Besides being tone deaf, lucky beyond belief and untrustworthy, Zuck's declaration of the metaverse to be just around the corner isn't, due to the intense computational and code logistics needed to pull it off as the envisioned tech is not there yet by any stretch of the imagination and ... do you trust Zuck in sharing your inner most feelings and financial wherewithals in living in said metaverse? I thought so ...
So Hiro's not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992).[1
Last week, Meta showed yet another cringeworthy product of its $10.2 billion investment in the metaverse: a demonic VR porcelain doll of Mark Zuckerberg that looked worse than a Second Life avatar from 2003. Hastily released in response to yet another round of universal mockery from all over the internet, it was still only marginally more expressive, and slightly more alive, than a Ken doll.
The worst part is not how bad it looks, but the fact that it is a symbol of how badly Meta is managing expectations for the metaverse. Anybody expecting that this metaverse thing will end up being a real-life version of the book and film Ready Player One is in for a huge disappointment. And so is Zuckerberg, when he finally realizes that only an insignificant fraction of enthusiasts are going to buy into this awkward dimension.
It gets better.
Meta overestimates the power of VR in its current form, as does anyone criticizing Meta for not being immersive enough. Right now, a chat on Tinder using a smartphone can feel a lot more engaging than using VR goggles to communicate, simply because our brains fill in so many of the blanks in that conversation. We imagine the face of the other person, rather than seeing a representation that can’t possibly convey the full spectrum of human emotion.
This same phenomenon happens when you play a good game with an immersive story and gameplay: Even if the graphics are 8-bit sprites, game designers know that our imaginations compensate, providing a more powerful experience.
Last but not least, current VR hardware is isolating, awkward and ugly, something needing to be replaced with cool glasses or contacts, gear not ready for prime time until Apple and significant others decide to make it happen. Guesstimate ... 2035-40.
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