The 30-year-old metaverse

One of the biggest contentions against the notion of a metaverse is that it’s all another case of unrealistic expectations, fancy technology that’s conceptually nice but ultimately nothing of any significance. Of course, depending on who you ask, the main comeback to this claim is that it was what was also said of the internet back in the 2000s.

As we were reminded this week by Matthew Ball in his interview with Patrick O’Shaughnessy, the term “Metaverse” was first coined 30 years ago in 1992 by Neal Stephenson, first appearing in his novel Snow Crash. And while the future hopefully never turns out to be as dystopian as the novel depicts, the notion of a virtual online world running parallel to the real world is certainly not a new one.

For the moment, the commonly accepted definition of the metaverse is one that requires the existence of a completely immersive world, much like in “Ready Player One”. Arguably, that’s a rather high bar to set, notwithstanding the rather dystopian “real world” depicted in that storyline. Our question is whether AR/VR and other forms of fully immersive sensory experiences is truly a prerequisite for the existence of the metaverse – is it really true that anything short of that is “not a metaverse”?

Having spent much time ruminating on this, especially in the context of the plethora of meetings we’ve had with projects which have congregated in Paris for EthCC, we’d tend to think the answer is no, and that using the prevalence of AR/VR/fully immersive experiences similar to those in Ready Player One is a rather unfair criteria set which ignores and downplays the vast advances that have been made in terms of constructing the metaverse.

Put differently, the metaverse could already be here. It might be 30 years old.

And the notion that we might already be living in it triggers a profound change in perspective.

What can the meta be?

Frequent readers of our writings would surely by now tire of references to Yes, Minister for the definition of “meta” prefix: “with or beyond, sometimes after”. In common parlance, it implies some sort of derivative nature, a world derived from our “real” universe that exists in parallel, but also beyond some of the characteristics that define reality.

In this vein, we think about digital avatars and identities, entities that interact with each other in a dematerialised setting, commerce that happens with no physical or geographical restrictions – all these while preserving the very human ability to form meaningful interpersonal relationships, communities of individuals who function as social units just as they would in the “real” world.

Now, if we accept this as a fair definition of a “metaverse”, then we could also argue that not only have the building blocks been put into place, but that the metaverse is already in existence beyond a minimum viable product.

Consider this simple matrix we put together of some of what we’d term “social media” tools, past and present (no fancy graphics, certainly not to scale, just an illustrative sketch to show how we’re thinking about things):

Over time, the advancement of technology has allowed us to move generally from the bottom left to the top right of the space, allowing more real-time interaction, more content density and large numbers of simultaneous interactions either between users individually one-on-one, or in groups. With the likes of Fortnite and Roblox, these being the newest manifestations of the “metaverse”, technological advancement has allowed for the creation of a much richer content environment. But taking a step back and looking at the technology stack that is in existence, it is clear that the likes of Fortnite and Roblox are building on the successes of their predecessors.

Furthermore, even the early manifestations of metaverse-like technologies like MUDs and IRC demonstrate some of the characteristics of moving real-world characteristics onto the internet. Add in the economic activity that has grown as a result of e-commerce, and the gradual blurring of the lines between social media and e-commerce through the likes of Instagram and Taobao, and it’s clear that claiming the metaverse doesn’t exist is a severe case of missing the forest for the trees.

In fact, we would go so far as to assert that the Metaverse already exists, it simply hasn’t been upgraded to the VR/AR/Ready Player One version – yet. Everything that we currently have in the form of the internet that we know sets the stage for that vision to come true – perhaps not exactly, in fact, probably not. But the principle of it is likely to be along similar lines. Waiting for the supposed full-fat version of the Metaverse to declare victory detracts from recognising what has already been achieved. Want an immersive experience for gamers? Just look at the number of pairs of eyes glued to their screens flicking through TikTok or Instagram or count the number of hours gamers can go without leaving their seats, and it’s pretty clear that things are already pretty immersive/absorbing as they stand.

We started 3 decades ago with a 1D metaverse: text only, largely asynchronous. Then we added real-time functionality, friend lists, customisable profiles and other bells and whistles. As internet infrastructure improved, we added more content, turning it into a 2D metaverse with video and sound, again firstly non-real time, then gradually into the real time version in which we are currently living, streaming and broadcasting.

In this context, social media, e-commerce and smartphones, to name a few, are simply components of a growing metaverse, spanning both online and offline, hardware and software, dematerialised and physical.

The natural next step is a 3D metaverse, as long as the hardware, software and physical infrastructure in our world can support it. We are starting to see it come to reality in some ways, 3D/AR/VR and whatever else may come is a work in progress, but taking a step back, it isn’t a stretch to describe what we already have as a 2D+ metaverse.

We think that we aren’t waiting for the metaverse to come into being. Rather, we are arguably living in it right now.

Ask what more your metaverse can do for you

If the metaverse is already here, albeit as an ongoing work in progress, it would be fair to ask what benefits it can confer to the world.

In this context, the answers become clear: from e-commerce to remote work to online communities with members spanning the globe organising themselves for various purposes, the underlying commonalities are found in principles of openness.

The missing piece here is full interoperability and composability – most of these “metaverse” platforms exist as communities separate from each other, not to mention the plethora of apps and services that help with productivity, collaboration, communication etc. To be sure, there exists mega networks like Meta which have the capability of integrating Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram – yet, even that isn’t yet seamless. But for all other purposes, moving content, people and experiences across platforms is typically a clunky affair of downloading and re-uploading, if even at all possible.

The open standards that defined the internet were the basis of its widespread success, with the key words being “open” and “standard”. Had these standards not existed, the internet would have turned into a convoluted mess of incompatible content; had these standards not been open, the internet would never have gained the critical mass it now has since only those privileged enough to be licensed to use these standards would be able to build to standard, and those outside of that circle would contribute to said convoluted mess.

Yet having tasted the sweetness of monopolistic success, the risk is that the giants of the internet move (understandably) in the opposite direction: where the open standards of the internet were put in place in the early 90s with no expectation that the internet would amount to anything (and hence little corporate lobbying to build walled gardens around their digital properties), the experience of the past 2 decades has demonstrated to the powers that be that in fact, building MORE walls around digital properties in the form of both software and hardware barriers is very good for business, especially in a world where scale is everything, and more is more.

The “metaverse” term is certainly the subject of attention for many parties: web2, web3, corporations, even nation states to some extent. But the reality is that just like the internet – in fact, the internet could as we argued be thought of as the earlier, existing version of the metaverse – it needs to be open for all with established standards in order to thrive, and at least in its formative years while these standards are being established, perhaps it is most beneficial for there NOT to be monopolistic ownership of these decisions.

The standards that we now accept and take for granted on the web: HTML, CSS, JPEG, GIF, PNG, MP3, PDF, DOC etc. – these are standard that became established as standards after years of collaborative and competitive conflict between different developer groups. They weren’t prescribed as truth, even though there were bodies behind some of these standards (e.g. The Joint Photographic Experts Group which came up with the JPEG standard) and even corporates (e.g. Adobe for PDF, Microsoft for the entire office suite of file standards); rather, they became accepted as standards because of adoption, and adopted because they were good. And they are now the basis of a lot of the convenience and interoperability that the internet brings.

If we are to successfully move from the 2D metaverse to a 3D metaverse, in whatever shape or form that might eventually take, then we will need another set of standards to be put together.

Open sesame

Why then should the next set of standards for the metaverse be formed in a different manner? It’s been 30 years in the making, and it’s worked well with the random explosions of innovation in this primordial soup of tech.

For the moment, the signs are encouraging, although one could remain sceptical – the Metaverse Standards Forum for example is an industry group comprising a good number of businesses in both web2 and web3, hardware and software alike. Conspicuous by its absence is Apple, although amongst the forums members are also the likes of Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, Meta, Autodesk, Adobe and Microsoft.

To be clear, we have no beef against big tech: the very software we run our PCs on is made by them, and they have delivered for us huge conveniences in our daily lives. Our hope is simply that the rules of the game are agreed clearly amongst the players – and with clear, well-defined rules and principles, innovation and creativity can be unleashed to its full potential.

What benefits might an unleashed metaverse bring? Well, if we accept that we went from a 1D metaverse (e.g. discworld, IRC, BBS, forums etc) to a 2D metaverse that we have now, and in the process invented e-commerce, grew adoption of electronic payments, invented crypto standards and brought banking to millions who were outside of the traditional banking system through smartphone adoption all over the developing world, to the extent that smartphone penetration in some countries exceeds that of the developed world, what more could a 3D metaverse do?

Those potential benefits may not be obvious now, just as the skeuomorphic first versions of the internet didn’t seem to confer any benefits other than novelty. But when the writers of You’ve Got Mail (arguably one of the earliest “internet” films of the era) put Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan on screen in 1998 as pseudonymous “NY152” and “Shopgirl” respectively in their 1D metaverse of AOL text messenger, they certainly never envisioned that concept turning into the hyper speed dating of the likes of Tinder just under two decades later, not to mention the entire suite of social media apps that came alongside, creating new business models that were unimaginable even a decade ago.

Nor did they envision both the businesses of the plotline’s protagonists (an indie bookstore and a huge bookstore chain that put the former out of business) being subsequently both obliterated by Amazon in the real world, alongside many other traditional retail businesses. The “real life” bookstores were taken out by the “meta” bookstore, which became an everything-store which by any measure remains pretty “meta” even today.

Perhaps then Jeff Bezos could be one of the greatest and earliest metaverse entrepreneurs, and his famous aphorism should sum up where every metaverse entrepreneur should be looking for their fortunes, just as he did: “Your margin is my opportunity”.

The future of the metaverse as a whole should be a blank slate looking forward, supported by a rich and diverse tech stack behind it – this should be open season for anyone to continue to build on the tech stack we already have, and take the metaverse that we already have to its next iteration, whatever that may eventually look like.

Will this future be owned by big tech or by the decentralised world of web3? It’s hard to tell but we’d like to think that it will be an intersection of both. The resistance to the openness of the crypto world comes as a function of trying to protect the very walled gardens that make for strong corporate profitability. Structurally, we remain bullish on crypto and the potential it brings, perhaps even more so when coupled with (rather than pitted against) the capabilities of incumbents.

Either way, as we’ve often argued, just as a function of the sheer amount of intellectual talent and financial capital being diverted into crypto, the odds that they come up with truly world-changing solutions that are innovative beyond our current imagination are not to be looked down upon.

Finally, reiterating the idea that 3D doesn’t need to be a prerequisite of a metaverse: You’ve Got Mail’s film poster from 1998 reads “Someone you pass on the street may already be the love of your life” – two individuals meeting virtually on AOL messenger using pseudonyms in a world that exists in parallel reality to real life, with identities and relationships that traverse that pseudonymous/real divide. How much more “meta” can we get?

So perhaps we aren’t sitting here waiting for the metaverse to happen – it already has, its development is ongoing, and as technology constantly pushes its technical capabilities, so too can the richness of the metaverse, whether it comes in the form of “You’ve Got Mail”, “Ready Player One” or something completely different.

Eugene LimJuly 22, 2022