Microsoft and Google have similar ideas about what the Metaverse should be: an evolution toward virtual worlds inserted with digital devices that should play a role in the daily lives of an increasing number of people. The virtual world, according to predictions, has become more important – and perhaps even more important than the analog world.
What is metaverse actually?
Metaverse is a vision of the future, shaped in large part by articles by American author Matthew Paul, calling it the “successor of the mobile Internet”. In his mind we are heading towards a world in which virtual goods and services will soon be exchanged in the same natural nature as in the physical world. Virtual reality plays an important role in this scenario. Meta, Microsoft and other large technology companies are currently investing heavily in this area.
Equally important, though, should be the Metaverse, a diverse ecosystem, and a living virtual world. By this definition, Microsoft and Meta efforts can be part of the metaverse, but not the metaverse Self. Just like Facebook is not synonymous with “Internet”.
What does the future really hold?
Ultimately, Microsoft and Meta presentations can be interpreted in two ways: either the big tech companies want to build and own the Metaverse themselves — or they’re trying to help shape a part of the Metaverse ecosystem. The latter would be closer to Matthew Paul’s definition of metaverse: a digital world being developed by tens of thousands of companies and individuals at the same time and thus managed in a decentralized manner.
In several interviews since the definition was announced, Mark Zuckerberg has emphasized how important the topic of collaboration is to him: “The most important thing here is that virtual goods and the digital economy, [im Metaverse] arise, be interoperable” dem Tech-Magazin Strategy. “This means that you can take your avatar, clothing, gadgets, and digital experiences with you elsewhere.”
At the moment, Facebook platforms, like most of the large platforms on the Internet, still operate as closed worlds. Data and accounts work within one platform only, and cannot be transferred to another platform. If Mark Zuckerberg keeps his word, that could change in the future — and the Metaverse worlds of Microsoft, Meta, and other companies could become compatible and blendable with one another. But another scenario is also possible: one in which one company wins the battle to be the first to complete the Metaverse and thus becomes a monopoly.
In the end, all of this is possible — and the tech CEOs themselves don’t know what will happen in the end. Especially since there is also a third scenario: that the Metaverse turns out to be short-term hype and no one will talk about it in a few years.
