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| Meta, a sly rebranding for a monopoly on our reality
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| Last October of 2021, Facebook became Meta. A complete rebranding of the company that owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp is now under the umbrella company Meta. For most of the world’s population of these three social media users, perhaps this rebranding was unnoticed, but media quickly picked up on the announcement video for Meta.
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| Most of what was widely covered were not the feature releases but instead the peculiarity and even the overarching idea of what was really being sold: the metaverse.
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| What is the Metaverse? The term first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, in the following passage:
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| “In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse.”
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| Who wants the Metaverse?
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| In his launch video, Zuckerberg says that “meta comes from the Greek word from beyond”. Etymologically, meta meant “after” in Greek.
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| But who asked for this ‘beyond’? When we think about the future as infinite branches of possibilities, where each branch is a path we can take as society, what happens with these massive investments from big tech that go under the radar, is that these possible paths are not chosen by us but yes by a restricted group of people.
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| To analyze where this fascination for the metaverse comes from, we can try and pay attention to what it was like before Zuckerberg appropriated the term Metaverse and try to trace back other sources of genuine interest in the topic. We can maybe trace back a connection to Virtual Reality becoming popularized, and maybe even spaces such as VR chat, which could be an example of what the Metaverse will look like, in Zuckerberg’s vision.
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| According to Mirriam Webster, some uses can be traced in the following excerpts:
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| As a synonym of multiverse, meaning “a theoretical reality that includes a possibly infinite number of parallel universes.”
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| With its hegemony diminished, universe has given way to other terms that capture the wider canvas on which the totality of reality may be painted. Parallel worlds or parallel universes or multiple universes or alternate universes or the metaverse, megaverse, or multiverse—they’re all synonymous, and they’re all among the words used to embrace not just our universe but a spectrum of others that may be out there.
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| — Brian Greene, Discover, 2 August 2011
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| Referring to the “space” of the experience of virtual reality, including such real-world uses as the training of pilots:
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| Viewing virtual objects from different angles and perspectives, participants of aircraft metaverse can interact with 3D assets and have hands-on experience.
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| — Aziz Siyaev and Geun-Sik Jo, Sensors (Basel) Vol. 21, Iss. 6, (2021)
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| And in economic discussions, where the digital world is a possible business environment:
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| ...some proponents believe that blockchain technology and decentralized apps will be the keys to unlocking the next big leap forward for the Web: the metaverse, a place where augmented and virtual reality, next-generation data networks, and decentralized financing and payment systems contribute to a more realistic and immersive digital world where people can socialize, work, and trade digital goods.
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| —Ian Bremmer, Foreign Affairs, Nov.-Dec. 2021
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| We can also look at other sources, such as the searched interest in metaverse through time (Worldwide, since 2004), through Google Trends:
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| Comparative graph with other terms:
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| ‘Metaverse’ – blue ‘Virtual reality’ – red ‘VR chat’ – yellow
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| VRChat was released to the Steam early access program on February 1, 2017. So it only shows up on the graph after it’s released, naturally. Virtual Reality had a completely different pattern of interest than the ‘metaverse’ which hints that the sources of interest are different, if not completely. Nonetheless, what might be well exemplified through these graphs, is the idea of creating or enforcing artificial interest in the masses through investment, which is one of the powers of privately owned platforms, where the paths we choose are never truly free or decentralized, at least.
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| Why did Facebook turn into Meta
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| One can speculate that the rebranding was an attempt to reset the reputation of Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where even the ticker in stocks has changed from “FB” to “MVRS”. In a sense, it could be an attempt to respond to the plummeting stock investments in Facebook, and also continue eradicating competition, and to remain a natural monopoly[FOOTNOTE], as the company dedicates $10bn in 2021 to Meta’s metaverse (source). When faced with this early-on investment, what chances do alternate emerging or already existing virtual spaces have to compete?
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| One simple but highly effective evidence of Meta’s monopolizing is exactly branding this virtual space as “Metaverse”, excluding all other virtual spaces of being also considered metaverse or, in a sense simultaneously to include all these different virtual spaces under the umbrella of Meta. As we have seen before ‘metaverse’ in past uses, Zuckerberg did not create this term, he appropriated it, which would parallel to suddenly privatizing something outside the private realm such as oxygen and naming it Oxygen® so that whenever you’d breathe, you’d be inhaling Zuckerberg’s Oxygen®. Besides, when we think about Facebook (and technically all the other social media platforms owned by Meta) it began as a social media platform and has slowly but surely turned into the default medium for human social interaction.
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| What is Meta’s metaverse
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| Now that we’ve looked at various interpretations of metaverse, what is Zuckerberg’s appropriation or interpretation of this? We understand that it goes hand in hand with microtransactions, cryptocurrency and the NFT market, but we also noticed a big focus in the workplace adaptation to these virtual spaces. SOURCE
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| It’s seeming as if history will repeat itself, as Meta plans to develop everyone’s metaverse, to be the overarching private, closed-source company that will aim to become the default platform that will hold future services such as the game industry, other diverse applications of augmented reality and virtual reality, and any other private sector might want to invest hop on this trend. All while taking little risk and almost zero effort. (Will public services also be incorporated in this metaverse?)
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| This is merely the continuation of the evolution of capitalism into platform capitalism, which according to Nick Scrnicek, is minimum-effort capitalism where huge companies create the intermediaries that host and connect the buyer to the seller. Traditionally, these would be physical shops, stores, but the difference here is the sheer dimension of which these platforms have taken form, and redefined the way that capitalism continues to evolve in our modern world. It would be as if the whole farmer’s market grounds where some small farmer has their shack to sell potatoes was suddenly owned by a private company and not publicly managed by the local council.
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| How will security concerns be implied in Meta’s metaverse?
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| When we think data, a privately owned Metaverse means not only a privately owned platform where you communicate with your loved ones, work, express your thoughts and opinions. In a privately owned metaverse, what is privately owned is not only a platform restricted to the physical confinement of your phone or computer, but yes, the visual space you are inserted in. Although dependent on how intrusive this Metaverse will be, the sphere of influence that Meta will have, will directly affect with your visual perception of reality. One can even joke that in this virtual space, you will be walking to meet your virtual date but before you can do so, you must sit through a non-skippable ad.
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| Not only the level of immersion will be higher, so will the level of intrusion. A successful metaverse is as any other technology, an extension of the self (Heidegger), so if the Metaverse were to, for example, not cause nausea after extended use of the virtual headset and the user experience were to be seamless, then the headset we are using would become invisible, as well any other technology inside the virtual interface would become irrelevant to the task performed-say you would be playing virtual poker, the task would just become playing poker. And in that moment, is where it could become more dangerous.
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| These days, platforms such as social media are being used as battlegrounds for literal wars and cyberwars, propaganda and genocide. One can only imagine the subtle messaging that could be introduced in a privately-owned metaverse as well as product placement and targeted advertising, where the user is so deeply immersed.
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| Who does the Metaverse belong to?
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| References:
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| Platform Capitalism
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| Heidegger Being and Time
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| Mirriam webster
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| Guardian ( article)
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