BLUF

There’s an awful lot of talk about the ‘Metaverse’ being the new internet, but some believe Mark Zuckerberg’s vision is hopelessly flawed.

Summary

In July this year, Facebook announced it would be devoting billions of dollars toward Mark Zuckerberg’s new goal of becoming a ‘Metaverse company’. He and many other tech giants are racing to get on board with what is said to be the next evolution of the internet. But Forbes’ tech and movie writer Paul Tassi argues that Zuckerberg appears to be ‘taking the wrong path to reach the Metaverse’. The term ‘Metaverse’ originated in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel, Snow Crash. Metaverse is a shared virtual world accessed by fully-integrated Virtual Reality. Zuckerberg believes that his own Oculus VR tech will be the gateway to help build the Metaverse to come (via The Verge). Tassi argues that the main problem with Zuckerberg’s Metaverse concept is how heavily he’s leaning into the necessity of VR/AR. In addition, Zuckerberg ignores the fact that despite years on the market, VR has yet to approach widespread mainstream adoption.

Learn more about Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse vision and why it may be flawed.

References

Aug 2021 Venture Beat Jensen Huang interview: The physical world and the metaverse can be connected

Aug 2021 The New Yorker Facebook Wants Us to Live in the Metaverse: What does that even mean?