Making a Metaverse That Matters

CHAPTER 14Metaverse Lessons for the Next 30 Years

We cannot completely know how metaverse platforms of the next few decades will grow and evolve. But if the past is any guide (and it always is), and we are dedicated to making the best possible Metaverse, worthy to be The Metaverse not simply because it satisfies the core technical requirements but because it thrives on maximum human flourishing, we do have some fairly reliable rules to go by.

Learning from the debunked myths explored in Chapter 8, we know some of the fundamentals: The Metaverse must be multiplatform and mobile-facing, and not fully orient itself around XR devices; its user community must be interoperable across platforms; its avatars and graphics should not be hyperrealistic, but expressive, responsive, and highly customizable instead. And web3 aspects will probably not be involved, except perhaps on an experimental basis.

Positive principles for the Metaverse are more nuanced and subtle and include:

Community Creates Value—Not the Other Way Around

The failure of Decentraland and other blockchain-based metaverse platforms, as covered in Chapter 6, illustrates the limitation of virtual worlds that begin with virtual real estate sales and other speculation. The users attracted to them tend to be there in search of easy riches and rarely become active participants in the virtual world itself.

By contrast, one rule of thumb for judging whether a metaverse platform is successful is this: You will find a subset ...