The amount of social coordination, infrastructure building and technological advancement it would take to build a universal metaverse like those portrayed in sci-fi is immense. Both VR (virtual reality, which typically uses a headset) and AR (augmented reality, which layers the virtual world on top of the real world) have yet to penetrate fully widespread adoption. This singular version of the metaverse is decades away from fruition, if even possible at all. For the characters in both books, the metaverse offered the allure of escape from their bleak existences while also reinforcing corrupt power structures. In both novels, the metaverse was entwined with dystopia: it held sway in a society that was in ruins and controlled by shadowy corporations. Two sci-fi novels were central toward this conception of the metaverse: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, which actually coined the term, and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. In this singular 3D world, you walk around as an avatar, interacting with other avatars you can buy and sell virtual stuff, go to work, form communities, play games, wage war.
(On a related note: If you’re working on something interesting, or have any comments or concerns, please drop me a line at What is the metaverse?įor some people, the metaverse has a strict definition: it’s an advanced version of the Internet that you are inside of-instead of merely looking at.
This first newsletter will be a brief introduction and explainer (maybe the first, or 15th you’ve read on the topic) on the metaverse. I’m hoping this newsletter will spotlight the work of others at the forefront of the metaverse: to show how their efforts are already bringing about significant change, and how a new kind of arms race has emerged that will define how we engage with the Internet and each other in the decades to come. Over the past year, however, as I’ve dived into the curious phenomenon of NFTs, I’ve talked to many people-from Metakovan to Trevor McFedries to Steve Aoki-who are devoting their lives to building the metaverse block by block. I come to you with a background in reporting on the intersection of culture and business, and I admit I still have a lot to learn-having descended only two or three rungs down the rabbit hole. I’m going to try to unpack all of that and more in a new weekly newsletter, Into the Metaverse. So what, exactly, is the metaverse? Why did Mark Zuckerberg make it his new life’s work, and why are other tech companies pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into their own competing visions? What role will cryptocurrencies and the blockchain play in this future? And most importantly, how is any of this going to impact your life?
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