Metaverse - Hype or the reality of the future

[Kamban]

Meta and metaverse seem to be the buzz words these days.

First Facebook changed its parent company's name to Meta and feels that is its future.

Now Microsoft is offering $69B to the maker of CandyCrush to get into the metaverse game early on.

Here is the relevant passage from Planet Money Indicator

It's an idea of the next generation of the internet - one where we all have sort of a second life, if you will, in a digital realm where we work, we play, we interact with each other via these digital avatars, and we collect digital possessions. Maybe even - we even have a digital house. And our work meetings are on there. And we connect with friends when we're gaming on there. And that's what Facebook is working toward. And now it seems increasingly clear that that's also what Microsoft is working toward

like, increasingly, for young people, when they do their socializing online, it's not just on Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp or text message. They log on to their game of choice with their friends, and they all get on there. And they - either they talk inside the game and meet up in the game, or they get on Discord, the audio - the live audio chat service, and they talk on Discord while they're playing the game, or they're playing Call of Duty talking on Discord.

That's - in some ways, that's the new social network - is gaming. And I think that that convergence of gaming with social media and then with - between social media and work is what Microsoft is trying to buy up chunks of and get ahead of.

As an old foggie, I can't imagine my life entwined and immersed in alternative reality where I work, play and sleep in the alternative metaverses and play games all the time.
But I am not sure if the younger folks or children think it is the way of the future. So is this real or another $69B losing strategy for MSFT, like they did with Nokia and Windows phone.

[CordMcNally]

I don’t understand how a society can function with everyone in the metaverse. The world still needs doers.

[Tim]

There is value. To what extent, I have no clue.
Real world examples:
Weekly five person family cousin zoom call.
Sibling VR reality game dates.
Group Peleton sessions.
These are existing relationships, speech, video and entertainment and interactions. It doesn’t seem artificial.

Now think of a 7th grader first date.
Boy asks girl: Buys a token for a pizza virtual restaurant and the online bowling. Speech, video and entertainment. 7:30pm Friday- home by 10:30.
He lives in Iowa and she lives in Maine. Childhood sweethearts Entertainment and interaction.
Online image, activities and interactions. Now, whether this is real, mentally healthy or dangerous is a different question.
Change is coming. Different skill sets, different dangers. Think bullying, isolation, depression and suicide when one realizes they have no real relationships. Kind of reminds me of country clubs as social centers.

[resident_1]

Meta verse situation is not good. Its continuation of toxic effect of our tech world on people all over the world. It shows how out of their minds these “tech leaders are”. Already we know how toxic facebook, instagram is and how much social interaction people are loosing. Now they want to introduce this garbage. They cam care less about effects on society and instead enjoy thinking about these “concepts” writing lots of code and of course making $$$ money.
Watch video Bill Mahr made on this topic of metaverse.

[Hatton]

If everyone joins the metaverse how will food be produced?

[MPMD]

i'm fairly skeptical of the broad based appeal of VR/AR/metaverse for several reasons:

1. participants need new, fairly clunky devices, you can spend all day on the 'gram or TikTok with a 5 year old phone and 1 bar of 4G, not true for meta.
   1. when i say clunky i don't mean they don't work i mean fairly large devices that are ultimately 3 devices - headset and hands x2. if you are going to project VR you need some eye relief to generate 3D, so even the top of the line VR headsets right now can't be easily tucked into a pocket and they might not ever be able to do so.
2. perceived as pretty nerdy
3. the tech has existed for quite a while and it hasn't broken into mainstream use

[TheDangerZone]

Hard pass. History is full of big tech swinging for the fenced and missing. Anyone remember Google Glass? They only need a small handful of their ventures to pan out (e.g. Amazon Web Services which now makes up the majority of Amazon’s entire operating income).

[Tim]

Hard pass. History is full of big tech swinging for the fenced and missing. Anyone remember Google Glass? They only need a small handful of their ventures to pan out (e.g. Amazon Web Services which now makes up the majority of Amazon’s entire operating income).

To say nothing of the impact on society. Tremendous resources.

https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-cloud-computing/

Face it, tech needs more electricity to make money. Any doubt about the need for more sources of energy? Fastest growing, it is not EV’s replacing ICE. Known since mid 2000’s.

[STATscans]

I would say it is the future. Just like how in the 80s people used to call those of use who used computer NERDS and cool kid’s didn’t use tech. now everyone uses one.

it will be like that. Those born in this decade won’t care, they will adapt. They will be able to use both the real and augmented world.

[childay]

I don't know but it's a rather stupid name

[Craigslist]

If everyone joins the metaverse how will food be produced?

You don't need food, all you need is electrolytes.

[Panscan]

Not going to be good for society, lots of kids not going on dates, socializing, etc. If you can just LARP all day on internet and get dopamine fix, probably not healthy for society. Already have trended too far in that direction, this will just further it.

[STATscans]

Not going to be good for society, lots of kids not going on dates, socializing, etc. If you can just LARP all day on internet and get dopamine fix, probably not healthy for society. Already have trended too far in that direction, this will just further it.

Isn’t that what they said about technology in general? It will take us away from others? Yet look at how many of us have smart phones?

I think it is inevitable. Going shopping in an augmented world will be real soon.

Information started out as one way:
Phase one: the NET to you in one direction. You just down load information. e.g. DOS/iOS, desktops. Websites.
Phase two: some 2 way communications but mostly still one way. e.g. Smart phones, blogs, tweets, FB, instagram. FaceTime/zoom
Phase three: full 2 way communications. Visit the national art gallery from your home. Try on that coat in Milan, Italy without the plane ride. If you watch Sci-fi shows, it clearly is where this is headed.
And from an investment POV, if you don’t embrace it, you will be left to the ‘legacy’ companies for your slow growth.
My two cents.

[Max Power]

This stuff has been around forever...

Sims
Second Life
WoW
RuneScape
Facebook
etc
etc

Basically, if you suck at life and can't get noticed and get laid... try somewhere else. You can avoid leaving the house for days and get the dopamine hits from a colored screen and some beer or junk food instead.

I think their basic corporate logic here is that world population is not going down anytime soon, obesity and diabetes and etc are rising, and more and more people would rather be a tall and athletic and well-dressed meme person than a chubby slob in sweatpants with bad breath, yellow teeth, and iced cream stains on their shirt. Well, it's actually a good assumption (financially). I buy the crap out of NVO for the same reasoning.

For society, of course it's terrible. In the world since agriculture and aqueducts and large civilizations, the 99% have always eaten off the table of the 1%, though... that's nothing new. We might go to higher % who stay home "disabled" to drink more beer and soda than they do water and obesity might soar, but that's the world we live in. There will soon be universal basic income so they can enjoy the meta and their sloth. Covid makes a convenient excuse for the heffers to shoot more people in Call of Duty in one day than they will talk in real life to all year. Sign of the times.

[Dusn]

Those of you who are parents, how are you keeping your kids away from this stuff?

We have no TV, no screen time, and plan on never getting our daughters “smart” phones. But I’m sure this plan is going to much harder once they become teenagers.

part of it is also getting ourselves off the screens, so that we don’t look like hypocrites. Have any of you had success in reducing your own screen time?