Has Zuckerberg gone crazy?
Facebook founder Mark Zuckeberg has unveiled his new dream, the Metaverse. This word was coined by a sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his novel, Snow Crash. In that book, it describes a virtual world which is the sum of all virtual worlds and the Internet.
The desire to escape reality and let our imagination run wild in unconstrained places has been with humanity for ages. Faster and smaller computers, faster network connectivity are contributing to a geek obsession that we are getting closer to this dream.
You might remember or may have actually used Second Life, Roblox, HoloLens or Oculus Quest, to name just a few early attempts at creating this.
Reading the interview with Mr. Zuckerberg in The Verge, you can't help but be fascinated by all the possibilities of this (not new) concept.
Imagine, in the Metaverse, you'll be able to have virtual meetings and sit next to people in the same room, play all the new awesome games, exercise in the 3D super gym, go to concerts and movies, build a virtual economy and be a virtual artist. You can't argue with that. The future is awesome.
Except.
Mr. Zuckeberg is running Facebook, a for-profit company, where 2 billion people are the product. Facebook sells that product to marketing companies for about $40 per head. The true value of his platform to his customers would be revealed if he were to charge for access to Facebook.
This vision for the Metaverse is fueled by the need to create more and better ways to capture customer's attention. Facebook needs to bring more customers to the platform and impose Zuckerberg’s delusion on the rest of the society, to maximize revenue for the company, without delivering any real value for its users.
The alternative?
We should be building technology to help to make our lives better. Humans are very social creatures who enjoy each other's company. Having dinner with family and friends, to talk, laugh and cry together will always beat any virtual world. And that's the recurrent pattern.
(PS. When it comes to technology of the future which will transport us to magical worlds, the work of Ray Bradbury is worth reading - particularly his short story, The Veldt.)