Brought to you by Innovate Niagara, an organization that helps entrepreneurs start, grow & succeed, connects us with Evan Sitler from XpertVR to share his professional insights about the Metaverse.
Unless you have been living under a rock the past few months, you are probably starting to get curious as to how the ‘Metaverse’ will affect your life. These days, it is everywhere, from news headlines to startup decks. The only place you can’t find it is in reality. That is because the Metaverse still has a few years to grow and develop before it becomes what many promise it to be – a decentralized evolution of the internet where anyone has open access to socialize, be entertained and learn through 3D content.
This idea for the future Metaverse has tons of potential. Still, like anything ground-breaking, it also brings many potential negatives. Many organizations including ours weigh these pros and cons every day to help ensure the future Metaverse is more positive than negative. There are hundreds of pros and cons, so here, we narrow it down to three main categories: social, entertainment and education.
Social
Like today’s internet, the Metaverse will allow you to meet people from all over the world. The difference is that in the Metaverse, you will be standing right beside people while travelling to digital representations of their country or even into digital representations of their personality. You will even be able to create digital representations of your personality. Whether that be through the clothes your avatar wears, a decorated room where friends can hang out or even a whole world filled with adventures from your favourite movies, novels and dreams. The best part is that it will be completely anonymous, allowing anyone who can’t express themselves in the real world to express themselves in the Metaverse.
Now, this all sounds great, but there are some possible negatives. Firstly just like today, where people can bully others on social media, the same will be true for the Metaverse but may take place at larger extremes. Secondly, anonymity is fantastic, but every day we hear of tech companies getting hacked and leaking personal data or, worse yet, selling data. Similar problems may occur in the Metaverse and could genuinely hurt those who rely on anonymity. Lastly, worldwide communities are incredible for connection. Still, they can also mean people end up in an echo chamber of negativity or possibly even destructive thought. We have seen examples of this in current social media communities, but the Metaverse will only amplify it.
Entertainment
Whether you’re interested in Star Wars, Harry Potter, gardening or some obscure interest, you can find a community around any topic on the internet today. Through that community today, you can read, watch or create an almost unlimited amount of content. In the future, instead of just creating content for others to consume, you will be able to place yourself and others directly inside the content.
The cons here are that there are no rules on the entertainment or creativity in the Metaverse. If someone wants to create something hateful or twist the truth through advanced deepfake technology, this will all be possible. So if this is the future, what privacy laws will need to be in place to ensure a random person can’t take your likeness or a world leader’s likeness and use it in any way they want?
Education
Education today is centralized and has strict standards that everyone must follow. This is good as it ensures that you can trust a doctor is properly trained to help when you go to a hospital. But at the same time, it limits the number of people who can afford to pay for education and the number of methods a teacher can employ to teach a student. Most importantly, it limits people’s options for exploring new career paths or passions. Over the past few years, platforms like YouTube and Masterclass have made it much easier for people to explore new passions while decreasing costs and giving teachers more freedom. The Metaverse will build upon this success by providing teachers with interactive learning materials.
The worry is that as large corporations gain a stronger hold in the education space, these standards will diminish or disappear entirely. This control may lead to underskilled individuals or less accessibility to different groups worldwide.
How can you benefit?
The Metaverse of the future will have opportunities galore, many of which we can’t even imagine today. So, how can you benefit today? First off, many Metaverse projects need the same help every regular business needs today. So, whether you build websites, run marketing campaigns or manage communities, Metaverse businesses need your help. As a consumer business, there are many platforms for you to showcase your wares in the Metaverse. Done well, this allows your customers to experience your products and hopefully convince them to purchase. Internally you could look to create interactive training materials for employees or meet with them in Metaverse platforms to better interact remotely. Lastly, if you want to help drive the future of the Metaverse, you could join groups that are setting standards and promoting innovation.
In conclusion, the exciting Metaverse will be here soon. Like every technology evolution, there will be good and bad. So, today is the time for society to stand up and ensure proper standards are agreed upon so that the Metaverse of the future doesn’t reflect the ugly parts of the internet today.
About the author Evan Sitler from XpertVR
Evan Sitler, Co-CEO & Co-Founder, XpertVR
Focused on building revolutionary technology, Evan is passionate about leveraging Extended Reality (XR) to change the way people experience education today and into the future, no matter their background or geographical location.
