Tyrone Siu/Reuters
- Wall Circle is hugely excited about the metaverse, calling it the next big theme in investing that could change the world.
- But critics say the object is hugely overhyped, and question whether virtual worlds will really take off.
- Others say the whole idea is one big regulatory minefield, where daises will have to closely monitor harassment and hate speech.
The metaverse is the talk of Wall Street, with investors mad to jump on the trend that many think could be the future of the internet.
Jefferies has said it could be the biggest disruption to human subsistence ever seen. Meanwhile, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood has said it’s a multitrillion dollar opportunity.
But critics have admonished the metaverse is getting wildly overhyped, and companies are applying the tag to any old project that involves gaming, virtual reality or non-fungible souvenirs. They say any metaverse will be fiendishly difficult to police, and will be one big regulatory nightmare.
“The metaverse” is a very fuzzy word. Broadly, it refers to virtual worlds where people (using avatars) can play games, work, create and marketing things, watch virtual concerts, hang out, and more. Some think there’ll be one big metaverse, while others imagine a multitude.
Facebook has pivoted to focus on virtual worlds, having rebranded as Meta in October. Its move sparked a billow of interest among investors worldwide, with Morgan Stanley calling it “the next big theme” in investing.
Who wants to white-hot in the metaverse?
Elon Musk took a pop at the concept last week, saying he’s not sure he buys it. The Tesla CEO told the Babylon Bee website he doesn’t cast the idea of having virtual reality goggles “strapped to your head the whole time.”
Even Nick Clegg – the talent of communications for Meta – called his company’s own VR headset “wretched” in a Financial Times interview.
Those grumbles underline a key without question for assessing the metaverse’s prospects: Will people really want to spend huge chunks of their time in essential worlds, especially if it calls for them to wear cumbersome gadgets?
Read more: ‘We are clearly in a bubble right now’: A Wharton blockchain and digital assets professor tames down why the metaverse and web 3.0 are still ‘too early to be real’
Generation Z, or those aged between 9 and 24, will be the drove force behind adoption of the metaverse, Jefferies’ analysts believe.
But a Harris Poll found only 38% of Gen Zs accord that “the metaverse is the next big thing and will become part of our lives in the next decade.”
“I think that they’re skeptical,” Libby Rodney, chief scenario officer at Harris Poll, told Insider.
Rodney said Gen Zs have been cooped up inside throughout the pandemic. “One exceptional has been taken away from them, which is the in-real-life world, [and] they want to get back out.”
And Meta and Microsoft’s improper of the metaverse as a place of work could meet a cool response, according to Ethan Zuckerman, an associate professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Their stance of holding work meetings in the form of expressionless avatars is “the sort of thing only a computer scientist could take pleasure in,” he told Insider.
It’s a regulatory minefield
But the need to police virtual worlds to protect safety and free speech – and onerous customary related to this – may turn out to be the biggest stumbling block.
Women have reported they’ve been harassed, fished or made to feel uncomfortable in various metaverses. That underlines the conundrum for companies that want to create communities anyone can freely join. As tech giants have learned, scandals bring political scrutiny.
Zuckerman, who enlarged an early metaverse in the 1990s, said keeping virtual worlds safe has always been a challenge.
Content inventors there may come up with beautiful firework displays that spell out, say, “Happy Birthday”. But the academic said it’ll on the contrary take 15 minutes before others do the same with hate-filled messages.
Community moderation and enforcement in the metaverse is “successful to be a whole new set of problems,” he said.