The ‘metaverse’ is popping up everywhere nowadays. Facebook changed its name to Meta, even Howard Lindzon embraced it for a while, at one point using “Metaverse Lindzon” on his Twitter profile.
But what exactly is the metaverse? We’ll go to Wikipedia for a standard definition:
The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet. The word “metaverse” is made up of the prefix “meta” (meaning beyond) and the stem “verse” (a backformation from “universe”); the term is typically used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe.
This has profound implications for our future. It’s exciting, yet sad at the same time. To consider the impact, I listened to a conversation between Jim O’Shaughnessy and Tom Morgan on Infinite Loops.
Tom recently wrote the metaverse is a “winner take all” scenario. Jim disagreed. He thinks the new digital ‘metaverse’ will have a host of things people can do. Jim points to Substack as he watches popular journalists abandon prestigious posts like lead writer for Rolling Stone, or the New Yorker, to embrace the digital frontier.
“We’re not even close to the end game,” Jim says. “The more people understand that the leverage that the digital universe gives you is enormous. It’s no longer your CV… In the new world, your CV is your newsletter you put out every day and it isn’t suggesting competence; it’s demonstrating competence week after week after week.”
For his part, Tom agrees in the power of things like social networks and the internet. He begins to diverge when it comes to the algorithms, which end up taking you down unpleasant, emotionally draining rabbit holes.
To navigate the coming metaverse, Tom says you’ll need to curate. You have to set up filters, or you’re going to waste all of your attention, which is the only asset that matters in your life. It’s possible, in the winner takes all scenario, that the metaverse is tailed. Taylor Swift being 90% of the plays on Spotify, while everyone else is stuck on the long tail in their basement not making any money.
Tom says, “I think it (the metaverse) remains a tail distribution until the monetization system gets sorted.” Furthermore, he’s “really scared about the emersion of future generations in the digital world wholesale.”
And I share these concerns. People will continue “worldbuilding” in the metaverse to escape the reality of living a real life. After hours of ‘doom’ scrolling, we’re going to wind up with a whole lot of psychologically damaged human beings unable to cope with “IRL”. I hope I’m wrong.
I tend to be optimistic, like Jim. I certainly don’t rule out Tom’s point of a long tail distribution within the metaverse like we see now with books, newsletters, and other forms of creative content. My guess is the metaverse will follow Pareto’s Law. 20 percent of the creators will control 80 percent of the metaverse. The other 80 percent of us will have to fight for the 20 percent that’s left.
