What Is Facebook's Metaverse, Why Should You Care?

Mark Zuckerberg recently introduced Metaverse and made a video demonstrating it.

In the video he is almost a cartoonish version of himself moving from one place to another in different scenarios. The best way to describe it is it seemed like being inside a video game, or what they would call a virtual world. I found an Associated Press article on the NPR.org website that explained the Metaverse from October 2021. ^

They explain it as, “the internet brought to life in 3D.” You can go inside of it instead of just looking at a web page. But how?

You enter the virtual world by the use of headsets or augmented reality glasses. You can meet other people, work, play, shop, or do many other things in this virtual world. “You’re living a virtual life the same way you’re living your physical life.” You can buy artwork, create art, attend concerts, buy digital products, try on clothes and then buy them. You can meet co-workers in a digital office—the options seem endless.

Right now the technology is expensive and clunky, but my bet would be that in the future the technology will get smaller and cheaper, and maybe eventually just implanted in people so they won’t have to deal with any extraneous equipment to enter the virtual world.

I’ve talked about Facebook’s vast audiences before in my reports; they have captive audiences with the billions of online users and businesses to sell this idea to. They have many to appeal to for the Metaverse project. The AP article says other companies talking about involvement in Metaverse include Microsoft and a chipmaker named Nvidia, as well as, video game makers, Gucci, Coca-Cola, and Clinique.

Zuckerberg said ads will still be an important part of their business model where the Metaverse is concerned.

So, to sum up Metaverse, it is Internet capability coming to life.

Who would want to do this or live in a virtual world?

Well, I could see those brought up on technology like Millennials or Gen Z as good candidates. Those that want to run away from their real life problems and the real world might be easily convinced to participate.

Time will tell, but you can be assured they will try to get people addicted to the technology first. Remember flip phones, then smartphones? People are addicted to their phones. If you leave the house without your phone, there is a strange feeling of vulnerability without it isn’t there? What if someone can’t reach you?

Why do they want to do this virtual world? Well, many companies, platform designers, and owners stand to make a lot of money on a virtual environment. It really can be a parallel world to the real world even with its own built-in parallel economy.

Let’s put all of this aside for a minute and revisit Facebook’s digital currency that I’ve talked about in previous reports. Remember their first crypto Libra, then it became Diem? An article published by MotleyFool.com called, What Facebooks Metaverse Means for Crypto gives the update on Diem. ^

It says that the Diem remains in a holding pattern for now because it has yet to receive clearance in the U.S. as a digital payment platform. Maybe it will be easier to get clearance for a virtual world?

Take the idea of the digital, virtual world, accessible through virtual headsets and glasses, and the plan is to have a crypto as a way to “further entrenchment of the digital world in everyday life and will also rewrite the script on what it means to purchase and own something.”

When I read this quote, I thought of the quote from the great people at the World Economic Forum that say, “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” This quote was made on the heels of the Great Reset—the reset the World Economic Forum has been touting will be great for all of us. Could it be this is what they were talking about?

Think about that statement, you could have access to everything and anything in a virtual environment, AKA Metaverse—so much so you’ll be happy, but NOT really own any of it because how can you own something that is not real and is in fact only in a virtual world?

This Metaverse might be difficult to understand now. But I remember in college before the Internet came to the public we were studying and writing about the Internet Super Highway, it seemed outlandish and not so easy to understand how it would fit into daily life. Now it is a huge part of our life.

Back to crypto—what does it have to do with Metaverse? The article says as the Internet has grown, so has the need for a currency built for exchange of digital assets, which is the original idea behind Bitcoin.

It says as daily use of digital tools and entertainment increase, so will ownership of digital assets. So, in the Metaverse, if the virtual you decides to try on a virtual outfit, maybe you will purchase it with Zuckerberg’s virtual crypto, Diem. The author also says the blockchain would ensure that your virtual stuff won’t be stolen from your virtual life.

Enter blockchain. 

Blockchain technology is an unchangeable ledger of digital transactions. So, if an outfit is purchased virtually, it would be put in the ledger as your virtual asset that cannot be accessed by anyone else without your releasing it.

When Klaus Schwab and his buddies say, “you’ll own nothing and be happy”, I think this is how they could do that. Meanwhile, in the real world, the elites will steal your real world assets, your real estate, your real property, your 401k, your real gold and silver, etc.

If they convince enough people to participate in their virtual reality—they could own everything in the real world AND control everything in the virtual world.

The article ends saying the Metaverse is in experimentation mode, while Diem waits on the side lines for the go ahead. Facebook’s built-in audience, billions of social media users, will seal the deal.

So Facebook’s Metaverse is a fake you, getting fake assets, for fake money, in a fake world while their fake crypto is on standby until the fake world takes off!

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Sources for this Article:

NPR.org, Facebook wants to lean into the metaverse. Here’s what it is and how it will work, October 28, The Associated Press
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1050280500/what-metaverse-is-and-how-it-will-work

Motley Fool, What Facebook’s Metaverse Means for Crypto, Nicholas Rossolillo, Nov. 16, 2021

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/11/16/what-facebooks-metaverse-means-for-crypto/