The metaverse is bullshit

Plus, the fact that Facebook did this without any cool product launch, with a logo that was clearly designed by the same twelve-year-old who picked the name, without the technology to even start, and, oh yeah, in the midst of a major scandal, shows that they, too, consider it bullshit. Or a security blanket for Zuckerberg, who thinks work isn't fun anymore.

As a developer who has worked on building the best version of the metaverse for 10 years, I find this article extremely offensive, and I also agree with it.

The wave of hype around the tech has honestly been surprising to me. Me and my friends have been trying to build and encourage VR, crypto, and foss communities to build out an open metaverse _precisely because_ the threat is that the metaverse turns into a bullshit narrative co-oped by whoever controls distribution. Which would be a very sad thing not only because it's a slippery slope to even more loss of agency for people, but because the metaverse we envision is the best shit ever and it would be a tragedy if it didn't exist.

And now here we are talking about Meta, the worst possible interpretation of the metaverse we have been warning would come.

There's an entirely different narrative I wish people would write about: how NFTs have let my artist friends quit their jobs and follow their passions, how people are finally understanding how money actually works with crypto, how the NFT/metaverse surge spawns the most genuinely entertaining creator-owned content on the internet, if you're inducted. Others (like me) are having the time of their lives making dank ass open source user-owned games and experiences we've always wanted to exist using dream stacks on the web, with the support of an audience that respects us for what we do, and no middle men like Meta. It's a dream to see it coming together.

And it's surreal that after 10 years of work we got well funded, because we'd be doing it for 10 more years for free regardless. Yet despite a decades long track record of refusing to take user's money until we deliver a dank ass metaverse experience, we still often get called "crypto scammers". And now because of articles like this, our work is "bullshit". It is honestly a little offensive.

I'm still angry so I'll address the points in the article as they annoy me.

> The metaverse is bullshit because it already exists, and it's called the internet

I agree, it's basically the web. That's why I called my company Webaverse. It's a sick stack.

> The metaverse is bullshit because tech moguls missed the part where cyberpunk is dystopian

I suspect many people with opinions on Snow Crash haven't read Snow Crash, because the metaverse/street in that book is pretty sweet. It's run by the ACM, hacking and liberty are respected. I wish facebook was building the metaverse but they are not.

> The metaverse is bullshit because its promised cross-compatibility doesn't actually work

Today I heard there is an awesome avatar release being announced on Monday. We are already testing the avatars in our client software to make sure they animate great, so we can meet the deadline in 2 days. If you don't think it works you're probably looking in the wrong corner of the internet.

> The metaverse is bullshit because no one can actually explain why it's better

It's a sick ass game, that in addition to being extremely fun, is open source and can teach people to liberate themselves from companies like Meta that want to own them. The metaverse is better than the alternative: Meta.

If any of this surprises you to hear, please do your own research before you paint the metaverse with Zuckerberg's brush. It's what he wants.

You mean Snapchat?

It seems pretty obvious to me that if we turn the whole internet into Third Life, it will quickly devolve into groups of people standing around and shouting at each other. And that test drive? Even assuming a few people do actually want to do that, 30 seconds in, the car will be full of monkeys and the wheels will turn into cake because the sim was coded by humans on a budget and some 12-year old was bored.

As ever, the grand vision totally ignores the realities of human nature.

NFT is no more and no less bullshit than modern art. Cryptocurrencies are no more and no less bullshit than fiat currencies. Metaverse is no more and no less bullshit than all commerce in the real world.

The difference is who controls it.

It is all about power transfer.