PCG Article The creator of Second Life has a lot to say about all these new 'metaverses'

[Colif]

Nice to get an opinion from someone who has already done some of these things

"Would I like 10 million people [in Second Life]? Yes," says Oberwager. "Would I like a billion people? Sure. Do I want everybody spending all of their time in it? No. The Matrix is not the instruction manual. The Matrix is the warning. I don't think that's good. But if advertising is your business model, you want everybody in there all the time. You want to spend as little money as you can supporting them, and you want to get as much money as you can through volume.

https://www.pcgamer.com/second-life-metaverse-interview/

FB just sees it as a way to create the biggest advertising pool ever to sell stuff too. Its not FOR you, its for them.

remake part 1 of Matrix and instead of a spike in back of head, just make it a VR headset. That could be the future.

 

[Alm]

I can't bear to listen to the radio anymore as it's half adverts.

Edit: i was skeptical of the metaverse with my friends but they reckon it will happen.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

People talk big about the metaverse, but it's never going to become mainstream. First of all, people don't want to wear headsets all the time. It's just not practical. But even if you can do it on a normal screen, it still won't become mainstream.

My first computer was a Commodore 64. I was finally able to afford my first DOS/Windows-based PC around 1995, and it was a Packard Bell with a Pentium 75 in it. It came with DOS and Windows 3.11 with a free upgrade to Windows 95 when it released. Why am I bringing this up? Because it also came with Packard Bell's own user interface, called Navigator (I'll put a video below). It was beautiful. You got to all your apps and everything you want to do by navigating around a beautiful house. If you want to play your music, you click on the stereo on the shelf in your living room, or whatever. It was a way more beautiful presentation than Windows 3.11, or even Windows 95.

But nobody wanted to use it. We had computers to be productive or have fun with games, or whatever. Navigator just took too long to get from place to place to get to what you want to do. It was nice to look at, but eventually, you'd rather just click the Start button, and click your app in 2 seconds, and start working on whatever you wanted to do.

Technology has changed since then, but I guarantee that people haven't gotten more patient since then. It may work as a novelty, but it's never going to catch on as the mainstream way of doing things, unless they do away with everything else and force it on us.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QlLQJDOBlw

 

[Colif]

As interview said, its got to start from users wanting it. Right now its all these big companies wanting to control it, so its a top down push to get us all into it. But there is nothing there that is worth having.

That app might have been useful. The music app with an actual animated CD tray that opens is a bit much. especially when most speakers you would have is 2 and sound wasn't great back then.

 

[Zloth]

Television isn't FOR you, it's for advertisers. (Well, except public television here in the states.) It's still going strong, though the subscription model is starting to win out.

If they can make a cyber space that's easier and better than the World Wide Web, it will take off. They haven't yet shown me how that happens, so I really can't see how this takes off. I sure do like all the money getting put into VR, though!

P.S. We're talking `95. I'm sure that Navigation application was a lot more about getting people who are outright frightened of computers to work with them. Even if it's perfectly obvious on the desktop and the buyer never actually runs the program, just knowing it's there if they need it might earn a bunch of sales.

 

[Colif]

People didn't know what computers did back then, they thought they were like TV. Turn them on and they entertain you... so a program like that would be a way for them to find things on PC. It associates the programs with the actual devices.

They weren't only people making apps like that back then:
Microsoft BOB

BOB is actually worse.

 

[Brian Boru]

That is an excellent article, kudos to Tyler Wilde!

 

[Colif]

Television isn't FOR you, it's for advertisers. (Well, except public television here in the states.) It's still going strong, though the subscription model is starting to win out.

Television offered something new, a long distance visual communication method and a way to sell soap to housewives. Metaverse is just more of the same, but its doesn't do anything essential that makes it necessary to keep living. You can do most of what you can do virtually in reality now.. that is needed to live anyway. In the Metaverse your avatar will be a walking billboard... so its one big circle jerk, social media is bad enough for egos. This would be overwhelming for people who need to impress others. No wonder advertisers want it, sell more fake things so people can wear that name as well. It turns life into a competitive sport.
Anyone under age of 12 should be kept off it. But I also feel same way about social media.

All the rich automatically win...
The guy in article sees it as a trap. He also doesn't see it happening anytime soon.

 

[Zloth]

Television was just more of the same. If you wanted entertainment, you could go to a play, read a book, or listen to the radio. The first two wouldn't interrupt stories with advertisements, either.

The fact is, we don't know what it's going to look like. Is your avatar going to look like you, an idealized you, a bobble-headed you, your favorites comic book character, famous actors who died so long ago that you can use their likeness for free, or what? Is there going to be some big controversy when people start to assume that people will use avatars, then some others set their avatar to be one transparent pixel to "spy" on them? We've got no clue.

But, until they show a real use for it, it isn't going to go anywhere. (Except as a way for tech executives to show they are being "innovative.")

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Just mark my words, though, guys. It will be a very, very long time before anything like the Metaverse becomes mainstream. It's just going to be a novelty. I think it will probably end up about as successful as 3D TVs.

 

[Colif]

so something they bring back every 20 years to convince people to buy VR goggles?
its just like the Frisbee and YoYo's, every decade or more they come back and a new generation get taught the same old things... then it dies off and then it happens again.

3D is every 30 years or so. Have to sell people New TV, that 16k TV you have now just isn't good enough, whack these goggles on and don't mind the headaches, thats normal... one year we get it right... promise. when really its the same tech every time. No changes.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

so something they bring back every 20 years to convince people to buy VR goggles?
its just like the Frisbee and YoYo's, every decade or more they come back and a new generation get taught the same old things... then it dies off and then it happens again.

3D is every 30 years or so. Have to sell people New TV, that 16k TV you have now just isn't good enough, whack these goggles on and don't mind the headaches, thats normal... one year we get it right... promise. when really its the same tech every time. No changes.

Haha. Exactly.

I will admit that modern VR is a lot better than it was when they first started trying it. I remember those glasses/visor things they used to sell for PCs in the late 90s/early 2000s. I actually have a Quest 2, and it's really cool. Just not convenient for normal use.