The Future of the Metaverse: Will We Finally Be Able to ‘Reach out and Touch’ the Internet?

The Metaverse continues to be a hot topic amongst major stakeholders in the global financial market scene and the tech industry. But despite the hype and interest by major players in Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the Fashion industry, the metaverse has its fair share of critics, including Elon Musk who has previously poked fun at the concept stating that “I think we’re far from disappearing into the metaverse. This sounds just kind of buzzword-y.”

But is the metaverse really just a passing fad? Of course, I wouldn’t expect even the Web3 experts to agree on this one, let alone the definition of the metaverse. What’s interesting to note, however, is that the metaverse is not an entirely new concept as many think. It was first coined in Neal Stephonson’s 1992 Novel ‘Snow Crash’ and in fact to some extent MMO games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty are an embodiment of the metaverse.

That said, virtual worlds are gradually becoming a part of our daily lives without us even noticing, and while we might not all be experiencing it through gaming, upcoming social apps in the Web3 realm such as Peer could be the much-need onboarding ramps. After all, there are close to 5 billion social media users in the world today, most of whom are yearning to go beyond the Web2 experience offered by the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Does the Metaverse Really Offer Anything Unique?
Although a futuristic concept, the bone of contention lies in whether the metaverse offers something unique and why we should abandon our perfectly working physical world to live in a virtual world? Well, both questions are a fair argument, especially because we have yet to see metaverse-oriented innovations that truly focus on enhancing the human experience.

But at the same time, the latest developments tell a different story – what if we could soon be able to actually ‘reach out and touch’ the internet? I know, it’s a far-fetched thought, but sit with me, the most recent advancements in integrating the metaverse with VR and AR could make it a possibility sooner than later.

Inching Closer to Living Inside Virtual Worlds
Almost every Big Tech company at some point jumped on the VR bandwagon and while it has taken several years to see tangible results, Apple is set to launch its flagship VR product, Vision Pro next year. This new innovation by Apple will transform how users can leverage Virtual Reality to operate their devices within a bigger virtual space as opposed to being limited to the small screens on the iphones or macbooks.

Well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, we already have landowners and celebrities hosting virtual events inside popular decentralized metaverses such as Decentraland and The Sandbox.

A good example is Snoop Dogg’s Snoopverse in the Sandbox, the famous US rapper is a big fan of NFTs and the metaverse. He made history by shooting the first ever music video inside a virtual world, the song is dubbed ‘House I Built’, a production of Game Maker and Vox Edit’s content creation tools.

On the other hand, Meta (formerly Facebook) debuted a virtual world, Horizon World, last year, opening up an opportunity for users to engage through digital avatars. While the project received a lot of backlash, Horizon World is just a sneak peak of what’s to come: virtual worlds where people can socialize, collaborate on work or even tour other cities virtually.

Microsoft, which is also optimistic about the metaverse, recently found some reprieve after a US court gave a go-ahead to its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. According to earlier remarks by the CEO Satya Nadella, this is an opportunity for them to scale into the metaverse,

“When we talk about the metaverse, we’re describing both a new platform and a new application type, similar to how we talked about the web and websites in the early ’90s. It’s no longer just playing a game with friends. You can be in the game with them.” said Nadella.

AR: The Ultimate Game-Changer in the Metaverse
Most people normally confuse between Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and for the avoidance of doubt, the two concepts differ slightly.

VR refers to computer generated or 3D environments designed to mimic the real world or imaginary spaces while AR enhances the live view of our physical environment through digital sensory input such as GPS data, videos, sounds or graphics. A good example of the latter is snapchat filters.

So, why is AR emerging as the real deal in the metaverse? Of course, this is not to downplay the role of VR, but is quite interesting to observe how AR is adding value to the metaverse by introducing the concept of time, space and matter in the Web3 experience. Imagine a metaverse world that occupies your surroundings: instead of joining a virtual world, you can record time and place stamped events in the physical world and that becomes your metaverse.

You’d be surprised that this concept is not just an idea. In fact, it will soon be possible to ‘reach out and touch’ the internet (not literally) but through Peer, a Web3 social app that combines the power of blockchain technology and AR to amplify the human interaction experience. Peer’s CEO Tony Tran explained it in simple terms in a detailed article on Decrypt last year,

“Everything in the physical world can be boiled down to Matter, Space, and Time. Web1 gave us the matter via data. Web2 gave us space via maps. Web3 gives us time via blockchain. If we combine it, then what we have is an ambient web where the data is mapped to the physical world with the properties of time.”

In summary, while the metaverse critics may have a case to make, it is quite evident that the integration of blockchain with VR and AR could prove them wrong. But most importantly, I wouldn’t overlook the progress being made by Big Tech in this space as well as novel innovations especially in the social media realm where most of today’s average person spends their time.