The metaverse stuff is really, really embarrassing. Second Life has existed for 20 years and it's a fun novelty. Adding advertising and branded content and making it cost more because of high end hardware requirements and making it slower and more difficult to interface with because it's VR/AR instead of using existing interfaces is not an improvement; just like adding branded content and sticking it in the skeletal husk of a bad shooter game for 12 year olds wasn't an improvement when Epic did it. All the CEOs who buy into this metaverse shit keep talking about the universe of possibilities, but the only possibility they're pursuing is building a Times Square Wal-Mart.
Even crazier, most of them approvingly point to the execrable "Ready Player One" as an example of a vision to deliver on. No, I'm sorry, a horny 15 year old shaving his body hair so he can be more aerodynamic in VR while engaging in extended self-congratulatory monologues about what a Nice Guy he is for not being repulsed by his "Rubenesque" girlfriend while he recites lines from Ghostbusters in a series of completely incoherent "memba this???" vignettes, is not a vision for the future.
It's a bummer because I think there probably are legitimate uses of VR/AR telepresence as the next frontier of video calling, which would seem to be right in line with Facebook's stated mission of connecting the world.
But no, we'll get an exceedingly shitty videogame instead. Can't wait for them to power it all by NFTs.
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