Commentary
The Metaverse. You’re probably familiar with the concept. It’s just like the internet, but in 3D. Instead of surfing the web, people will inhabit it. Initially, this type of “living” will be done via avatars. However, one day, in the not-so-distant future, according to Mark Zuckerberg, one of the metaverse’s chief architects, humans will actually relocate there, and leave reality behind.
Who will govern this Brave New World?
The World Economic Forum (WEF), the international organization behind the Great Reset initiative, has big plans for the metaverse. Earlier this year, WEF members met in Davos to discuss the many ways in which digital IDs will become an integral part of this virtual-reality space.
Around the very same time as this meeting was taking place, the WEF and Accenture, a huge company dedicated to all things digital, published a briefing paper (pdf) discussing the metaverse and digital identification. Titled “Interoperability in the Metaverse,” the paper calls digital identity “the nexus to an interoperable metaverse,” enabling “accountability and the capacity to traverse worlds with minimal friction.” A digital identity, for the uninitiated, lays the foundation for a social credit system, the type of operation that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) clearly favors. Digital IDs store your credentials and record your behaviors, including your social media activity, the sites you visit, your current health status, your place of work, your home address, and your smartphone’s geolocation.
We must do everything in our power to reject both the WEF and the metaverse. Thankfully, we mightn’t have to work too hard to reject the next iteration of the internet. You see, the metaverse doesn’t exist yet. And from the looks of things, it may never come into existence.
Dead on Arrival
In a recent piece for the South China Morning Post, I discussed the various reasons why the metaverse has, to date, simply failed to launch. In short, it has been oversold and has constantly underdelivered.Contrary to popular belief, we are not already living in the metaverse. The New York Times insists the next housing boom will take place in the metaverse. Well, it won’t. It can’t. How can a boom occur in a place that doesn’t even exist? This is an especially important question to ask now that many of the metaverse’s architects are downing tools and retreating into the shadows.
One of those companies backing away is Facebook, or should I say Meta. Eighteen months ago, Facebook changed its name to Meta. The new name, which surprised many in the tech community, was supposed to reflect the company’s ambitions of creating a new, inhabitable world powered by trendy avatars and cool, wearable devices.
Last year, the aforementioned Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, referred to the metaverse as “the next chapter of the internet,” a chapter that he fully intended to write.
Now, though, the aspiring author appears to have other plans, insisting that the virtual space is no longer Meta’s top priority. This is like the president of the United States saying America is no longer his top priority, or Elon Musk, the CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, calling space exploration a waste of time. However, when one acknowledges one simple, rather brutal fact, Zuckerberg’s desire to leave the metaverse chapter unwritten becomes perfectly clear: last year, Reality Labs, Meta’s virtual worlds research unit, made an operating loss of $13.7 billion.
That’s a lot of money to waste on a ridiculous venture.
Jemma Kelly, a columnist at the Financial Times, recently pointed out that, since early 2022, search traffic for the word “metaverse” has collapsed by some 80 percent. Two years ago, the metaverse was a topic of hot discussion. Today, it’s yesterday’s news.
Likewise, Meta appears to be yesterday’s news. Rather incredibly, Meta, once the biggest tech company in the world, isn’t even in the top 20 most valuable U.S. companies. Zuckerberg took a wild gamble, placing all his virtual eggs in the metaverse basket. The bet, as is clear to see, hasn’t paid off. Today, instead of hiring new employees to build the metaverse, Meta is letting thousands of employees go. Microsoft, another huge tech company that was, up until very recently, passionate about the metaverse, is also turning its back on the “new internet.” The same is true for Tencent, one of the biggest tech companies in China.
By 2030, we were all supposed to be living in the metaverse. In truth, by the end of the decade, we will still be living here, on planet earth, using our phones to access the internet. The phone, not some pathetic VR (virtual reality) headset, will still be the primary device for accessing virtual worlds.
The WEF may harbor ambitions of conquering the metaverse, but it can’t conquer something that doesn’t exist. Let’s hope the metaverse never comes into existence, and that the WEF never realizes its questionable ambitions.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
