Could the Zuck Vision for Meta Be a Web 3 Game Engine?
June 8, 2022
Could this be a sign of some common sense at Zuckbook? Anything is possible. Input reports, “Meta Won’t Build a Dedicated Metaverse After All, Exec Says.” Writer Matt Wille examined a recent, extensive blog post from Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg. He reports that some early assumptions about the company’s metaverse plans were apparently off the mark. We learn:
“After months of teasing the expansion of a world filled with legless avatars and virtual boardrooms where nothing gets done, Clegg is telling a different story of what we can expect from Meta’s metaverse. Instead, he posits, the metaverse will be more of an umbrella beneath which Meta can launch a thousand or so new products. ‘All of us have a stake in the metaverse,’ Clegg writes. ‘It isn’t an idea Meta has cooked up. There won’t be a Meta-run metaverse, just as there isn’t a ‘Microsoft internet’ or ‘Google internet’ today.’ Meta’s vision, as Clegg explains it, is for the ‘metaverse’ to be a ‘universal, virtual layer that everyone can experience on top of today’s physical world — one where you can have a consistent identity (or even set of identities) that people can recognize wherever they see you.’ This idea raises many questions for Meta’s business, perhaps most importantly: If the metaverse isn’t owned, how can Meta possibly maximize its profits off of it?”
Likely the same way it makes money off Facebook—its users are its product. That won’t change when those products sport 3D avatars. And Meta has no need to create a stand-alone meta reality to continue raking in the cash.
The write-up challenges Clegg’s vision of a decentralized metaverse. Wille points out that, though it is true there is no “Microsoft internet” or “Google internet,” both those companies wield great power over how the internet is structured. He observes:
“That control is how Big Tech makes its big bucks. If Meta isn’t owning the metaverse space — owning at least its share of the market — then it loses what’s kept it so valuable. It’s unlikely the company will purposefully give up the control it’s wielded for so long to stick to this decentralized ideal.”
Clegg’s 8,000 word blog post as full of high-minded theories on how the metaverse can improve the world. But will such dissertations translate to outside enthusiasm? The market has already shown impatience with Meta’s direction. It might want to focus on producing something more concrete than lofty ideals. Or at least reassure stockholders that, whatever visions its executives espouse, it will continue to maintain its grip on Big Tech power and profits.
Cynthia Murrell, June 8, 2022
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
