Realistic Impact of the metaverse on society?

[eric1999]

What realistic impact will the metaverse have on society?

 

Will the metaverse cause a dystopia where it will largely replace real world interaction and travel where real world cities and streets will mostly be empty as the majority will spend most of their lives in the metaverse and not leave their homes? Not talking about people staying in their homes because of Covid Lockdowns or restrictions, but choose not to leave their home because of the convenience and addictiveness of the metaverse.

 

Or is the metaverse merely something that is way overhyped and basically a MMORPG niche that is targeted towards serious gamers, introverts and people with physical disabilities where saying the metaverse will replace the real life is like saying that Roblox or FB will replace real life.

Things to note:
 

• Question is not just referring to FB metaverse
• Question asked under assumption that headsets/glasses have gotten cheaper after the metaverse has become mainstream
• I am talking about the timeframe 2025 -2035

Thanks & Much Appreciated

 

[da na]

1 minute ago, eric1999 said:

Will the metaverse cause a dystopia where it will largely replace real world interaction and travel where real world cities and streets will mostly be empty as the majority will spend most of their lives in the metaverse and not leave their homes? Not talking about people staying in their homes because of Covid Lockdowns or restrictions, but choose not to leave their home because of the convenience and addictiveness of the metaverse.

No.

 

VR immersive experiences have been around since the 80s. And although admittedly people do spend more time inside nowadays, there will still be reason to touch grass.

Doing everything in the metaverse would be ridiculously stupid and inefficient.

[superfantastic]

No way. I don't even believe it will go anywhere at all. I've never seen this ''metaverse'' and I doubt any of my non gamer friends have any interest in it or have ever heard of it.

[Cyberspirit]

Even as an introvert who plays a lot of VR, I can tell you that it's not going to change jack about how people live their life. I'd rather go out there and experience things physically and interact with people in the real world and that's coming from an introvert. A "normal" person would probably play around with it for a bit and then just forget about the whole metaverse bs.

 

Also, honestly, If you want to hang with people in a virtual world, then just play VRChat. It's culture might not be for everyone but it's far more fun and competent than what these big corporations are trying to achieve.

[8tg]

The entire concept of the metaverse has been a thing for the past 20 years, it just hasn’t been as heavily commercialized.

I mean, social world games, that’s basically it. From the limited to the unlimited. Habbo Hotel, Smallworlds, SecondLife, VR Chat, etc

Most people treat these platforms as just old school chat rooms with extra steps, because really that’s what they’re best at. Because yeah, it’s totally doable to run a virtual Walmart, and have things shipped to you that you order from virtual Walmart in your living room. But then is that any more convenient than just using your phone to order items from Walmart?

Thats where it gets broken down, are the extra features of a virtual reality experience actually any better than doing it in a less complex way which everyone already does?

 

Then comes _people_. Which is where this whole topic gets really interesting. People will not abide by the rules in a virtual world with no real consequences, they’ll do terrible things just for a laugh. And as soon as you start applying restriction to even the regular everyday users of this metaverse is where they’ll stop using it.

Jump into any populated SecondLife sim and count how many people there are a representation of themselves in real life, versus how many are something entirely different.

The reflecting being that it’s zero of them. Same with VR Chat or basically any social world. I mean shit my profile picture is basically a prime example of what social worlds are. I’ve been playing SecondLife for a decade, I play as myself, with my real name and interests and hobbies and such, except I play as a red panda because im a degenerate.

Thats going to be something which will have to be normalized in this hypothetical metaverse, nobody is going to be representative of themselves for the most part, or at the very least they won’t look like themselves. We see all this promo material for these concepts where everyone is using almost generic Facebook tier emoji avatars or something and that’s just not how people are. You’ll show up to your metaverse work meeting, sit down at a virtual conference table, and your boss is going to be clipping through the ceiling because they knocked over one of their cameras, at least one furry will be sitting there with you, one anime girl at minimum, chances are someone is dressed as solid snake, and someone’s Ugandan knuckles.

 

When you tell people they can’t do that, they ask what’s the point then, and won’t use it.

[PeachGr]

I played archeage, an MMORPG that had an awesome house system and graphics of 2013 that were 10 times better than omniverse, also you were free from the "Big brother", so people didn't care about the "harassment", nor need a reason to connect because we ve had many. Anyway, we ve still had many reasons to go outside. We were gamers still, so not the most socialized people, but still

[Supreme Calamitas]

On 5/2/2022 at 3:24 PM, superfantastic said:

No way. I don't even believe it will go anywhere at all. I've never seen this ''metaverse'' and I doubt any of my non gamer friends have any interest in it or have ever heard of it.

Exactly, I don't understand why facebooks betting on it so heavily. I've never tried VR and honestly I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

[CephDigital]

I doubt this whole "metaverse" will go anywhere anytime soon. Clearly those who brought it up recently have never played an MMO or played VRChat...

[Mark Kaine]

 

4 hours ago, Marko1600 said:

Exactly, I don't understand why facebooks betting on it so heavily. I've never tried VR and honestly I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

with these things its always the same... you need an application driving adoption,  not just some piece of hardware...

 

 

I dont see fb being capable of creating such an app at all... on the contrary, they're slipping into irrelevancy quickly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Supreme Calamitas]

2 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

I dont see fb being capable of creating such an app at all... on the contrary, they're slipping into irrelevancy quickly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The only thing that suprised me is the confidence and certainty facebook expressed by renaming their entire company to Meta. Makes you wonder... 

[Mark Kaine]

8 minutes ago, Marko1600 said:

The only thing that suprised me is the confidence and certainty facebook expressed by renaming their entire company to Meta. Makes you wonder... 

Well, its a "marketing trick" mostly... they are fairly good/experienced with this. 

 

Creating a killer app is something else and multitudes more difficult...

I mean neither Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo... or any other people with experience or ambitions in this field have succeeded even close with this...

 

VR chat being the closest thing I guess, and that is still quite niche and "nerdy".

 

Not only has fb no experience with it, they also don't have a suitable userbase (imo) 

[IsaiahH146]

On 5/2/2022 at 9:10 AM, eric1999 said:

Or is the metaverse merely something that is way overhyped and basically a MMORPG niche that is targeted towards serious gamers, introverts and people with physical disabilities where saying the metaverse will replace the real life is like saying that Roblox or FB will replace real life.

Bingo! The "metaverse" already exists in the form of Roblox, RecRoom, and VR Chat. Like you said, It's basically just an overhyped MMOPRG that company's are using to sound cool and modern.

[Master Disaster]

I implore anyone who is invested in Web 3.0 and thinks its going to change the world and stick it to the corpos while making everyone rich, set aside an hour (yes its a long watch) and watch this video right until the end.

 

Web 3.0 is going to change the world, just not in the way the crypto bros & broettes will have you believe, Web 3.0 IS the dystopian future you are all trying to avoid happening right in front and your face and none of you even realise its happening.

 

What this girl talks about in the final third of this video is actually MUCH worse than the future you all think you're helping to avoid, a world where the powerful can QUITE LITERALLY rewrite the rules as they see fit and don't have to worry about things like rules & regulations because in this world, blockchain is law and blockchain apps can be forked and drastically altered whenever the people holding all the power decide it fits their needs. A world where EVERYTHING you ever do is stored on immutable public ledgers and corpos have AI bots trawling through your entire lives for profiling and can literally decide if you are a threat or might become a threat in the future.

 

Yeah, it sounds like I got my tinfoil hat on a bit to tight (I'm fully self aware) but this shit terrifies me and if you make it far enough in you'll see ITS ALREADY HAPPENING!!

[thrasher_565]

23 hours ago, Marko1600 said:

Exactly, I don't understand why facebooks betting on it so heavily. I've never tried VR and honestly I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

i tried it once and its really cool. but games are not there yet or at lest the ones i tried for the hour i had.

[Vishera]

19 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I dont see fb being capable of creating such an app at all... on the contrary, they're slipping into irrelevancy quickly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

True,The number of players is quite low in their beta release of the Metaverse:

https://www.oculus.com/horizon-worlds/

[Sauron]

On 5/2/2022 at 3:10 PM, eric1999 said:

Will the metaverse cause a dystopia where it will largely replace real world interaction and travel where real world cities and streets will mostly be empty as the majority will spend most of their lives in the metaverse and not leave their homes?

Looking at footage from the "metaverse" this suggestion is absutd. It's pointless and ugly, there seems to be absolutely no interest for it in the general public and we haven't even finished ironing out the issues inherent to VR. Maybe eventually there will be a version of this that isn't total trash but that's not what we have now. Maybe it will take off but personally I doubt it. Either way it won't be a substitute for visiting places any more than google earth is.

[GodAtum]

I completely disagree with everyone here. IMO if the metaverse becomes 100% immersive and you just jack into it, it'll replace most real-world things like the "office", theme parks, holidays etc. Why pay $1000s to go to the Maldives when you can pay a few dollars in VR.

 

Especially if when you jack in, all your senses are in the metaverse and when you eat in the verse you get actual nutrients.

[oali24]

48 minutes ago, GodAtum said:

I completely disagree with everyone here. IMO if the metaverse becomes 100% immersive and you just jack into it, it'll replace most real-world things like the "office", theme parks, holidays etc. Why pay $1000s to go to the Maldives when you can pay a few dollars in VR.

 

Especially if when you jack in, all your senses are in the metaverse and when you eat in the verse you get actual nutrients.

man did you read the OP, he says in the near term (2025-2035) that sort of matrix style of technology doesn't exist yet and so probably won't be widespread anytime soon.

[Heliian]

There is and will never be any substitute for the real human experience. 

 

Metaverse, web 3.11, decentraland, crypto Island, is all commercial content designed to harvest money and control over the customer.  I have that already irl.  

 

[Giganthrax]

From what I can tell, the metaverse is basically VR chat, at best. It isn't going to change anything. 

[Mark Kaine]

Its also kind of weird... known criminal organization changes their name so they can continue their "business" just a little bit longer, then some people come out and be like: "The world is changing forever!" ... while completely failing to explain why (other than some wild and vague Hollywood fantasies) 

 

 

On 5/4/2022 at 4:58 PM, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, it sounds like I got my tinfoil hat on a bit to tight (I'm fully self aware) but this shit terrifies me and if you make it far enough in you'll see ITS ALREADY HAPPENING!!

Your post seems to pretty much replicate The Matrix movie 1:1...

 

ps: tried watching the video, sorry but its unbearable?  there is no information whatsoever  - she even got the green matrix lightning going lmao. 

 

This looks to be some weird pseudo esoteric parody channel

 

 

22 hours ago, GodAtum said:

[...]

Jack... is that you, Jack? Jack? ... Jack?

 

 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

20 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

From what I can tell, the metaverse is basically VR chat, at best. It isn't going to change anything. 

The thing is there is a market for "virtual worlds/realities" but all of them more or less failed - i would like to say due to incompetence mostly and Im not sure the people interested would want to have their "free cyber fantasy world" controlled by fucking fb of all things... but then I also can't really judge this realistically tbfh, because i have zero idea why *anyone* would use anything fb to begin with... yet 1b (or more?) apparently do... laust causes to me, yet they exist and need to be accounted for somehow  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

ps: looked it up, 1.8m oculus "quest" 2 sold... so roughly speaking... this shit is super mega niche, and likely not something boomers (the main fb clientele)/or even gen z are really interested in.

 

i mean when 3d "tv" didn't succeed,  how are gonna strap on helmets do...

 

 

ps2: also looking it up, reasons for VR failing according to google:

 

- bulky headsets (no shit)

- no contents (oh yeah, who'd thought) 

- dizziness/ discomfort (well that sounds fun)

 

But no one got the real reason on their list: "because fb bought oculus"

 

big tech always does this, stiffle innovation  (and therfore competition)  wherever they see it ASAP 

 

 

 

[Lord Bloobus]

Impossible to tell, we were supposed to have flying cars by now. Besides, the next revolution of Metaverse will just be an AR overlay through glasses anyways. And even then it's not what you're talking about.

[BionicSeaSerpent]

the "Metaverse" is nothing but a stupid Buzzword for what can only be called a Knockoff version of the VR Chat/NeosVR experience. Social experiences where you can do what the hell you want within reason. if logic is used, it won't go that far and thus will have no real impact on the world anyways. it will be a thing Facebook would have in the background and kill after a year or two and all this talk will be for nothing. 

[Alan G]

Any time I see questions like this one, I immediately go back to Thomas Pynchon's 'proverbs for paranoids' that were in "Gravity's Rainbow"  #3 is particularly apt for this one.

 

1. You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.

2. The innocence of the creature is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.

3. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

4.You hide, They seek.

5. Paranoids are not paranoids because they're paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, f**king idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.