How Facebook will prevent, not create, the ‘metaverse’

Zuckerberg says Facebook will collaborate with other companies on a shared virtual space for everybody. Gimme a metabreak.

Dec 20, 2021

Last summer, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg started publicly obsessing over the so-called "metaverse." (Zuckerberg even announced in October the changing of "Facebook" as his company’s name to "Meta.”)

Right on cue, the gullible, malleable and sycophantic tech press can't stop using the word. For example, I'm seeing headlines like this every day:

"The metaverse has a groping problem already"

"How to buy real estate in metaverse: A step-by-step guide"

And...

"Roblox unveils electronic music festival in the metaverse"

Trouble is: The metaverse doesn't exist. (Nor will it. Ever. More on that later.)

In all these examples and thousands more, journalists are misleadingly using the word "metaverse" to refer to things they know are not the “metaverse” and which in fact have few of the characteristics of the "metaverse." They don't combine AR, VR and the physical. They're not shared. They're not open.

When these lazy headline writers use the loaded term "metaverse" as if it already exists, they’re doing brand marketing for Facebook and misleading readers.

Thanks to Zuckerberg and a compliant media, “Metaverse” is the new, new thing in technology circles. Unfortunately, the “metaverse” concept is old.

How old is the “metaverse”?

The "metaverse" concept is the idea of a shared virtual space that integrates the various realities — virtual, augmented and actual. Futurists have been predicting and describing this idea for decades. Novelists have been doing so since the 80s.

The word "metaverse" itself was coined in 1992 by author Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash. The word "metaverse" is 30 years old.

Since Stephenson's novel, the word "metaverse” rose in popular usage for 20 years, peaking in 2010, then declining for the next nine years, according to Google's Ngram Viewer, which tallies the uses of words and phrases in everything published.

Zuckerberg pulled the word “metaverse” out of mothballs, dusted it off and is now successfully appropriating it for his own use.

Even the idea of Facebook using virtual reality for social networking (and everything else) is old: Zuckerberg started talking about this in 2014 before Facebook's acquisition of Oculus. In March of 2014, Zuck wrote:

"Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.
This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.
These are just some of the potential uses. By working with developers and partners across the industry, together we can build many more. One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people."

And there we have it. Zuckerberg took a 40-year-old concept, a 30-year-old word and 7-year-old business plans and convinced everyone that something new was happening — and co-opted the press into amplifying and legitimizing his con.

Zuckerberg is falsely asserting himself as the leader of AR and VR technology. But he’s not a leader. He’s a follower. Augmented reality and virtual reality and mixed reality are based on technologies that Facebook is not in any way pioneering, or even a significant player in. Facebook is a consumer of this technology, not an innovator.

The technologies that will enable augmented and virtual reality have been under development by thousands of companies, research labs and designers for decades.

All together now

To be clear: What makes the "metaverse" the "metaverse" is the idea that this universal space will be shared and, in the words of Zuck, not owned or controlled by any one company.

Everyone has known for decades that, in the future, we’d have AR and VR. The expectation or assumption has been either that thousands of companies would create thousands of individual virtual tools and spaces or that the internet itself would evolve to become a single shared virtual space. This latter vision is the idea behind the “metaverse.” Without being open, shared and universal, it’s not a “metaverse.” It’s just AR and VR.

And this is the steaming pile of BS at the center of Zuckerberg's misdirection.

Zuckerberg and Facebook — sorry, "Meta" — have demonstrated repeatedly that they have zero interest in sharing anything.

Remember, Facebook is the company that created an app called Facebook Free Basics, distributed in 38 countries, whose sole purpose was to convince users in developing countries to stay off the open, shared internet and remain always on a stripped down version of Facebook's proprietary walled garden.

Facebook is notorious in the industry as the biggest stealer of ideas and features from other social sites and apps. If any idea gains any popularity at all, Facebook copies it.

Open? You can't even download a photo from Instagram.

This is the company we're expected to believe wants to participate in a shared virtual internet that's not owned by any one company? Gimme a metabreak.

The real reason for Facebook's obsession with the "metaverse" was laid bare in a private 2018 email from Facebook executive Jason Rubin and addressed to a few Facebook executives and board members. The subject line was: "The Metaverse".

Rubin wrote that the only way to make VR popular is by "a massive launch." By making a really big deal of the “metaverse,” Facebook could "go for the kill” and dominate and control the future of VR.

“The Metaverse is ours to lose,” he wrote. “The first metaverse that gains real traction is likely to the be the last,” he wrote. “We must act first, and go big, or we risk being one of those wannabes.” The whole point of going big on the "metaverse" idea was to shut out competitors from the market, not join with them in a shared space.

He was explicit about this, writing: “Let’s build the Metaverse to keep [other companies] from being in the VR business in a meaningful way at all.”

That was a private, internal email. In public, Rubin is backtracking from that view, saying that Facebook's plan now is to be open and cooperative.

I believe that’s all just part of the con — clear misdirection aimed at focusing users, developers and other companies on a VR and AR initiative that Facebook controls in its totality.

Many futurists would love for a “metaverse” to exist in the future — a shared utopia of virtual and augmented reality without controls or borders. But the hippies who built the Internet around that same vision are gone — shoved aside by gigantic corporations (like Facebook) hellbent on continued growth at any cost.

There’s no way the tech giants are going to cooperate with each other on the future of the internet. But even if they did, Facebook would be the last company to go along.

Facebook executives have clearly stated their intentions — to turn Facebook into a virtual space and to turn Facebook into “the Metaverse” in order to keep other companies from being in the VR business.

Yes, of course Facebook wants a single “metaverse” — one totally owned and controlled by Facebook.

In short, Zuckerberg's "metaverse" is nothing but old ideas, old technologies, an old word and old Facebook business plans all dressed up as something new for the purpose of dominating and controlling the future of AR and VR.

Facebook has always worked hard to crush things open and universal. And there's no reason to believe they're going to stop now.

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Mike’s List of Brilliantly Bad Ideas

1. These Pong-playing brains are coming for your job

Geniuses at the biotech startup Cortical Labs have taught living human brain cells to play "Pong." The researchers started with just under a million brain cells in a petri dish placed on an micro-electrode array that analyzes neural activity. Then they taught them to be the paddle that intercepts the “ball.” While the brain cells suck at "Pong," they do learn to play faster than current A.I. can, according to researchers. Somebody get this cluster of cells a Twitch channel.

2. Finally, a low-resolution analog watch!

In the beginning, digital watches — wristwatches with screens instead of analog elements — were low-rez. Now that digital watches like the Apple Watch are very high resolution, some genius designed an analog watch that's low resolution. The 8-Bit Brew watch is actually an homage to old timey video games. And coffee.

3. This cable erases your laptop when disconnected

A new charging cable for your laptop works like an Apple MagSafe cable. It attaches magnetically, and disconnects when the chord is yanked. But there's a difference. The BusKill cable can either lock your laptop or erase all the contents on your laptop (the latter options is available only for the Linux version) when disconnected. This might be a good security solution for some, but not for most. Anyone who's used a MagSafe cable knows that accidents happen. The last thing you want to happen when you trip over your charging cable is to reformat your drive.

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