Old Man Yells at the Metaverse

You’ve been hearing about Web3 and metaverse and crypto, and everything is changing. But is that a good thing or a bad thing? Let’s yell at the metaverse and see what echoes back.

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SHOW NOTES:

• What is web3? (CB Insights)
• Notes on Web3 (Robin Sloan)
• An Engineer’s Hype-Free Observations on web3 (PSL)
• Why Microsoft might beat Zuckerberg to the metaverse (Venture Beat)
• It’s a web3 world now, how does the hype compare to Web 2.0? (The NewStack)
• The Facebook Company is now Meta

WHY IS EVERYONE TRYING TO CHANGE THE EXISTING INTERNET?

The metaverse is part of a bigger evolution called “Web3”, which is looking at new interaction models, new payment models, and new ways to represent life in a fully digital world. How did we get here? What lessons from the past can we learn? 

HOW MIGHT THE METAVERSE CHANGE THE INTERNET, FOR GOOD OR BAD?

1. Like Web 1.0 and 2.0, Web3 is initially being positioned as “for the youth”, but there’s already a subculture of people trying to make it “for the Enterprise, as well”.
2. Metaverse and Web3 have all-digital versions of things (identity, goods, payments, etc.) that seem complicated and confusing to anyone that doesn’t start there. 
3. There will (likely) be many metaverses, and this will be OK, and people will ask for standards and things to interoperate. 
4. There will be consumer metaverses and Enterprise (“work”) metaverses. People will wish the work one was more like the consumer one - but not always. 
5. Metaverse assumes that we want to blur the lines between what had been a distraction (e.g. gaming) and what we want in the rest of our lives. 
6. A lot has changed since we first tried this 15 years ago (e.g. Second Life). 
7. There is a lot more psychology involved in these virtual worlds than you initially think, especially outside of the “native” community.
8. Be cautious around the people that talk very fast when you ask questions, and always tell you that you don’t understand it and need to be authentic. 
9. Experiment. Ask questions. To research with problems in mind. 

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