What is the metaverse? Part 1: When will it arrive? How will it affect us?

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg, leader of Facebook, announced that he changed the name of his company to Meta because it will operate in the metaverse, a term that we now hear everywhere. Now it turns out that many other manufacturers are already working on it and that it is presented as the future of virtual interaction that began with networks and that could lead us to virtual worlds where we can all interact.

Already in 2003, a first trend was launched in this, it was called Second Life and it is a virtual community that may well be the predecessor to what Zuck now calls the metaverse, but it did not progress. Like many things on the Internet, it was a novelty, a fashion and then we forgot about it, although it still exists.

Many agree that this will mark a new technological trend that will change the world.

But what is the metaverse?

It is a multidimensional internet that will allow us to live together and interact in virtual worlds that we will enter through an application and, until now, with glasses or a viewer that will present us, through sight, that virtual world. To participate in a metaverse, virtual reality glasses will be required.

The above will have the power to change the way we use and coexist in the digital world. And of course, it will have an important influence on our lives, our jobs and will have a great effect on the economy.

Virtual reality glasses, which today are big and heavy - like the first cell phones were - will surely evolve into ordinary glasses, and will use technology that can become more and more miniaturized. How humans will have that functionality of being able to put a virtual world in front of our eyes will surely surprise us because it could come as a contact lens that, by putting it in your eye, gives you access to those alternative worlds.

All the players of this new trend will be able to create metaverses and invite us to participate in them. Companies, universities, cities will be able to have metaverses, which will be digital simulations of an environment, where they will invite us, for free or by paying a ticket or membership.

You and your company will be able to create your own metaverse and invite others to visit and interact with it. You could have a digital version of your office or your auditorium or meeting room and invite others to visit you there. Virtual museums will be almost as real as you are in the exhibition hall of a great museum, only sitting comfortably at home.

How will the metaverse begin?

Well, actually there is already a rudimentary version of it in video games. Only, in them, the player sees the game environment on a screen, from outside, and is not inside the game. However, the versions of video games that today already use virtual reality goggles or viewers already “put” the player into the game environment itself.

The issue today is that achieving this "virtual reality" requires a lot of programming time, with very powerful equipment and workstations that are only within the reach of the big video game producers and that can make the investments in those developments and then release the games and achieve thousands or millions of players, buy the game and thus recover their investment.

Very possibly, the popularization of multidimensional digital worlds will surely begin in industries that can attract many people, such as the music and sports industries, and will quickly become available to other less massive applications.

If we think about what the pandemic brought about in terms of now being used to attending a lot of meetings remotely on a zoom-type app, we can imagine the scope that would have to, instead of seeing little squares with our faces in a grid on a zoom meeting, we were all sitting in a room, a table, an auditorium, etc., represented by an avatar, or a virtual figure that was our virtual “I”.

We will be able to see concerts or conferences with virtual reality or augmented reality, instead of seeing them on a flat-screen. And later, we will be able to manufacture digital products. if we let our imagination fly, it is terrifying because it would gradually take away the need for human beings to go anywhere.

How will the metaverse impact the economy?

If it turns out to be what they predict, radically.

Many physical venues would lose their market. Many offices would be obsolete. The scope would be universal, not limited by geographical proximity.

Furthermore, the metaverse would generate the production of virtual goods that we do not use today. But if I'm going to go to a virtual business meeting, in a metaverse where I'll be represented by my avatar, then I'm going to need a good suit and I'll surely be able to buy a virtual suit to wear that day. What do I say buy, rent for an hour and that's it.

We have already experienced how the economy moves more and more from the physical world to the virtual world since what we know does not seem to reflect even a small sample of what it is.

A world of metaverses will be able to affect virtually every aspect of the economy as we know it today.

Will virtual universes be for everyone?

Well, here comes the great challenge for countries and societies, because for the metaverses, when they become a reality, to be accessible to all, digital divides must be reduced.

Everything we have said sounds nice, but it will not be a reality in poor countries or in parts of society that do not have the resources. And this will further widen the technological gap between rich and poor countries and between social groups within the same country.

Author, web content creator, and blogger currently residing in India. He's worked with Ennovatr USA staffing agency, and many others.