2. The Metaverse
Ready player one, here we come!
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Let me start by saying I would be pretty shocked if you haven’t heard about the Metaverse at this point be it a commercial, news, some celebrity or tech giant. I mean Mark Zuckerberg literally changed the name of “Facebook” to “Meta” embracing this digital future. Top music artist like Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, and Steve Aoki are putting on shows, events, and building their lives into these virtual worlds. For some the metaverse is taking technology too far, especially with the shape the world is in. To others its a place for true expression and identity to finally blossom as censorship gets stripped away. I guess the most important question is… how will the metaverse affect you?
Most people who get short introductions of the Metaverse start to go down this path of “here comes Ready Player One”. A movie based in the future where everyone is in a virtual reality entertainment universe that can bring up real fear in the society we live in today. Robots taking over human jobs, automation of everything making us prone to be lazier, and being stuck in “the matrix”. While the fear is real especially as fast this world is moving, I just don’t see a world like this happening too soon as most think. This Ready Player One future is actually a lot further from mass adoption than led to believe. For the past 2 years I have fell down this cryptocurrency, NFT, metaverse, digital rabbit hole and I still have a lot to learn, but I’m going to do my best to break down this new era, this virtual era..
Defining the Metaverse
The only way to describe the metaverse is too experience it yourself, its close to impossible trying to describe something still in creation. I know that doesn’t sound sexy or draw you in but its the truth, experiencing a world where everything revolves around you as you move through it. An ever expanding world where every step you take something new is virtually becoming, I may have lost you… so imagine this. The life you live today but you could only see what’s three hundred feet around you no further, like driving a car at night and the headlights only go so far on the road. Whatever is in that headlight vision as you drive you can see, so every step you take parts of the world you never seen start to emerge.
Still don’t get it? I really cant blame you because I didn’t at first either. It’s one of those things you have to experience yourself to truly understand there’s no way around it. If I were to try and break down the Metaverse in easy words I would describe it as the world we live in today, but virtual. From hanging out with friends and family, to work, shopping, creating, imagine anything you want in the real world and you can make it happen in these virtual ones. Let me take a deeper dive of the metaverse to explain the real world possibilities that are currently happening and could happen as this develops.
How close are we to achieving this reality?
While many tech giants and celebrities are taking advantage of the unimaginable opportunities happening in front of us, many have no idea of the transformation about to happen before there eyes. I talked about this a lot in “Newsletter 1” and suggest you check it out to get a bigger picture of where I’m about to go. Companies today like Amazon, Apple, and Facebook don’t just get as big as they are overnight, it can take years or decades to reach that level. Which means it could take years or decades for technology, an idea, or whatever it may be to flourish into mass adoption from T.V. to cell phones and even the internet. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” one of my favorite quotes by Mark Twain and this quote can be used in the lesson I am about to show you. Take a look at the graph below:
This image shows different pieces of technologies that were created and how fast they were adopted in the United States. You can clearly see compared to telephones, vehicles, even electricity that internet had a much steeper and rapid adoption curve. This internet information age has brought us communication and social interaction across the world we have never imagined before. When the COVID-19 virus spread it halted our real world lives, but our virtual lives “the internet “ surged from 18-20% in usage. A lot of businesses shifted virtual starting Work From Home (WFH) jobs to still operate, businesses that didn’t got wiped out in the COVID recession. Now the gaming sector by far has seen the most growth during the pandemic and all I can think is “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.
Technology has become apart of us an extension of our every day lives and will continue to grow in adoption. The internet, cell phones, the metaverse is just proof of that but are we prepared for a ready player one world? A world where everyone is stuck in the matrix in supposed bliss? No, due to technology and traditional systems we have today that are not up to par of the world we actually imagine… yet. Right now we are limited to goggles in small spaces and giant corporations monopolizing on our information and lack of knowledge. I don’t think anyone wants to end up looking like this in the future:
Doesn’t shine high hopes for the way we are headed right? To activate the true reality of the metaverse using Virtual Reality (VR) we need bulky goggles with not the best graphics at least compared to a high level PC’s. Even if we advance to lightweight glasses VR is still just you interacting in a virtual world not a virtual world interacting with our real world. I don’t believe the metaverse will become big because of VR I’m certain it will become mainstream when we have mass adoption of Augmented Reality (AR). VR has limits to certain people in the world such as missing limbs or those who are blind where as AR could work around those life impacts. Have you ever watched Iron Man? Its one of my favorite movies because it gives us a fantastic visual of what AR could look like.
Once again not like VR where we interact with a virtual world but now the virtual world is apart of our real world. The metaverse we have now and the VR technology we have now is why its so hard to explain the metaverse and how early we actually are. With the metaverse also comes true ownership, not third parties misusing power and information but free choice of self identity without being censored. Part of this crypto blockchain, NFT, metaverse era is a big fight for freedom, by choosing decentralization you break away from the normal centralized systems today. This is why we will continue to see major celebrities create and develop in these digital worlds as we get to express parts of ourselves that would usually be suppressed with censorship.
Man one day dreamed of flying, so planes came.
Man one day dreamed of distant communication, so phones came.
Man one day dreamed of a reality within our reality, so decentralized AR is coming…
Affects down the road
In 2004 an idea to connect Harvard College students together by photos and emails has become one of the top five social applications we use today… Facebook. No one thought about the future implications this technology would have on our every day lives. Privacy stripped away, algorithmic add targeting, what started off as a social experiment has become a social dilemma. The millennial generation so far is the only generation that has grown with this integration of technology and we can already see the harm its done. Higher levels of anxiety and stress from social use, freedom of speech taken by censorship, disconnection from the real world, and so much more from an idea created to bring people together…
Gen Z is the next generation and all they will know is a digital world, what ideas are to come from them? How far will they take the next level of technology? What mental, technological, and real world issues will have they to face? We don’t know because for them its not just social issues they have to worry about growing up. Now its inflation, climate change, living in a world that’s saturated by monopolized corporations and greedy traditional systems. While everything looks bleak ahead right now I see the amazing opportunities ahead if you place yourself in the right position. There is no denying this level of technology is coming and instead of running from it Id rather accept it and embrace it with open arms to see how far we can go in the right direction whatever that looks like. So not anytime soon but ready player one, here we come!
If you have any questions on the metaverse especially starting off or would like some walkthroughs please let me know in the comments.
Disclaimer: I’m not a financial adviser. These are my own opinions, thoughts, and ideas .This newsletter is not investment advice. Always consult a professional/licensed financial adviser before trading or investing in any cryptocurrency related product.