This exploration of the Metaverse, web3, and open systems was originally published on August 31, 2021 on RabbitHole’s Mirror account.

What is the Metaverse and where are we in its evolution?

From Zoom chats, to the Minecraft world, to our Twitter feeds, the Metaverse is taking shape all around us. There’s no finite beginning or end to this always-on digital space where people can congregate to socialize, work, learn, entertain, express themselves, and create. As put by Matthew Ball, the Metaverse is a “sort of successor state to the mobile internet” that will “slowly emerge over time as different products, services, and capabilities integrate and meld together.”

So, while the 12.3 million Fortnite players that tuned into Travis Scott’s virtual performance may have felt like they were experiencing the Metaverse, it’s clear that we’re decades away from the interconnected innovation needed to achieve an idealist vision of this space. That which is defined by characteristics of persistency, synchrony, and wide interoperability.

The battle between a “closed” versus “open” Metaverse

We’re years away from an “Open Metaverse” where you’ll be able to move through different “places” with relative ease, maintaining your purchased goods and avatars. But the Metaverse isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. Through this lens, we can more aggressively challenge the decisions and design choices being made.

If Facebook wins with Oculus and other Facebook Reality Labs projects, for example, we could find ourselves in a Ready Player One “Closed Metaverse.” Here, the Metaverse will be controlled by one or a handful of companies. Think the centralized, propriety, and extractive systems of web2 that value shareholder supremacy over user centricity, but on steroids.

Approaching an inflection point

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. To avoid the pitfalls of web1 to web2 (i.e. techno-deterministic turned attention-sucking, data-collecting misinformation machinery), we must walk wide-eyed into the future. The work we do now to hard-code web3 principles of user centricity, decentralization, and sovereignty could make the difference between an open and closed Metaverse.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is: We shouldn’t wait and watch for this mysterious Metaverse future to unfold. It's here, and it’s up to us to positively define and create it.