Reality Privilege and Living Your Life Online

When I think of forging the metaverse and dissolving Reality Privilege, I think of three broad building blocks:

Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality, Gaming, and Crypto

Everyone else, the vast majority of humanity, lacks Reality Privilege—their online world is, or will be, immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment around them in the quote-unquote real world.

Less than half of Americans (48%) fly on a plane each year. About 4 in 10 Americans have never left the country—and 63% of those people say that an international trip is unaffordable. These statistics are for America, the wealthiest nation on Earth.

For everyone to access robust and meaningful digital experiences—to enable the breadth of experiences needed to deconstruct Reality Privilege—the metaverse must be decentralized. It can’t be owned by any one company.

Blockchain technology will enable this vision. Virtual worlds and economies will be owned and controlled by creators and consumers. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), DeFi, social tokens, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)—all are central components of this future.

New technologies are fundamentally about new ways of experiencing the world. And VR and AR will be the most immersive technologies yet, allowing you to deeply and powerfully experience a feeling or story or place. This is why VR and AR are central to breaking down Reality Privilege.