What’s Happened To The Metaverse?

Guest commentator: Alexander Schwartz, Senior Communications and Marketing Manager, Brownstein Group @Brownstein_Grp

Heralded as the third generation of the internet, the metaverse has stalled out – with early adopters losing interest in the technology and investors losing billions of dollars as public opinion craters. This shocking fall from grace has dented the fortunes of one of the world’s most public billionaires and the platform he owns, Meta.

Before looking into what happened to the metaverse, here is a quick FAQ.

What is the metaverse?

• The metaverse is an internet-connected platform that allows users to interact with one another in a 3D space through avatars (like a multiplayer video game).

How do I access the metaverse?

• The metaverse can be accessed through a web browser on a computer by visiting many different websites or applications.

How many metaverses are there?

• Estimates range from a few dozen to thousands depending on how broad or narrow the definition is (for example, many internet-connected video games can qualify as a metaverse). However, there are only a handful of popular metaverse platforms. Decentraland and The Sandbox are the most popular.

Do I need a VR headset to get the most out of the metaverse?

• Contrary to popular belief, most popular metaverse platforms are not VR-compatible at the moment.

What popularized the metaverse?

• The concept of a metaverse has been around for decades but has exploded in popularity over the past two years because of the growth in the cryptocurrency and NFT spaces. Essentially, the metaverse offers creatives, entrepreneurs, business people, and other professionals an opportunity to engage in commerce in a new venue.

Less than a year ago, investors, brands, and technology luminaries were flocking to the emerging platform of the metaverse, publicly declaring it both the future of the internet and a revolutionary way to do business.

So, what happened?

Two foundational technologies of the metaverse as it stands today are cryptocurrency and NFTs. Both technologies have seen increased scrutiny and eye-watering drops in value over the past year, causing many consumers who began to engage with Web 3 innovations to develop a bitter taste for all things crypto-related.

The metaverse platforms that are suffering today targeted their press and marketing not around the offerings to consumers but to business entities, investors, and others looking to reap profits from the platform. A technology built on assets, the metaverse was always intended to be commerce-centric, but no marketplace succeeds in a vacuum. Without something to offer to average consumers that would drive digital foot traffic, the brands and major investors that had poured money into the metaverse saw a depreciating asset and began moving away.

In the past month, Meta has laid off more than 10,000 employees – in no small part because the company’s billions of dollars invested into the metaverse have yet to materialize into anything that interests consumers. Recent reports show that Decentraland, the most commonly reported on metaverse platform, registered just 38 users in an entire day.

The metaverse may become a meaningful technology in the future. Still, it may have difficulty garnering significant support until it has something to offer consumers besides investment opportunities and less-than-ideal 3D experiences.