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The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

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Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#101
post #79
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With software improvements, our perception of time will eventually be slowed down in the metaverse to such an extent that one hour in the material world will equate to several days of perceived elapsed time in meta-reality.

Do you have any context which would indicate this is possible?

Only if we are cloned and are pure software beings. In that case, it is possible to run at a faster "clock speed". Of course, this is all in the realm of sci-fi.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Minecraft go down for several days like Roblox does? Does Minecraft ban/cancel people like PewDiePie as Roblox did? Aren't monthly active users (MAU) around 100M for each? I think Roblox is eventually doomed to slowly fizzle like Second Life, etc. Internet history is littered with the corpses of dead closed systems. Remember Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL? Remember Myspace? Microsoft might eventually, say, install…

Mojang would have a problem trying to control Minecraft because it's written in Java, their developers commonly associate with the players who hack the game, and the only control over the gameservers that they have is their authentication servers- which you can disable the use of by editing one flag in your server config files, allowing anyone to play even if they didn't buy the game.

But then you have absolutely no authentication whatsoever. So anyone can join your server using any player name and it's difficult to effectively ban. Good maybe for small private servers, but won't work for anything public. Also IIRC then you get no user-selected player skins.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#103
post #42

The Metaverse that will make the most $ is Porn

That is often considered the primary reason VHS beat out the arguably superior tech of Betamax: one was willing to license to porn and the other preferred not to.

Definitely a lesson for any would be "metaverse" to keep in mind.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#104
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm frustrated that everywhere I look I keep seeing "metaverse" and "VR" used interchangeably. All of the things described above are VR, and none of them are the metaverse. Watching TV or playing a game in an immersive, distraction-free VR environment sounds great, and will happen, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. Working in a virtual home office has the potential to be extremely productive, ergonomic, and s…

> Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR. I'm sorry, I think if you want to broaden this term like this you're going to have to stipulate some new boundaries. Else, we've got the metaverse: it's just the internet, and metaverse is just the latest in a long line of silly names for it back to the "internet superhighway". And when Di died or 9/11 happened I had a "shared ex…

> Else, we've got the metaverse: it's just the internet, and metaverse is just the latest in a long line of silly names for it back to the "internet superhighway".

Yes, this is absolutely correct.

A "metaverse" exists in contrast to meatspace. In meatspace I walk down the street, I look through a shop window, I see you browsing inside, I spray some graffiti on the wall, you see the graffiti when you come out of the shop. We have a shared space with the qualities of presence (I passively saw you while you were browsing) and persistence (the graffiti will be there for anyone to see).

In the metaverse, I open some application on a computer, I look at some window or readout, I see that you're online (maybe I just see a light next to a username, or maybe I see your WoW character dancing shirtless outside of Goldshire), I leave something persistent (maybe a comment on a blog post, maybe a spray on the wall in an MMOFPS), which is available for you to see at some point. There are hundreds of metaverses (that's nearly the whole point; a metaverse is a virtual space that isn't bound by the rules and limits of physical space, so why not inhabit a few dozen?) of varying complexity (many websites, IRC, BBSes) and immersiveness (Minecraft, Second Life, PlayStation Home). VR isn't intrinsic to the idea of a metaverse, it's just one potential realization of the idea.

> Metaverse comes from Snowcrash, and there it was... very unquestionably a VR experience as far as I can remember?

Stephenson depicted his metaverse as a virtual space for the sake of the reader's imagination, so that they could envision something real and familiar instead of just a bunch of people clacking away on keyboards. The "virtual street" metaphor used in Snow Crash was always just a convenient literary device, and not at all the point of the metaverse, which to reiterate is the idea of a virtual shared universe in which to exist that is unbound from the restrictions of the physical universe.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#105

To be completely honest, I don't really know what people mean when they talk about a "metaverse". But if I had to define it one way or the other, I feel like I already have, and interact with, a sort of metaverse. I play various video games with various people, talking and interacting with friends for these games on Discord, interacting with the larger community of these games on Discord/Reddit, engaging with influen…

Why is no one building open standards or protocols anymore? Way back when, there was VRML, which would be a layer on top of the web, and you could jump from site to site but in 3D space instead of underlined links. Yes, VRML failed, but we've had over 20 years and a massive amount of progress since then. Is there any reason the metaverse couldn't be distributed and sit on top of current web standards?

Adoption is the issue, not the lack of open standards.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#106
post #59
post #18

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in any type of digital world / metaverse experience. If I was a teenager or in college, then yeah I can see it... but there are so many things to do in the 16hrs we have each day, and I already kick myself for not finishing that book, or getting an extra workout in,…

With software improvements, our perception of time will eventually be slowed down in the metaverse to such an extent that one hour in the material world will equate to several days of perceived elapsed time in meta-reality.

It's hard for me to believe one hour to several days but one hour (material world) to two hours would, probably, be already achievable. Now I watch most videos on youtube at 2x speed.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#107
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm frustrated that everywhere I look I keep seeing "metaverse" and "VR" used interchangeably. All of the things described above are VR, and none of them are the metaverse. Watching TV or playing a game in an immersive, distraction-free VR environment sounds great, and will happen, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. Working in a virtual home office has the potential to be extremely productive, ergonomic, and s…

> Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR. I'm sorry, I think if you want to broaden this term like this you're going to have to stipulate some new boundaries. Else, we've got the metaverse: it's just the internet, and metaverse is just the latest in a long line of silly names for it back to the "internet superhighway". And when Di died or 9/11 happened I had a "shared ex…

I think metaverse is just a fancy name for communicating with people online supported by technology (both present technology, future technology and meatspace communications supported by technology).

It’s clear from Facebook’s presentations for instance that they consider text messaging via WhatsApp to class as part of the metaverse.

It’s not anything new, but I think the metaverse strategy is basically Facebook saying “we want to own all communications, and push the boundaries of what owning communications even means”. That’s my take anyway, but I have found most people are focused on the VR aspect and have missed the more scary all-encompassing and broader definition.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#108
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring re…

But the metaverse itself is not content. Instead it’s another medium to consume content. Therefore the metaverse isn’t a replacement for a video games or TV. You would simply watch TV or play a video game while in the metaverse. The metaverse in that regard isn’t a new concept, because VR spaces have existed for a long time now. I’ve watched movies in Minecraft more recently, for example. I’ve seen every idea in the…

> It’s the reason why the Internet took a long time to take off: using the Internet on a desktop computer sucks. When smartphones took off, so did the Internet.

What?

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#109
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm frustrated that everywhere I look I keep seeing "metaverse" and "VR" used interchangeably. All of the things described above are VR, and none of them are the metaverse. Watching TV or playing a game in an immersive, distraction-free VR environment sounds great, and will happen, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. Working in a virtual home office has the potential to be extremely productive, ergonomic, and s…

I think part of the plan is to build VR spaces and then connect them together. Take the "things" in that space and expose them to non-vr software clients. eg. maybe your vr home has digital art, but that art can also exist and be viewed in other mediums. Or you can all sit at home and watch VRTV with friends, but one friend just watches on their phone on the bus. Or a virtaul office desk, that can have coworkers visi…

Absolutely, the idea of a shared virtual office (as opposed to just a solitary home office) would be a realization of a VR metaverse. Of course, aside from meetings (where the whole point is to interact with other people), I think it remains to be seen whether the idea of a shared virtual office is actually something that anyone really wants, or whether it's simply a case of a lack of imagination from people who are so accustomed to the idea of shared office space that they try to shoehorn it into the virtual world without really considering if it makes sense to. Personally, if I'm going to be working in a virtual space, I'm going to be working somewhere in Earth's orbit, or under a tree on a hill on a rainy evening surrounded by fireflies, and not in a 3D-rendered cubicle.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#110
post #18

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in any type of digital world / metaverse experience. If I was a teenager or in college, then yeah I can see it... but there are so many things to do in the 16hrs we have each day, and I already kick myself for not finishing that book, or getting an extra workout in,…

I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring re…

Can you actually wear the heavy goggles for that long?
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