I'm of the age that I remember getting sucked in to the Second Life hype. MMORPGs were also becoming popular, and there was this narrative that "virtual worlds" were on a rocketship to the future. Universities and companies paid stupid amounts of money for digital real estate. Wired ran profiles of Second Life speculators who got rich in the bubble.<p>Now I guess we call virtual worlds "the metaverse" and think it'll be different because people have to buy an expensive and uncomfortable VR headset?
I agree with the thrust of this article, especially this line:<p>"For a long time I felt somewhat unique in this regard, but COVID has made my longstanding reality the norm for many more people. Their physical world is defined by their family and hometown, which no longer needs to be near their work, which is entirely online; everything from friends to entertainment has followed the same path."<p>The unbundling of physical and digital reality is certainly happening, but I also think new forms of rebundling are also happening. Before COVID, I would never dream of calling my daughter in the next room, but now I do it all the time - not (only) because I am lazy, but because the call or text is less intrusive than knocking on the door and therefore has better UX.<p>To see what's happening as only:<p>1) "the real world is the combination of the digital world and the physical world and that the real world is not just the physical world."<p>or<p>2) "the Metaverse is the set of experiences that are completely online, and thus defined by their malleability and scalability"<p>is to downplay the combinatorial possibilities of dis-aggregating and recombining the digital and the physical. It feels to me that a certain 'computational style' is becoming widespread tacit knowledge and shouldn't be identified only with the digital/online/virtual.
"In the end, the most important connection between the Metaverse and the physical world will be you: right now you are in the Metaverse, reading this Article; perhaps you will linger on Twitter or get started with your remote work. And then you’ll stand up from your computer, or take off your headset, eat dinner and tuck in your kids, aware that their bifurcated future will be fundamentally different from your unitary past."<p>How is this different than me in 2001 using ICQ to chat with my friends/classmates about life/schoolwork, using Yahoo to read news, using forums to consume content and learn new things, and going out to dinner with my family/girlfriend IRL?<p>How is any of this actually a new paradigm?
I still cannot see any reason I'd want to connect any identifier or avatar across different online worlds apart from gaming. Am I missing something?<p>For sure Meta wants to connect everything so it has a whole picture of its users so it can serve ads but why would people be compelled to connect their discords/linkedin/facebook or whatever personas when a key part of the web is anonymity, I don't even use the same handles for hn/reddit
> This gets to the other mistake Diehl makes in that article, which, ironically, echoes a similar mistake made by many crypto absolutists: there is no reason why the Metaverse, or any web application for that matter, will be built on the blockchain. Why would you use the world’s slowest database when a centralized one is far more scalable and performant? It is not as if WhatsApp or Signal are built on top of the plain old telephone service; they simply leverage the fact that phone numbers are unique and thus suitable as identifiers. This is the type of role blockchains will fill: provide uniqueness and portability where necessary, in a way that makes it possible to not just live your life entirely online, but as many lives simultaneously as your might wish, locked in nowhere.<p>Halfway through this paragraph I thought Ben was arguing that phone numbers are a centralized service that shows that blockchain isn't necessary. Instead, he's arguing that blockchain will create "unique portable identities." This is an old vision that many companies have been pushing for a long time - "log in with Facebook" "sign in with Apple" etc. Today, we've pretty much settled on phone numbers and email addresses as a unique, portable identifier (plus accounts from big tech companies). You can even easily create new email addresses if you want multiple identities. Why do we need the blockchain to solve this problem either?<p>Another example of the same thing: he says that it doesn't make sense to use LLCs, which are built for the physical world, in the digital world. He says that the digital world can use DAOs. But, of course, "Stratechery" isn't a DAO - it's an LLC. Meta is an LLC. LLCs are already non-physical, even if they're not purely digital. That's precisely why LLCs were invented - to decouple capital from physical ownership. Why do we need DAOs when we already have LLCs? Is it just that you don't need a lawyer to make a DAO?<p>Ben spends a lot of time in this article arguing that blockchain can be better than centralized services for some purposes - but then fails to argue what those purposes are, in my opinion.<p>To me, conflating the metaverse/VR - which I think is overhyped but has some obvious value - with blockchain - which is a lot harder for me to understand - is a mistake.
I am utterly confused about the visions for the Metaverse. Would it be a parallel economy where people can find work, start businesses, buy and sell "3D" property, talk to audiences in an imaginary 3D world? Or probably some kind of a channel that substitutes in-person meetings and social life? In both ways it looks like a dangerous proposition where some arbitrary company defines your reality and the rules of life, the available forms of expression, the available actions, etc.
As the online world socially envelopes our subjective view of reality, is anyone else who grew up predominantly online simply dropping out? I've been spending more time on my meatspace hobbies, watching TV and movies, and generally avoiding interactions with the internet outside of work. I feel better for it and like I had been wasting so much time before on internet arguments and getting dopamine-hits from outrage based media experiences.
He quotes Stephen Diehl but not <a href="https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/nothing-burger.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/nothing-burger.html</a> -- either he missed it or doesn't want to include it because it offers a very sharp rebuke of all things crypto:<p>> Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime.
At this stage in development of a new “space” or perhaps I should say “plane of existence” in the case of meta, you need to get as far away from regulation as possible. There will be many casualties, as there always are in pioneering endeavours, but these are just a necessary part of advancement.
> Facebook and Twitter represented Social Networking 1.0<p>No... bulletin boards, usenet, IRC, webrings, livejournals, etc. represented social networking 1.0<p>The difference is only nerds used those services, whereas FB and TWTR are inclusive to normal people.
This is not what I expected, but I guess it tells more about me than anything else given that stratchery doesn't typically cover such subjects. What I thought the subject is going to be about society bifurcation along the traditional 'haves' and 'havenots'.<p>For the record, I am not sure he is wrong. I just went in there with different expectations.
There are only two things at play here: money and energy.<p>Money is believed to be finite, but in truth it's infinite.<p>Energy is believed to be infinite, but apparently it's finite.<p>Who could have guessed that coal, oil and gas are stored sunlight that landed on this planet millions of years back.<p>And then you have men that used money and energy to build this computer network and now we realize only 1% of that networks potential has been tapped because software has been bloated 100x since the C64 for zero benefit.<p>We know there is a 100x to be found but we don't really know how, where or when yet, but everyone is FOMOing around to see where the next liquidity hole will be. Better not miss it this time!<p>VR is one of those liquidity trap dead ends, because the more you look at energy and money the more you'll see that you cannot have 90+FPS on two eyes and still afford the electricity bill unless you are ok with Doom levels of details and more importantly only one player (ready player one?).<p>What I believe is the real immersion/presence enhancement is the merger of Everquest and 3D Mario/Zelda. 1000+ player action MMO with real-time physics, no rubberbanding, open-source, open interfaces and fair licensing.<p>Lower energy consumption, the right to make money and since hardware has provably peaked, probably for eternity; you can build something today that lasts potentially forever, it's truly the opportunity of eternity!<p>We cannot print energy, so if you are still working for the old system it's time to quit, everything is a scam except what you build from scratch on the internet.<p>Make sure you have your meatspace sorted before you jump though, meatspace is about to get a special kind of ugly!<p>Reduce your quality of meatspace life to gain your quality of metaspace life.<p>Delayed gratification is the meaning of life.
> Where I disagree is with the idea that the physical world and the digital world are increasingly “being overlaid and coming together”; in fact, I think the opposite is happening: the physical world and digital world are increasingly bifurcating.<p>Usually I agree with Ben, but on this I think he's dead wrong.<p>For a simple example, text messages are technically virtual, but they arrive on a physical device (your phone).<p>More and more we will see these sorts of interactions increase - whether it's maps displayed on your windshield (or your computerized glasses), the ability to checkout using crypto (Paypal, Visa, etc), or play games (Pokemon Go), we are at the very beginning of the <i>integration</i> of the virtual with the physical.
I just don't see how the metaverse has any more advantages than the virtual worlds of past decades. We've seen it in the mid-90s with many failed companies and only a couple of moderate successes in the 2000s with Second Life and IMVU plus MMOs if you want to expand the definition of virtual worlds to include games. The idea that you can replace the majority of in-person interactions with virtual ones is nonsensical to me; sometimes it's better to let people meet face-to-face. And it just seems to me it's all about puffing up the egos of Silicon Valley executives and letting them evade taxes at the same time thanks to the blockchain angle.
The majority of this article is history telling, told through the lens of one persons particular narrative, cutting that history up into conveniently sized chapters (1.0, 2.0, etc).<p>Then the article shifts gears to the authors own transition to living in a new place, adapting to that change, and then describing the now as a bifurcated existence (real life proximal, and through the invisible network society/work).<p>The second part would have stood on its own fine and didn’t need the “history as I see it” preamble. I don’t know why authorship on the net, in this bifurcated space, has to choose between tweets and long form. It’s ok to write a longer-than-a-tweet developed point.
Agree with the idea that the physical and digital worlds are bifurcating.<p>The main way I see it is in discourse, and particularly the way in which people seem to believe "their way" is the only way, when actually they're just in a bubble.<p>Comments here allude to it. Many people have been diving into the virtual world since lockdowns became mainstream. But many others have gone the complete other way - many of the groups I'm in have been rejecting technology more and more because they now value human experience far more.<p>This is only one example, but as far as I can tell, these two groups are almost completely at loggerheads now, the other side just seems baffling to them.
How many different digital selves are we going to fracture? Ben seems to manage 6 different lives.<p>As a rule of thumb a manager can manage about 10 direct reports. Fewer if there is deep interaction and more if there is only a very light touch expected.<p>Other rules of thumb indicate the people may directly interact with around 100. Given that for some thing to become a registered club in Germany one needs 7 people which may well be sensible lower threshold for a long term social endeavor. Combined give a max of 13 social circles.<p>This thinking is reminiscent of Google Groups social circle thinking but on a heterogeneous technical and administrative foundation.
I like Ben's writing but this one seems a bit of a stretch for me. I do like the bucketing of tech eras. Though in regards to the Metaverse I feel like he might be drinking too much of the kool-aid.<p>Metaverse feels like google glasses to me without any of the actual quasi benefits/hard-tech that google glasses created. That and Zuckerberg has killed any good will to build a project with such grandiose vision with the general public.<p>And any experience to unite it under one roof seems a bit optimistic.
I love the comment about the "real world" being the physical world and the digital world combined. I go back to some of the old computer games I have played, and they seem like real places to me, where I have memories and feel a certain nostalgia. They were certainly a "real experience", even though they were digital.<p>One theory of consciousness is that it is a series of experiences. In that respect digital experiences are real.
> why wouldn’t you want the most immersive experience possible?<p>That folks potentially <i>don't</i> want the most immersive experience possible would be the thing that will end up burning piles of money and sinking the virtual reality vision of the metaverse that some have.<p>It's not a given that people will want the immersion. After all, Facetime is a relatively extremely niche and rare way to communicate every day when compared to low tech texting.
I wonder if more and more people will rather be in the Metaverse like Ready Player One, so that real estate and real world prices will crash. I am looking forward for it.<p>After that, maybe I'll buy an Island and create my own country and invite all of my family members that are now scattered in different countries, and build my own kingdom, in the real world, my own rules, my own philosophies.<p>ah.., a man can dream...
> This is the type of role blockchains will fill: provide uniqueness and portability where necessary<p>What does portability mean in this context? I assume he just means it's a digital asset so it is inherently easy to move around.<p>I believe a better wording would have been interoperable.
My two cents. Great proclamations of vaporware often come before a tech reset - be they VR, AI over reach, future money, or some other boondoggle that everyone is meant to love but actually sucks and people hate.<p>Facebook is pivoting to a non existant technology, and no one even knows whether anyone would want it if it existed. Everyone is dumping dollars on self driving cars and other AI tech that Keeps missing deadlines.<p>As long as there is free money, tech companies will burn it trying to invent the future. But at some point, if the illusion is pierced, everyone will just see a money pyre.
Health care records seem to be outside this vision as they are inherently connected to the physical world yet invaluable for both epidemiology and marketing.
Blockchain I suspect will have a similar future and history to portable document format (PDF), an important facet of a much larger world, a solution that was originally looking for a problem slotted into an evolving world.<p>Regarding online 'chat' clients, Bloomberg terminals have almost literally been the tool used to run the financial world(s) for decades. Different speeds, different needs...
How does one bet against the Metaverse?<p>People hating on Web3 appear to do so because they aren't makers. They persuade and complain, but they don't build or risk. The Metaverse is just another centrally planned architected model that must be imposed from above. From what I can tell, that's just fancy communism meets Bentham and Taylor, all for your own good surely. The current platform owners are just not cool enough to pull it off. Nobody wants to be them.<p>Facebook mainly worked because it had the Eros of a demographic bump from rich, elite college students. ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_(concept)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_(concept)</a> ) When it started, it had the one thing everybody wanted. Now it does not, and economically, it is an inferior good. Instagram will also age out like a boy band. The schools do not have it anymore either. The absolute best the planned Metaverse will achieve is to contain some captive populations, and be a kind of global prisoner entertainment system like television has become.<p>When people say they are doing things "for humanity," it's usually because there are no specific people who actually want what they are proposing. Admittedly it is a familiar conceit, but now I know it when I see it, and I would like to get short.
I'm glad he addresses Stephen Diehl and his anti-crypto screeds. Nearly all of Diehl's criticism is some form of <i>“None of this digital stuff has any real world value.”</i><p>But the thing is, this digital stuff does have value to the people that own them. Diehl's opinion that the value is zero does not make it true.<p>It's very reminiscent of Clifford Stoll's articles. Stoll was a brilliant engineer and writer, but a terrible predictor of the future. "Why the Internet will fail" is probably Stoll's most famous column.