If you aren’t someone who lives under a rock, you would have noticed that Metaverse is a buzzword that has been floating around for a while now. There are countless influencers trying to convince you that metaverse is the future of marketing, and how you would be missing out if you don’t hop on board. But is this really the right time to be a part of it? Here are five reasons to show why you shouldn’t.
- What is the Metaverse?
If you ask ten metaverse evangelists to define it, the odds are you’ll get ten different definitions for it. Some people’s definitions are so broad that they claim everything from Minecraft to Fortnite are Metaverses. But others will argue that nothing including Decentraland (one of the most popular metaverses) isn’t really a metaverse. Some definitions say that VR is a must to qualify as a metaverse, while others disagree. So right now, it is at a point where nobody even seems to know what it is. And that leads us directly to the next problem. - Which is the platform of the future?
Say you were convinced to invest in the metaverse right here right now. Which platform are you going to pick? Is it going to be Decentraland? Or is it going to be one of its many competitors? Because it is not going to be about which platform seems to be ahead right now, but rather which one will be the platform of the future.We don’t have any viable platforms to leverage right now. And in this age of spending marketing budgets wisely, we can’t invest in empty promises without a clear vision of how it will pay off. - State of Virtual Reality
Whether they think it is a necessity or not right now, most proponents of Metaverses would agree that virtual reality is the endgame. They swear by the fact that people will be living in these metaverses in the near future. But the state of VR tells a different story. Hardware and software limitations might always be overcome with time. The physical strain on the human body on the other hand will be trickier. Turns out, our inner ear really doesn’t like it when it seems like we are moving without actually moving. This causes users to be nauseous with even low usetimes. This is why most of the popular VR applications right now are mostly static experiences. But a static experience would go against the metaverse’s ambition of shifting our lives into the metaverse. This seems like a pipedream until this problem has a concrete solution. - User Interface and Convenience
Shopping has never been easier than it is right now. There is no more walking across an endless row of aisles to get the product you want. You can search what you want, and get it right away, all from the convenience of your home. Metaverses seem to want to reverse this convenience. However, why would anyone want to go back to shopping the old fashioned way, just with worse graphics? - Active User Base Now
The number of active users right now indicate that others also share similar concerns about the metaverse. With reports indicating the average daily population being as low as 775, things aren’t very happening right now in Decentraland. Even their own claims of 8000 daily users fail to alleviate these concerns, as it is still too low for a platform with billions of dollars invested in it.
Conclusion
So is the metaverse a lost cause? Of course not. As with any idea, it could very well be the technology of the future. But not in the current form, where it is nothing but an empty vehicle to sell crypto currency. Until it finds more concrete use-cases, and solves the technological and physiological bottlenecks, it isn’t something you should invest in with the intention of getting returns out of it. Now is the time to wait and watch where it goes.
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