. But they'll charge a reasonable fee for the opportunity to get that work. Of course, "reasonable" will be defined by the vendors.
It may be that, in the Metaverse, you need a thneed to make life bearable, or more enjoyable. What's a thneed? I have no idea. I'm borrowing Dr Seuss's term. But I'm sure that the vendors of the Metaverse will find one, or make one, or imagine one, and convince everybody that they need one.
Still don't think that there are dangers in the Metaverse?
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