Jupiter RowlandJan 26, 2024
  • "The Metaverse". Actually named Horizons. Get that into your heads, dammit. And yes, I'm talking about Meta's worlds.
  • Cryptobros' attempted get-rich-quick schemes that imply that "the Metaverse" inevitably requires a blockchain, a cryptocurrency (usually either Dogecoin or Etherium or something running on Etherium's blockchain) and expensive NFTs for everything including land. Not seldomly buggy as hell because in-world experience doesn't earn the world owners any money.
  • More or less failed attempts by other huge gigacorporations to launch their own monolithic walled garden metaverses for as many use-cases as imaginable. Failed because they came too late.
  • The industrial metaverse which is still only a vague idea and probably another buzzword like "the cloud" and "the blockchain".
  • Second Life which has slapped the term "metaverse" onto itself in 2022, trying to stay relevant in spite of stagnating user numbers and showing the world it's still around. This actually had even less of an effect than the comparisons between Horizons' simplistic avatars and Second Life's near-photo-realistic avatars and its 20th birthday PR campaign last year.
  • Roblox, VRchat, Minecraft etc. They don't even need to refer to themselves as "metaverses" because they're so popular with kids that not much more publicity is necessary.
  • OpenSimulator which is as decentralised as Decentraland implies to be but isn't. It has been using the term "metaverse" regularly since 2007, the year it was launched. But as it doesn't make a fuss about it, nobody outside its own community knows.
  • ThirdRoom which was one of the first FLOSS virtual worlds to work in a standard Web browser rather than requiring a specialised client. Its future is unclear because all three devs are on an indefinite hiatus.
  • Vircadia, a HighFidelity fork, and Overte, a Vircadia fork, both trying to build the decentralised next-generation open-source metaverses with some interesting ideas, but neither having a significant community, and both being every bit as obscure and unknown as OpenSim.
  • The proposed decentralised, standardised, open metaverse for everyone. Which might not even come because the virtual worlds hype of 2020 is over for obvious reasons, and whoever else would be interested in it is probably busy in other virtual worlds already.


#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #VirtualWorlds #Meta #MetaMeta #Horizons #SecondLife #OpenSimulator #Decentraland #Roblox #VRchat #ThirdRoom #Vircadia #Overte #TheMetaverse #Metaverse
Jupiter Rowland

Show threadOlm-eJan 27, 2024

@jupiter_rowland missing are the countless local WebVR WebXR sites/experiences developed with A-Frame or ThreeJs, as well as the already popular Hubs by Mozilla (used for art, conferences, teaching, fun, work meetings, ... )

as for the web, it will only be successful when open, and will take time to expand - hype is never good ...

Show threadJupiter Rowland
@Olm-e Well, I stated nowhere that this is a full, exhaustive list of everything in existence or planned that could be counted as a metaverse.

In fact, I wrote, "An incomplete but quite representative list of metaverses."

I mean, I haven't mentioned The Sandbox, I haven't mentioned Rec Room, I haven't mentioned Immers Space, I haven't mentioned Sinespace...
Jan 27, 2024 at 5:56pmWeb
Show threadOlm-eJan 27, 2024

@jupiter_rowland obviously, I can read thanks ;)
my point is it's not in the big corps you'll find something out of the buzz, and the concept is slowly progressing outside of the hype, finding it's use not necessarily where big bucks are thrown :
re. the 7 rules of the metaverse :

There is only one Metaverse.
The Metaverse is for everyone.
Nobody controls the Metaverse.
The Metaverse is open.
The Metaverse is hardware-independent.
The Metaverse is a Network.
The Metaverse is the Internet.

Show threadJupiter RowlandJan 27, 2024
@Olm-e That's a sort of official definiton. But hardly anyone knows it.

For Average Joe, the Metaverse is that thing that Zuckerberg invented.

For cryptobros, the Metaverse is something that requires a blockchain and a cryptocurrency, and everything acquired in-world has to be an NFT. They will defend the idea that these are basic requirements for virtual worlds tooth and nail both against the existence of Second Life and against Horizons not needing that either.
Show threadOlm-eJan 27, 2024
@jupiter_rowland yeah, maybe it's why we have to remind it and talk about it ? like for many "the internet" is FB and GGL + amazon ... we (who know about the rest) have to keep those paths open, concretely and in the discourse imho