Metaverse: The Future That’s Waiting To Explode!

Do you know who coined the word 'Metaverse'?

Author Neal Stephenson used Metaverse in his 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. In that novel, Metaverse, a 3D-virtual space, was the successor of the internet that might evolve in the near future.

It is a merger of two words, 'meta' meaning 'beyond' and 'verse' which means 'universe.' In short, the Metaverse is a huge interconnected network of virtual spaces.

Now, Mark Zuckerberg has made that dream into reality!

What Is The Metaverse?

With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the world, people were looking for virtual options to hang out or have a business discussion without getting the virus. 

That's when the Metaverse was born! It helped increase work productivity, create an interactive learning experience, and even help people meet their loved ones virtually.

Not just that, people are also conducting weddings on the Metaverse. The first couple to get married through the same was Traci and Dave Gagnon. The ceremony was staged by Virbela, a firm that creates virtual environments for employment, education, and events.

How Does The Metaverse Work?

Users in the Metaverse are given an avatar, which represents themselves that they can customise to their liking. The platform determines the appearance of the avatar. 

It might be quite basic, but it can also be of very high quality, with many customising options. Users can try to stay loyal to themselves, but they can potentially transform into someone completely different.

Once created, the avatar is the user's ticket to the Metaverse. In this virtual environment, everything is possible if one has the imagination to suspend reality for a short time. 

The avatar can walk, communicate, and explore the environment, and the limitations only depend on the platform.

Is The Metaverse The New Normal?

New Metaverse experiences will reshape the future of employment. Apart from Nvidia's Omniverse Enterprise, Meta's Horizon Workrooms and Microsoft's Mesh are also designed to empower virtual work, allowing remote collaboration across devices via mixed reality applications. 

Bill Gates predicted that virtual meetings would migrate to the Metaverse within three years. People would increasingly rely on VR headsets and avatars at work.

The Metaverse's core foundation is to improve human contact. As we progress into a more technologically advanced species than ever before, it is becoming increasingly vital to pay attention to who we are connected to the earth and the people around us. 

This concept is perfectly encapsulated by the word "meta."

As certain metaverses get more popular, the servers that host them become unable to handle the increased traffic. Some programmers design different layers that divide users, thereby shrinking the universe.

This may be prevented in the future, but the Metaverse is often fractured for now. Not to mention that people use multiple platforms, effectively choosing their favourite realm.

Pushing Innovative To New Heights

While believers can't get enough of the Metaverse, skeptics may find that it's going too quickly. The Federal Trade Commission, for example, is throwing roadblocks in Meta's way by prolonging their antitrust investigation into previous VR deals. 

The Metaverse, according to Chinese regulators, needs to be closely watched. Expensive headsets and the unknown mental and physical health consequences of wearing a headset a long time and moving around in a parallel reality could be a hurdle to widespread adoption. 

Despite this, the tech industry remains firm in its trust in the Metaverse, estimating that it will be worth $800 billion by 2024 and have a population of one billion by 2030.

When the pros and cons are considered, it is reasonable to expect metaverses to have a long-term impact on the future, if not to mould it. Only time will tell whether the Metaverse is the monopoly of our digital future. Still, given the decade of preparation, it is safe to assume it is here to stay.