What's a metaverse good for?

What's a "metaverse" good for? Porn and Casinos?!

It may seem like the early "concept demos" of metaverses (Decentraland and the like) are part of a bursting bubble... but are "metaverses" (or 3d social environments) an obvious eventuality to the web?

Even Andrew Grove (chairman of Intel) saw this coming back in '96 when he published "Only the Paranoid Survive" (a great book, especially for those in or looking around the blockchain industry) ...

Chapter 9 contains

"The information on the internet would need to be made as appealing as the programming on traditional media today. 

There's a lot of experimentation going on to make computer screens come alive.

Technology to make objects appear to be three dimensional, to allow the viewer to move among them as if he were navigating in a room, to enrich the content with good quality audio and video.

All of these improvements could be brought to bear to jazz up the information found on the world wide web, so that it would match or even exceed the richness we are already accustomed to on the television screen."

He's been right so far... and clearly, we're looking to demand richer and more meaningful experiences from the web and technology in general. 

All the news circulating about how few people are actively engaged in the metaverse may make it seem like the idea is dying off... but that's what often happens with first movers in a "strategic inflection point." They have to show the market one idea of what's possible, and the players in the industry have to watch carefully to see what the market signals it really wants.

The technologies that have caught fire in the midst of the metaverse madness will, in my opinion, inevitably shift the way we look at the web in the coming 3-5 years.

Systems like Playcanvas, and the underlying technologies like three.js, that make it possible for GPU-powered 3D objects and environments to render in the web browser (and VR glasses via WebXR) will shift how "rich" the "rich media" of websites can become.

Gaming engines will evolve, and new wrappers will be added to enable easily porting between games and streaming content to browsers and mobile devices - without the extreme costs and complexities that come with existing cloud rendered pixel streaming solutions or complex platform-specific builds of giant apps to download.

Pair the clear desire for a more social connection, and today's more remote-working, online shopping, skip the dishes fueled society and what do we get? The perfect storm to generate demand for richer remote social shopping and experience sharing functionalities. In other words, the demand for metaverses done right.