Originally published at: Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse now a "deserted fantasyland" | Boing Boing
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It’s weird how Zuckerberg really thought this was going to be the future when at best, it’ll be just one part of it. The concept of the metaverse is a cute and naïve interpretation of how humans will interact with computers but it’s not likely to be the mainstay for the majority of hypothetical future history. The problem comes down to how humans play. We don’t want to work in the space we want to play as those two activities are contradictory. Work is for getting things done so we can live. Whereas play is the reward for being able to live another day (sometimes it’s continual, sometimes its in broken up time slices).
Then there’s the idea that people will work and play in VR is probably the reason why it’s failing. Those two elements don’t make sense. What work can I do in VR that I can’t do just from my laptop that I’m writing this post on? What does having an extra set of hardware give me over my keyboard and mouse when it comes to work? I can only imagine that telemedicine and specialized therapy work for phobias would be the candidate use cases here. Shared visualizations and the like are better suited to just putting on a large screen from a laptop or using a sharing platform to allow for collaboration efforts. Beyond that, VR isn’t suited for work as we do it. VR isn’t suitable for most collaboration work and not for not most solitary work (even 3d modeling is better done from a keyboard/mouse and screen). It’s a bridge to nowhere.
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Tired: Metaverse VR
Wired: The Real World.
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C’mon, Zuck was totally right! Who doesn’t want this?
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I think it could be helpful as a flight or driving simulator. It could also be helpful for teaching kids, or people with special needs how to negotiate crossing streets and such.
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Yeah, that doesn’t look at all like a horror movie exposition…
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“Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse now a “deserted fantasyland””
It was never not this?
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VRChat and Rec Room already exists so i’m not sure what they thought they were bringing to the party.
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And the internet shook with the echo of millions of voices crying out “called it.”
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“Second Life” reboot didn’t work out?
Must have been the legs.
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“We’re like those other VR social spaces you already love, except we’re Facebook! Wait, where are you going?! Come back!”
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Enough about Zuckerberg, tell me about this Metaverse thing!
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The Street already chose VRChat, where all the very online furries hang out with their wildly customised personal avatars. Zuckerberg’s Duplo-land was not going to beat that.
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It absolutely is. As a flight simmer I can’t go back to flat monitors after using VR. The situational awareness is soooo much more natural, as are the spatial relationships when e.g. you’re trying to get oriented in a traffic pattern. Yeah, the Metaverse is bullshit, but there are lots of niche uses for VR that I hope don’t get tossed out when the inevitable sweeping of the table happens.
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Well I appreciated the old school techno, but I am sure that isn’t the case for most younger people.
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God knows what Meta is spending, but there are adverts for this plasticine dystopia in almost every advertising break on the UK’s Channel 4.
Or rather - one advert, time and time again. Even if you were vaguely favourable towards the meta verse when the campaign started, you’ll want to burn it to the ground and sow the ground with salt about an hour later.
I suppose my biggest disappointment will be if this boondoggle dies before Twitter.
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Well technically it wasn’t “deserted” right away, that part required enough time for a least a few people to show up, see how depressing it was and leave.
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I feel lik Zuckerberg just read the first half of too many Network Effect articles, and thought "well, I guess I’m invincible enough that I can create the happy space I’ve always imagined, and my Network will be there!. Problem is he skipped the second half of all of them about how upstarts eventually gain a foothold when empires get complacent, self-indulgent and greedy and those empires collapse.
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