What Is the Metaverse?

Many experts look at the metaverse as a 3D model of the internet. Basically, a place parallel to the physical world, where you spend your digital life. A place where you and other people have an avatar, and you interact with them through their avatars. Some also argue that the metaverse in the truest sense of the term doesn’t actually exist yet. 

“It’s not real at this stage, and won’t become real until people have a single location they can go to to get into in a virtual world they could live in,” Ibrahim Baggili, a cybersecurity expert and the founding director of the Connecticut Institute of Technology at the University of New Haven, told VICE. “The internet was described as an ’information superhighway’ in the 90s, but it was more of just a term to refer to a potential future with networked computers rather than an actual highway,” said Timoni West,  a vice president who oversees the AR and VR departments at Unity Software, a company that builds graphics engines for game development. “As it develops, the metaverse will also have equivalence to the real world and be much more distributed, democratic, fluid and varied,” she told VICE.

While the discourse on defining the metaverse differs from case to case, it is, in the simplest terms, a shared virtual space that is interactive, immersive and hyper-realistic. It would also include your own customized avatar and digital assets, which will likely be recorded on a blockchain. 

So, it’s not just a video game?

While the metaverse is far more expansive than a video game, the gaming world seems to have already adopted its most rudimentary form. Take for instance an online shooter game like Fortnite, where users have a personal avatar to engage and interact with other players' avatars, while also earning virtual currency to unlock outfits for their avatar. 

Perhaps the closest existing iteration to the envisioned metaverse is the game Second Life, a simulation game that lets users experience virtual reality in which their avatar could shop, eat, shower, and do everything they would in real life. 

According to technologists, the metaverse will take the virtual reality experience to the next level, allowing users to float into the virtual world to do everything from buy land and host parties to even get married through digital avatars. 

So, how do I access the metaverse for now?

According to cybersecurity expert Baggili, the structure of the metaverse is currently akin to that of the Apple App Store. “At this point, you have multiple platforms that offer experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality, which are like the different apps you could download from the App Store. But there isn’t a single portal that people can use to access it, kind of like how Yahoo created a portal to use the internet in its early days.” 

In turn, this has led to multiple tech heavyweights offering a variety of experiences, from gaming and virtual workspaces to live entertainment and real estate. This includes platforms like , , , , and . 

However, many experts also argue that you don’t necessarily need a VR headset to get into the metaverse. 

So, what is the use of the metaverse, really? 

Given its high-value projection, the metaverse is touted as a major player in growing the digital economy. But while the metaverse is already being seen as the future of entertainment, fashion, gaming and even partying, experts argue that its best-case use will likely be for education. 

But is it safe to be in the metaverse? 

“Not only would the metaverse collect data on your eye-tracking movement, hand movements, the shape of your room and more. We also have to figure out a legal [framework] of what happens if you get harassed in a virtual platform, given that it has real implications since you’re so immersed in the technology,” said Baggili. 

The metaverse, he added, presupposes an implicit trust in technology, the way we rely on Google Maps for directions even if we’re never really sure whether it will lead us to the right destination. “There’s all this legal stuff we have to think about and actively [pursue] if we want to responsibly develop these technologies.” 

So, will I be living in the metaverse some years from now?

Some “a large proportion of people will be in the metaverse in some way” by 2030. But despite the current obsession with it, the idea still needs a lot of work. The first challenge will be the accessibility of the hardware it requires. Then there’s the need for interoperability – allowing you to take virtual items like clothes or cars from one platform to another. Many experts believe this is vital for the metaverse to work. There will be legal and commercial challenges too, apart from figuring who will act as the police out here. Also, there’s no guarantee that people will want to hang out in the metaverse. 

Perhaps we’ll live in the metaverse intermittently – we enjoy putting on VR goggles but don’t keep them on for very long. Or, maybe, we’ll laugh at this VICE article  a decade from now, thinking how naive people were to have questioned the rise of the metaverse.