METAVERSE: How does it work? Will it be popular?

KAKALI DAS

Imagine, you meet with your family members or your friends, but not in reality, rather in a virtual 3D world. One that is created artificially.

You enter in this world while you’re sitting in your room using a special headset or glasses. Similarly, you’re working, studying or shopping – you do almost all the things that you do in the real world – but not in the real world, instead in this virtual, artificially created world, using this special headset or glasses right from your room. How does it sound? Doesn’t it sound a little depressing?

The Metaverse promises something akin to this for the future. It is touted to be a technology that would replace the internet in the future, and will become the future of humanity.

The word Metaverse is made up of two things: Meta + Verse. The word Meta is derived from Greek, it is a prefix that basically means ‘Beyond’. And the Verse comes from the word ‘Universe’. We live in this universe and it will be the Metaverse that will be beyond this universe.

This world is basically used to refer to an artificial world. You might recall another word related to this i.e.- Multiverse. The one talked about in the latest Spiderman movie. Multiverse is the concept where there are multiple existing universes. It is something that is even scientifically discussed. Some people believe that there isn’t only one universe, rather there are multiple universes, thus the Multiverse.

Metaverse means an artificially created universe. The internet can also be said to be a distinct universe. but when you go on the internet, it is mostly limited to 2 Dimensions only. Whether you’re using your phone or your computer, these are 2-Dimensional screens. But when Metaverse is talked about, it would be a world where you can be completely in it – in 3 Dimensions.

Like, if you watch a film, you wouldn’t be watching the film merely as a viewer, you would experience being in the film. For example, when you watch a cricket match on the television, it is in 2 dimensions, but technically, if you use virtual reality, then you would get a 360⁰ experience of watching the cricket match around you. It will try to create an experience that would make you feel as if you’re actually at the match.

“Many people believe that Metaverse is inevitable. It is bound to happen someday. But a few critical questions arise here – Will this Metaverse be successful? Is there a demand for it? Does anyone want it?“

The word Metaverse was first used in the year 1992, in the science fiction book named Snow Crash, written by Neal Stephenson. In this novel, he talked about a dystopian world, a world where real-life has been destroyed, the outdoors wasn’t liveable for humans anymore, so everyone lives confined to their buildings and rooms and spends their life in virtual reality. That virtual reality, the artificial world, was referred to as Metaverse by him.

After this, a game was released in 2003 called the Second Life. You could play this game on the computer, and create a second life in this game on the computer – meeting people virtually, buying items, properties in the game, exchanging goods and services, and creating realistic looking avatars.

Recently, many companies tried to create their virtual worlds and Metaverses, but this word was made popular again by Facebook, when it decided to change the name of their company to Meta – saying that they want to adopt the Metaverse, to expand from being a social media company to a Metaverse company.

And Mark Zuckerberg defined the Metaverse in this manner – “You’re going to be able to do almost anything you can imagine. Get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create, as well as entirely new categories that don’t really fit how we think about computers and phones today.”

If it were up to Mark, he would’ve said that you would eat and have bodily functions in the Metaverse itself. Because the more you spend time in the Metaverse, the more data they would be able to collect on you. The more they earn.

Let’s know how the Metaverse is created!

Various other technologies are used here, to actually create the Metaverse. The first is VR – Virtual Reality. This technology already exists today. But to use this, you have to wear these heavy headsets. And if you have them on for more than half an hour, they start causing headaches, and motion sickness, as claimed by many users.

On top of it, the things that you can see in virtual reality now, the level of technology that we have today, is quite poor – the quality of animation that you see in the virtual reality games, the videos that you can watch on there.

Although, it is something that would definitely improve with time. It is also being hoped that these heavy headsets, with the new technologies, they would keep getting smaller and slimmer, and eventually, they’d be the size of normal glasses. Whether this would actually be possible, time will tell.

The second technology is AR – Augmented Reality. It would mean that some artificial elements are mixed with our real world. It wouldn’t be a complete virtual reality. An excellent example of it is the Pokémon Go smartphone game. On it, you can use the smartphone to look at the real world around you, but when you look at it through the smartphone, you can see the artificial Pokémons in there. It seems like they are mixed in the real world around you.

“The third problem is specific to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. We are tracked on Facebook by all means possible. Think how dangerous it would be, and on top of it, when such a virtual world is being created, and it’s created by one company! Imagine, how the owner of that universe i.e. Mark Zuckerberg would become the literal God of the Metaverse!“

Apart from this, having 5G technology in the Metaverse is also talked about. If we’re to create a huge virtual world, we’d need to constantly upload and download a huge amount of data. For this, we’d need extremely high internet speeds, i.e. 5G.

Additionally, Block chains and Cryptocurrencies are also mentioned, when talking about the Metaverse. When money would be spent to buy anything in the Metaverse, they can’t be real money, of course, because everything is digital. So there would be a need for digital currency.

This is where Cryptocurrencies come into play. And because there’s a large number of transactions constantly, they’d need to be kept secure. There would be a threat of hackers, or the threat of data breaches too. To keep these secure, Blockchains might be used.

Moreover, if you want to buy land, or any asset in the Metaverse, how should that be accomplished? It is said that it’ll be accomplished through NFTs – Non Fungible Tokens, a type of tokens that exists on the block-chains, and can prove the ownership of any digital asset. NFTs can be used to verify the tickets to the concert also, if someone holds a virtual concert in the Metaverse.

It has already been done by the few singers. In September 2021, singer Arianna Grande did this by virtually performing in Fortnite.

All these technologies already exist individually on the basic level, but by combining them, and creating a true Metaverse will take a lot of time. Mark Zuckerberg estimates that it would take about 5 to 10 years, for the key features of Metaverse to become a part of the mainstream. Several experts believe that it would actually take decades, before something akin to the Metaverse could become so popular, that majority of people would be using it.

Many people believe that Metaverse is inevitable. It is bound to happen someday. But a few critical questions arise here – Will this Metaverse be successful? Is there a demand for it? Does anyone want it?

It seems very cool to try it for the first time, seeing how you can sit in a 3D virtual environment and communicate with others, having 3D meetings, but realistically, why would you go through so much trouble?

Everyone needs to put on the glasses, and call everyone else on the 3D setup, but it’s easier to simply take out the phone and get on a normal video call. Who would go through with preparing for all of it? Same goes for meeting with friends – you can meet them, actually, in real life, but even if you want to meet virtually, have a video call, or talk to them via messaging!

Meta3 — surrealistic scene of a girl with VR glasses immersed in liquid with neon lighting. metaverse concept, nft, creative art and technology. 3d rendering. fictional character. Source: penntoday.upenn.edu

The technology that is the most popular among people, is the easiest to use. If it’s not the case, then it would be very difficult for a technology to become mainstream. Only the things that are simple will be successful.

The second point of criticism is perhaps more significant. Do we really want to distance ourselves from the real-life so much that we forget how to live real lives? That we spend all our lives in this fake artificial world. If this virtual world becomes so addictive and immersive, somewhere or the other, people will stop worrying about the real world. It is truly dystopian.

The third problem is specific to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. We are tracked on Facebook by all means possible. Think how dangerous it would be, and on top of it, when such a virtual world is being created, and it’s created by one company!

Imagine, how the owner of that universe i.e. Mark Zuckerberg would become the literal God of the Metaverse!

If the Metaverse truly become successful – suppose 60% of the world’s population starts using it, and they start doing everything in the Metaverse – think about the level of power with that one person, that one company that would own the majority shares in the Metaverse! It is very unethical and highly dangerous.

Headline Image: burrelles.com

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