Views on the “metaverse” are quite different.
At present, the voices in the market are mainly divided into three types, mainly represented by Liu Cixin, the author of “Three-Body Problem”, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook (Meta), and Chris Dixon, a partner of A16Z.
Let’s take a look at what the giants have to say:
“No matter how prosperous the earth is, those futures without space travel are bleak.”
Liu Cixin
According to media reports, Liu Cixin believes that the metaverse will be an involution of the entire human civilization, and the entropy value of the involute closed system will always tend to be the largest. So the metaverse is ultimately leading humanity to a dead end.
“In the Metaverse, you’ll be able to do just about anything you can think of – party with friends and family, work, study, play, shop, create, and reap new experiences that are unimaginable with current computers and phones. .In a future where you’ll be teleported instantly as a hologram to get to the office without the commute, or to a concert with friends, or back to your parents’ house. You’ll spend more time doing meaningful things .”
Zuckerberg
“Crypto-powered 3D worlds and metaverse experiences that allow people to socialize, earn money, and build mini-worlds while guaranteeing interoperability and true ownership.”
Chris Dixon
In the eyes of the A16Z partner, the soul of the metaverse is Web 3, which is ownership. He said that compared with Web 2, the next-generation network will use blockchain and NFT as the core primitives.
Taken separately, these three views are actually reasonable, and it is no wonder that they can resonate with many people. So which judgment should we believe?
Because of these three ideas, they will eventually lead to three completely different paths.
The Three Directions of the Metaverse
Now, if we follow the three ideas of Liu Cixin, Zuckerberg and Chris Dixon to consider the future development direction of the Metaverse, what kind of world will we get?
The future world imagined by Liu Cixin
Assuming that Liu Cixin’s prediction is correct, the development of the core components of the metaverse such as VR, AR, AI, and blockchain will be meaningless. Humans will focus on exploring the technology of the real universe. At first glance, this seems to be quite Positive, but in reality, the process of human exploration of the real universe will be greatly slowed down.
why? The ideal is very rich, but the reality is very skinny. The price of exploring the real universe cannot be described as “expensive”. As of now, exploring Mars is still the next distant goal for mankind.
Louis Friedman, founder of the Planetary Society of America, wrote in Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars:
“Although there are genes for exploration in human culture, and although space exploration will go on “forever” in some form, as technology matures, it will become less and less necessary to send humans into space. Mars is not only a human habitation A goal, and possibly the final goal. Exploration of the universe beyond Mars will be transferred to the world of virtual reality, and our physical body can travel the entire universe through information processing simply by sitting in our home on Earth or Mars. .”
This is the positive role of the metaverse in exploring the real universe. Human beings will replace the fragile flesh with indestructible robot avatars to visit this real and dangerous cosmic world, and use the virtual world to synchronize everything that the robot has witnessed. Our dream of space flight can develop faster.
And if Mars is the end point of human exploration of the universe, then the metaverse has no future. On the contrary, if the future of mankind is the sea of ​​stars, then the metaverse is the future.
Zuckerberg’s vision of the future
Assuming Zuckerberg is right, the development of VR, AR, AI and other technologies will usher in an unprecedented explosion. Humans will enter a real virtual world through hardware devices, where people can socialize, play games, travel, and have meetings. Everything that can be done in the real world, as well as unimaginable application scenarios in the real world, and the incarnation of the virtual world can be ever-changing, which means that everyone has Sun Wukong’s “seventy-two transformations” magical skills, There is no doubt that such a world is very fascinating.
But it should be noted that the metaverse imagined by Zuckerberg has the concept of gods, and Meta and himself are the gods of the virtual world they created.
If your own social accounts and video accounts have been ruthlessly deleted by these giants, then you may not have any interest in the metaverse that Zuckerberg imagines.
However, in terms of the development of VR, AR, AI and other technologies, traditional network giants such as Facebook (now Meta) and Microsoft undoubtedly have great advantages, and they may realize a virtual world with an overwhelming sense of experience for human beings faster.
The future world imagined by Chris Dixon
Assuming Chris Dixon is right, then under the premise that traditional Internet giant companies vigorously develop technologies such as VR, AR, AI, etc., another group of people will explore the virtual world with Crypto as the soul, in this world, people can still be the Meta world Everything you can do in Metaverse, while truly owning avatars, money, and virtual items in the metaverse.
Does it sound more attractive? But such a world is destined to experience a period of brutal competition, because not every newly created public chain and Dapp can survive, and eventually there will be giants in the Web 3.0 era, and the weak will be the same as Netscape in history. , gradually disappeared from people’s sight.
It will undoubtedly be a world of adventure, but it will also be a world full of innovation and imagination.
Conclusion: The Different Results of Choosing Three Metaverse Paths
So what will the path you choose bring you in the end?
When you agree with the first point of view, that is, you don’t think that the metaverse will be the future, then everything in the metaverse will have nothing to do with you. No matter how good or bad the metaverse develops, you are just a melon-eating audience.
When you agree with the second view that the metaverse will be dominated by Web 2.0 giants, then what you might do next is to buy the stocks of these giants instead of using and consuming their products because The latter will only make you their product, while the former will allow you to enjoy the dividends of the Web 2.0 metaverse.
And if you agree with the third view, which is that the metaverse is ultimately dominated by Web 3.0, then you should join the Web 3.0 expedition as soon as possible, you will enjoy the advanced hardware developed by the Web 2.0 giant companies, and explore the innovation and the Web 3.0 protocol. possible. But remember, this road is destined to be full of thorns, it will have many different beautiful scenery.
