Hello my dear friends, I hope you are all very well. Today I want to talk to you about a topic that a few days ago was all over the media, and that gave for an incredible amount of memes, that topic is the metaverse, but in addition to what it is, I want us to explore a little the ideas of what it could mean for the global economy, so without further ado, let's start with the basics.
What is the metaverse.
The metaverse, rather than a particular program, is an initiative launched by Mark Zuckerberg owner of Facebook with the aim of encouraging research and development to create a series of virtual reality universes that allow users around the world to interact in very detailed virtual environments with digital Avatars, these may or may not be based on their actual physical appearance. Now, such virtual worlds are not new, in video games they are decades old, and those who lived through the golden age of World of Warcraft, the world's most famous MMORPG or massively multiplayer role-playing game, can attest to how immersive a virtual world can be when you share it with millions of people.
But while video games every day improve their graphics and become more detailed, what Mark Zuckerberg proposes is much more ambitious, basically combine virtual reality technology such as the Oculus with the infrastructure of their social networks, the hundreds or thousands of virtual universes that are created and our real life.
What in theory will allow people to work, study, have fun or just hang out in very detailed virtual environments with other people, and that their actions in such environments have a more real impact on your life, imagine being able to attend a live concert but through the metaverse, or go to a work meeting, where the facial expression of your digital avatar match precisely with yours, and your colleagues can see in your eyes if an idea excites you or not, or to exercise practicing a virtual fight with an opponent thousands of miles away...
This is what the metaverse proposes, more than an alternate reality, it could be said that it offers us to experience an augmented reality through digital media.
How and when the metaverse.
How this will be achieved is still not entirely clear, Facebook is investing millions of dollars in projects associated with 10,000 million dollars and hiring 10,000 people worldwide to start creating the foundations of the metaverse, and as mentioned above, the metaverse is not just a product of Facebook, is an initiative and many companies have heard the call and have come out to investigate and create elements for the metaverse because although Bloomberg predicts that by 2024 the economic opportunities in the metaverse will reach 800. Although Bloomberg forecasts that by 2024 the economic opportunities in the metaverse will reach 800 billion dollars, the challenges are still many, there is still a lot of work ahead, so it is estimated that for the metaverse to reach the capabilities aspired so far, there will still be 10 to 15 years to go.
Development implications.
As I mentioned above, the challenges are many, but all this momentum that has been given to the idea has made many technology and entertainment giants jump into the business, and companies like Disney are developing content for a virtual universe where we can visit their theme parks, Discovery channel and Fox sports are also studying ways to bring their content to the metaverse, even the New york times newspaper is playing with the idea. All this new content will be a challenge, as the internet grows exponentially, the processing and storage capacity is challenged every day, however technology giants like Nvidia, AMD or Intel have already seen the opportunity and are preparing to grow their business with the metaverse, internet service providers already know that they will need higher speed than ever if they want the metaverse to work properly, as with complex interactions and graphics on a scale never done before, latency will be a very real problem.
So as the idea gains traction and with so much money invested in the field, we can assume that it will generate a lot of opportunities in all associated areas, such as computing and digital design. And if it turns out to be the boom predicted by Raymond Kurzweil who claims that by 2030 people will spend more time in the metaverse than in real life, then those companies that have jumped at the opportunity now in its infancy will grow tremendously.
Implications of its implementation.
At the level of the ordinary citizen the existence of the metaverse will revolutionize human relations, if it proves to be successful it will expand on something that the pandemic of covid 19 taught us already in the last 2 years, and that is that work, education, or massive digital entertainment are a viable idea and sometimes preferable to traditional methods, long trips for business meetings will be a thing of the past, You will be able to attend a symphonic metal concert without having to go to Europe, all this will surely impact the transportation industry, and if we get to the point of being able to go to a medical consultation in a virtual hospital in the metaverse, then many professionals in areas outside of computing will have to train and adapt to the new hybrid reality, however this may give a slight advantage to the new generations that have knowledge and practice working in similar environments.
Meta-economics, Cryptos and NFTs.
Of course one of the first questions that came to mind for those of us who have some experience in massively multiplayer video games when we saw Zuckerberg changing the clothes of his avatar, was how these customization elements will be handled, with what currency they will be paid, how the economy of the metaverse will be, since these are elements that we should all be interested in, Mark talks about the possibility of customizing his avatar, but we all know that nothing is free in this life, so we can expect that part of those cosmetic improvements we will have to pay for them, also the spaces or digital universes suppose an investment of time and energy for which the owners will want to make a profit... again... the precedent is given by video games, say Fortnite, which is a video game that you can access for free, but between cosmetic enhancements, avatars, virtual concerts and other virtual goods it has generated 9. 200 million dollars, so we have to assume that the metaverse will have its own economic dynamics, but it is not yet clear what its currency will be and at what level the metaverse will be integrated with cryptocurrencies which every day grow in importance, another important issue is the fact that if there is something that people like, But the dynamics of NFTs may be the answer, as they will allow someone with a valuable digital asset to keep it and protect its exclusivity, which will maintain its value.
All this can mean a better future for those of us who have invested in cryptocurrencies and are already learning to manage in this volatile environment of digital currencies, NFTs and blockchains.
Conclusion.
To close, the proposal of Facebook's owner to revolutionize reality and how we experience it is aimed at attracting those 2. 5 billion people who daily use social networks to a world where the digital and the real are mixed to the point that discerning between one or the other would be difficult, all this will bring opportunities and also challenges, of course... maybe it will never mature as planned by the big companies, maybe the initiative of the controversial Mark will not work... but if it happens, maybe we will be in an advantageous position.... or not, it may end up being a dystopia like Ready Player One... since the possibility of working in a virtual environment does not mean that it is a pleasant environment, and putting more power over our lives in the hands of large corporations may not be such an attractive idea... anyway as the months go by we will see, in this crypto communities, content creation and more, we should be very aware of the developments in this regard.
Recommended Bibliographic Reference
[1] Mundo Noticias