Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse

as humans, we take all of the big challenges of real life and the complex social structures of the physical world and they get re-created in weird ways in a digital, social space.

There’s a difference with a virtual-world space, because in virtual worlds you actually get a sense of immersion and a sense of interacting with a real person in another part of the world. It creates real human engagement in a way that social media, which creates this disorienting illusion of engagement, does not.

He offers a hopeful look at the promise of metaverse communities but also pulls no punches talking about the ways in which craven actors threaten to bring the whole experiment down.

I’m thinking out loud about this, but there’s something interesting about the idea that social-media platforms now create this real distance, in part by being text-heavy. And that distance can lead you to say things or do things you’d never do in the physical world. It also lowers the bar for engagement, which means that firing off a shitty tweet i... See more

Meta is throwing money at the problem without throwing much wisdom at it.

Au: Two big things. First, if you give a user community powerful enough creator tools, what they create in these worlds will be far more interesting than anything a major company can officially create. In terms of the culture of a metaverse environment and the community’s experiences in a place like Second Life, that’s remained true since 2003.

Warzel: Oh, that’s really interesting. I like the idea that Discord is kind of like the TV Guide and each platform is a different channel and people just switch back and forth depending on what’s on. Au: I think this is what Mark Zuckerberg and other would-be Metaverse builders right now are missing. It’s not the platform that matters as much as th... See more

People focusing on the ways to turn a quick buck will miss the opportunity.

Warzel: I love the way you put that, that the virtual-world experience is tightly integrated with real life. I feel like it’s also a poignant reminder of what you said earlier, that these worlds aren’t antisocial or necessarily escapes from “the real world.” They’re just a different part of the real world.