Why is the Metaverse so Confusing? 3 Core Problems with the Future of the Internet.

Our universe has shifted. Long have the days of long study hours, scouring libraries, and investigating news stations. Every bit of information that can exist, is generally indexed, stored, and uploaded to massive cloud servers.

These cloud servers are generally controlled. 90% of the world’s web service is controlled by amazon. More than 70% of all searches ever conducted online are tracked indexed and managed by Google, and every bit of resource data that can be stored will generally go through the hands of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Where did the Metaverse Come From?

Our world is getting increasingly monopolized by information. Information about what you do every day, what our collective interests are, and our health habits are slowly becoming owned by bigger and bigger corporations.

One of the biggest issues I see with the ever-increasing monopolizing of the internet is the reduced competition between companies and increased complacency among consumers. Every year, more and more people buy phones and laptops, and every year the amount of companies that offer competitive solutions gets slimmer and slimmer.

To a degree, we have these brands to thank for the metaverse debacle.

The Metaverse is taking over where old brands died

Remember any of these brands? HTC, AOL, Yahoo search, palm, Napster, Blockbuster, Netscape, MySpace, 3dfx, pets.com, blackberry?

What made these brands interesting was the way they diverged from the norm to offer new solutions to existing problems. Granted that was usually the reason they fell out of business… failing to adapt to new technologies and offer new services or products to the consumer.

But as our metaverse expands, it’s clear it’s going to be owned by the same 15 or so trillion-dollar businesses.

This means most of us to have very little say in what it means for our metaverse to grow. Just look at the word metaverse. It was practically non-existent 6 months ago but then the tech media BLEW it up. I’ll admit, I liked the term but I’m getting seriously frustrated with how we are confusing the term.

Is the Metaverse Really Just a Marketing Gimic?

If the metaverse is only digital interaction, then anything is meta. I don’t think that’s true. Because then the closest thing to your online avatar is the key you use across all services in the digital sphere… so maybe your phone number, your Apple ID, or your email.

Anyway, rant over. It’s very important that this universe doesn’t become a dystopia. Because otherwise, we are leaving gen Z with literally nothing. It’s important we encourage open platform coding and grant REAL privacy permissions and administrator relations in our future digital universe.

Are Corporations Taking over Web 3?

Every time I see Mark Zuckerberg chide about the metaverse, my heart drops a little bit. We cannot allow corporations to be in charge of regulating the future digital universe because it’s clear neither side of the US political aisle will make any real advances.

We need to be willing to give up some niceties in our lives for the future of the digital age. We actually DO need USB C iPhones. We need it to be possible for the average Joe to open up their MacBook and upgrade the storage. We need play stores to be open source so that literally anyone can install their own software.

We need to give the metaverse to ourselves! Not to companies that are beholden to stock fluctuations or board members. We need to be willing to cut ourselves off from constant tech consumption and upgrades for the better of our digital culture.

At this point though, it doesn’t seem likely.