The Metaverse: A Land of new beginnings
On 11 October 1492, at midnight, after about 35 days of sailing westward across the Atlantic, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus discovered the small island of The New World, San Salvador.
A few years later, on 8 July 1497, the Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama discovered India. The journey from Africa to India and back was longer than the length of the Equator.
A similar story can be applied to the discovery of The Metaverse, except it wasn’t found by a single person and it’s constantly developing. But, it did take a long time and evolution of computer hardware and the web for this discovery to be made.
The Metaverse isn’t owned by a company. No, it isn’t found by Meta (earlier Facebook) and no one can claim ownership of it. It is being made by all of us together and expanding every day. All of us (will) have something to contribute to The Metaverse. Without us, it is just a group of words without meaning.
We, the consumers and the creators, will shape The Metaverse and what it will become in the future.
And how will we do this? Read on.
A lot of you might have this question,
“what is the metaverse and how can I access it?”
The Metaverse has different meanings and uses, depending on how you look at it. Let’s begin with the simplest. The Metaverse is a virtual world that can (soon) be accessed through virtual and augmented reality, depending upon what you want to do in it. It’s a virtual world supposedly based on web 3 (read everything about web3 here) and on a blockchain. It makes us, the consumers and creators, the owners of what we do and create in the world. Everything we own will belong to us, and our information would not go to anybody without permission. It is not made by a single company, rather many companies together contribute and no specific company can access our private info howsoever. At least that’s what it is supposed to satisfy if everything goes as thought and planned.
To be precise, it still isn’t much clear whether what Metaverse really is and how we can access it right now. But, we can still access a part of The Metaverse such as play VR games, soon hang out virtually on Oculus Horizon, and much more.
The evolution of Computer Hardware, the web, and VR brought us close to what is known as The Metaverse today. There are many devices that can be used to access The Metaverse right now (for ex. Oculus quest 1 & 2), and many are being developed by various brands across the globe (for ex. Project Nazare and oculus quest 3 & 4 by Meta). These can be used to access The Metaverse through different ways, VR Headsets to access virtually, AR Glasses for many features such as mixed reality, and many other ways not yet known that may come about as time passes and technology progresses.
The Metaverse provides an infinite list of possibilities. From hanging out with your friends and relatives to holding business meetings and live concerts and events. And what makes it special is the fact that you can do all this and more without having to spend money on transport and also saving time. This can prove to be very beneficial for the masses and of course, sounds pretty appealing. Over time, all of this might become the truth and all of us could use The Metaverse to our advantage.
Have you ever wondered, how life would be like if you could teleport? Ever wanted to play a shooting game with your friends as if you’re battling in real life but without the fear of dying? Ever wanted to change locations while working because your workspace just doesn’t suit you? Well, if the answer to any of that is yes, The Metaverse might serve you well. It is thought to be the future of the internet (based on web3, supposedly) and also serves as the future of work, gaming, business, music, digital art, and lots more. It’s a platform- like Instagram (but way better)- except that it isn’t owned by a company. It is owned by you, me, and everyone using it.
So, The Metaverse might provide for a multi-trillion dollar economy, virtually, in the supposed future. And as unpredictably fast as technology progresses, it’s impossible to predict when, but we expect within a decade or two at most.
The Metaverse, if everything goes as expected, will also provide thousands of new job opportunities, the spectrum of which is impossible to predict. However, you can expect earnings from many things you used to do for fun till now. You could use gaming as a way to make a living, without necessarily becoming a content creator. This is because the in-game content you used to buy for personal entertainment earlier, may later be used to make money. You may be able to buy or win an in-game NFT (read everything about NFTs here) and sell it for a profit or whatever the future of gaming in The Metaverse has to offer. This doesn’t mean that everything you have purchased in games till now can help you make money, but it means whatever you buy in the game which supports such features (provides NFTs, allows translocation of NFTs, etc) could be sold by you for real money in the future.
You could even make NFTs, NFT communities, and more.
You could help design NFTs (digital artist, which might just be one of the biggest growing job opportunities in the future), trade NFTs, collect NFTs for a valuable collection which you could later sell again, code everything virtual (basically, program The Metaverse) and much, much more. The future is definitely bright if what is thought would happen.
I can’t wait to see what’s in for me in The Metaverse, and I bet so can’t you.
So let’s hope that this is not something temporary, and serves what it proposes.
Once again, thanks for reading, and see you next time (if you’re there).
Have a great day (or night- whatever.)