Into The Metaverse: The Birth of an Online Society?
The recent rebranding of facebook as Meta got the whole world spiralling into a frenzy, with questions being shot back and forth with respect to the nature of this change. Although the term Metaverse isn’t new, it originates from Snow Crash, a dystopian novel from the 1990s in which people flee the crumbling real world to be fully immersed in a virtual one, it became a part of mainstream conversation when Zuckerberg publicly announced the rebranding of the tech giant as Meta.
What exactly is a Metaverse?
In simple terms, it can be described as a digital space with digital representations of people, places and things.
It is essentially an online, virtual world which incorporates virtual reality, 3D holographic avatars, augmented reality, video and a lot more. It suggests a hyper-real alternative world for all of us to coexist in, as a society. It can be called the next iteration of the internet, providing all of us with a digital space to work, play, create and live. The vision of a metaverse virtually implements the theories of collective ownership, community support and a decentralised economy where our digital experiences are not directly or indirectly controlled by a corporation or a brand.
Digital Fluidity of Existence
The existence of a Metaverse empowers us to our data, data that was once regulated and owned by corporations and brands. The Metaverse frees us from geographic and economic limits. Through this scale of virtual interaction, we can transcend all blockages and obstacles and live harmoniously as a free society with no high power holding us back and directing our every move. It puts us back into the driver’s seat where we belong. This decentralisation of power directly translates to the fact that no entity or organisation can control the metaverse or restrict our infinite freedom.
A metaverse will enhance the human experience, we will be allowed to exist in multiple forms and hold diverse and fluid identities, this fluidity in technology will help us explore our own personalities and define ourselves better. Last but not the least, it will accelerate the transition of our global economy to a digital and more efficient one. With cryptocurrencies picking up speed worldwide, it’s safe to say that we’re already on the path to a blooming, virtual economy. Taking the central government out of the equation, this new form of economy will be best suited to our evolving needs and fiat money will get outdated.
What separates the Metaverse from the Internet?
Well, the Metaverse is a futuristic form of the internet, equipped with better features, thus allowing us to safely transition into a 3D world. This brings about a new wave of computing which is more proactive than reactive, which will include various virtual properties like VR, AR and a connection to the real, physical world.
The rebrand to Meta was a clandestine affair with very few people being actually aware of the announcement that was to be made by Zuckerberg at the company’s Connect conference.
He said, “In the next decade, most people will be spending time in a fully immersive, 3D version of the internet that spans across not just Meta’s hardware such as the Quest, but devices made by others.”
He’s working incessantly on building technology that could one day allow us to appear as a hologram version of ourselves in the real-world living room of someone else.
NFTs and The Metaverse: Defining the Relationship
NFTs are currently taking the digital art and collectibles world by storm. Digital artists are witnessing huge sales to a new crypto-audience. Digital art is only one way to use NFTs. They can actually be used to represent any unique asset, like a deed for an item in the digital or physical realm.
NFTs are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. They let us tokenize things like art, collectibles, even real estate. They can only have one official owner at a time and they're secured by the Ethereum blockchain – no one can modify the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence. NFT stands for a non-fungible token. These things are not interchangeable for other items because they have unique properties.
Content creators can sell their work anywhere and can access a global market. NFT-based markets for physical real estate, digital art, and Fortnite skins are all part of a larger opportunity. The Metaverse cannot be constrained by real-world limitations such as raw resource limits, supply chain risks, or even physics.
The up and coming growth of Metaverse with a whole new economy of its own, has accelerated cryptocurrency and digital currency to become the key transactional method. The Metaverse seeks to completely redefine the way people perceive jobs. Working remotely through the Metaverse will redefine opportunities, open up new doors and enhance the quality of work produced.
The Metaverse has its roots in society already, specially with Covid-19 speeding up large scale digitization all over the world, the brilliance of the Metaverse and its potential features are bound to shine through.
The Metaverse is potentially the way of life, the way society will be able to flourish and grow in various realms. The Meta is merely a stepping stone, a starting point for what is soon to come.