Just a couple of years ago the metaverse seemed ready to conquer the world and now we do not hear much about it. What happened to the metaverse? Is it dead, gone into hiding, or living under an assumed name? It turns out that the last option may be the closest to the truth. Prior to Facebook changing its name to Meta, the term metaverse was not used much to describe virtual reality technologies. Rather folks worked on technologies for augmented worlds, extended reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality or worlds. When Meta pushed metaverse as a term describing all of this they also pushed the idea that folks would spend much of their lives immersed in virtual or digital lives where they would socialize, shop, and work. Much of what was previously envisioned is slowly but surely coming to be, several steps away from the hype that caused folks to think it was just around the corner.
Exit NFT Mania and Enter Spatial Computing
It was just a year or so ago that Metaverse NFTs were a big deal. A way to monetize the gaming, metaverse, and non-fungible token world was to let people gain wealth by way of NFTs such as tokens for property in online games. The wealth accumulated via NFTs in video games is dependent on game popularity as well as the belief that NFTs will retain value and/or increase in value over time. The decline in NFT popularity has, in turn, resulted in a decline in interest in the metaverse. Meanwhile, Meta is not the only big company putting money into R&D for virtual reality technologies. Apple refers to spatial computing in regard to their VR efforts and other actors in this niche have reverted to using terms like mixed reality, extended reality, etc. Thus the work continues under a variety of names for a variety of purposes.
Image Courtesy of Apple
Is the Metaverse Under Whatever Name in Sight?
Researchers who have worked in this field for decades say that we are at least five years away from deployment of the first major use of immersive technology. This will come into common use when the content offered in mixed reality is seamlessly integrated into our experience and authentic to the point of being indistinguishable from the real thing. That is what’s next for the metaverse, virtual reality, augmented reality, etc. We are fond of reminding folks in the investing world about how during the days of the California gold rush that one was more likely to make money selling picks and shovels than panning for gold. Such is the case today as the metaverse is being developed with specific applications in areas like design, architecture, health care, retail, real estate, etc.
As the Pandemic Went Away So Did Some of the Metaverse Dreams
When the Covid Pandemic forced so many of us to live and work in virtual solitary confinement, it was easier to think of the metaverse as a way to carry out social as well as work lives without actual physical contact. Now that the pandemic has gone away people have resumed doing things face to face. This raises the bar for how good and authentic the metaverse needs to be in order to supplant real human to human interactions. In the end, it is more likely that virtual reality will be used to facilitate activities in human day to day life than retreat from them. Thus the metaverse going forward will be about practical uses of these technologies and not so much fantasy worlds.