It can be said that the definition of ‘Metaverse’ has been discussed many times by thousands of medias recently. Of course, many people still confused what Metaverse it is after reading dozens of articles. - this is understandable, at present, the development of theories is still lagging behind the practices. There is no final conclusion, and there are different opinions.
Therefore, my point of view is just jump off from definitions and discuss from another angle: What problems should the Metaverse solve? Or what role should it play? Understanding this prospect clearly, we can naturally measure whether "Meta" or even other "Metaverse" projects are "true ones" or just put a dress of “Metaverse”.
- The Metaverse should expand the boundary and dimension of the Internet development through the ownership on chain confirmation;
The earliest function of the Internet was to connect people all over the world. At first, it was web pages, forums and e-mail. With the progress of technology, it has now reached the level of using voice and video as the mainstream interactive mode. Today, we can complete all interaction just using a smart phone. With the development of smart appliances and furniture the concept of "connect everything" has come up - but these applications still can not fulfill the demand of internet development until the concept of "Metaverse".
First of all, I need to clarify my point of view. It is not necessary to use VR or AR technology to be a metaverse project. The qualified project can be an interactive web page with only a few pixels cartons, or even an NFT with only a few lines like ‘loot’. The most important contribution of Metaverse that to expand and upgrade the Internet world is to put crypto assets on chain and it is through decentralization These crypto assets can be your avatar, NFT art works , virtual land (such as the lands in sandbox, decentralands and cryptovoxels), articles you published on Mirror, game equipment and characters.
Why is it important to confirm the ownership of digital assets? It is because only by confirming the ownership on chain that can assure asset owner’s true controlling these crypto assets. Your game equipment can not be deleted, your articles and crypto lands can not be blocked by the behavior of the centralized platform. Even if the project who made your NFT avatar goes bankrupt or disappears, your avatar is still lying in your wallet, you can trade on NFT exchanges such as opensea at any time; even if opensea goes bankrupt, there are dozens of other trading platforms such as Rarible for standby——Ownership confirmation essentially solves the problem of the owners sense of security, and the sense of security opens up the boundary from ‘virtual ownership’ to ‘true ownership’.
At the same time, through the ownership confirmation on chain, the usability of digital assets can also be interconnected through technical means in the future. You can imagine that when you face Ganon in Zelda with Ashbringer Chosen from World of Warcraft in hands, or you made your sandbox character wearing the gloves from the Tifa facing the Velkhana in Monster Hunter (of course, the numerical model requires the balance and between the game manufacturer and the player community), it has indeed entered an "infinite universe" without boundary and dimensional restrictions. In this space, all your efforts and gains are practical and can be proved, used and even inherited.
From this perspective, to judge whether Facebook is on the real path of "Metaverse", we can analyze whether the subsequent social product reform can really help users achieve the purpose of confirming the rights of digital assets (such as created pictures, articles, etc.), and even whether it can realize the independence and decentralization of user account control(at present, Facebook can still easily block and delete accounts). I personally understand that such changes require centralized companies to transfer many governance rights to community, which is not easy, and it is actually quite conflict from the centralized governance structure and concept of ‘company”.
On 2nd November, ENS, the famous domain name registration platform of Web3, announced that it would change the platform governance mode in the form of Dao, which is a very good attempt. We will wait and see how it will work in the future.
- Metauniverse needs to provide an outlet for human status anxiety in the Internet age;
The development of the Internet has made people extremely dependent on the Internet. Online social networking, entertainment and consumption have accounted for most or even most of the time for people living in cities. In people’s real work and life, people can easily locate their position in society through their careers, social relations and even interests, and it has formed a set of rules.
However, in the increasingly high proportion of Internet life, how can you quickly cut into an interest community and find your position in it? Most traditional Internet social platforms do not have a particularly fast way: Forums - you need to earn levels and points; twitter you need to operate daily contents to attract new followers ; and some web site, you need to do test to prove your knowledge before you are qualified to register.
NFT, an important interface product in the Metaverse, provides a core solution: the deep combination of personal avatars with digital arts. For example, you are using cryptopunks avatar (of course, it must be genuine. It is said that Twitter and Facebook will launch verification channels in the future)The corresponding community naturally knows that you are either an original blockchain leader or a cross-border big guy who directly buy it (such as Jordan Belfort, the prototype of the Wall Street wolf who recently entered the pit).
Different avatars define yourself and directly give you the passport to integrate the community. Of course, you can have the many passport for different communities at the same time, depending on your own needs and whether the corresponding community concept behind the NFT is consistent with you. - this actually proves Status Anxiety theory by Alain de Botton’s published in 2004. The theory is coincide: modern people solve their status anxiety through philosophy, art, politics, religion and other ways. NFT highly integrates these factors in a sense and provides clear paths and clues for self-expression, and then cooperates with the diversified Web 3.0 community system, to provide a solution to human Status Anxiety in the real Internet era(this is also an important reason why Discord plays extremely powerful roles and becomes the core communication platform of all Web 3.0 projects).
- Metaverse makes individuals have diversity incomes, and even creates independent occupations gradually.
The establishment of the economic model is the fundamental reason why the Metaverse is tenable. Taking the popular game Axie infinity as an example, it is the junk games in the eyes of traditional game developers but generated more than twice revenue of " Arena Of Valor " since July. This figure seems not very surprising but let us dig a little deeper and make a comparison. Axie has only about 1.5 million daily users (up to 2 million in October 2021), but " Arena Of Valor "it has more than 100 million daily users, and even 400 million users are online at the peak time! This is not because of game playability, but the because of the economic system. Axie sets every player has his position to make money: there are farmers who play daily tasks, there are breeders who open eggs by breeding pets, there are also competitive players who earn high PVP bonuses through ranking. The production -combustion economic model of game relatively curbs excessive inflation, allowing the game to continue to retain old players and introduce new players (of course, it is not very fun for me).
The economic system of traditional games lacks the "ownership confirmation on the chain" in the first part, and has not designed a particularly effective economic model, resulting in that most players are "consumers" rather than "producers". This also reminds me of Blizzard in their golden age. In Diablo 3 they designed the cash Auction house - the idea was very advanced, and brilliant and it has really made many players taste "producer" for a period of time (I still have some Mexican dollars from sales of equipment in my current Blizzard Account), but it does lack technical means and ideas to finalize a circular economic model.
Of course, not all the applications designed for the economic system are Metaverse applications. Taking games for example, the combination of economic system, playability and flexibility is the core elements that can attract users for a long time - this is why I have high expectations for Sandbox, which has not been launched yet. At present, according to the official introduction of the game, the future Metaverse careers includes landlord, digital designers, metaverse architects, game designers and even metaverse tour guides and others that did not exist before.
The economic foundation determines the superstructure. The reason why the meta universe is a meta universe is that people can live in, obtain income, grow continuously, and expand their boundaries and upper limits. Whenever you feel like you can live on it, that is the Metaverse time - and I believe this day won’t be long.