Nick Heer, at Pixel Envy, last week published a remarkable essay surveying — with copious receipts — the rise and fall of “metaverse” hype:
The obsession with the metaverse seems to have solidified in
Silicon Valley after Matthew Ball published an essay in
January 2020 in which he forecasted that, at the very least……it is likely to produce trillions in value as a new computing
platform or content medium. But in its full vision, the Metaverse
becomes the gateway to most digital experiences, a key component
of all physical ones, and the next great labor platform. […]Ball published this essay with darkly fortuitous timing. A week
earlier, Chinese health authorities had isolated a new strain of
coronavirus aggressively spreading in Wuhan; a day before, they
published its genetic sequence. Within a couple of
months, the world had turned upside down and many of us were
suddenly spending our days in a space that felt more virtual than
physical. We may have only been working from home — or, at least,
those of us who had the option and were not laid off — and
socializing over Zoom, all while remembering the last concert we
went to or the last time we ate a meal in a restaurant.
Just a tremendous piece of writing and reporting from Heer. What a pile of horseshit “the metaverse” as promulgated by Zuckerberg was. To call what Heer has assembled here, in a compelling narrative to boot, “comprehensive” is a vast understatement. These hucksters were selling a bill of goods and now they’re trying to whistle past their own hype:
As for the futurists like Hackl, who confidently proclaimed the
metaverse was “for certain”, they have found an out thanks to its
flexible definition. Jeff Barrett, of the Shorty Awards’ “It’s No
Fluke” podcast, published a glowing profile of “the Godmother of
the Metaverse” earlier this year under the headline “Why
Cathy Hackl Keeps Getting the Future Right”. “When enthusiasm
cooled and narratives collapsed, many distanced themselves from
the space”, writes Barrett, noting with seeming approval that
“Hackl did the opposite. She reframed it”. Many people — perhaps
everyone, come to think of it — could predict the future if they
got to retcon their predictions to fit reality.
Bravo.
