Meta, the social media giant that used to be called ‘just’ Facebook, does see some potential in the metaverse. It has even changed its own name to reflect that. Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin thinks Mark Zuckerberg’s company is getting it wrong.
Little direction in the metaverse
That explains Buterin on Twitter. The “metaverse is going to happen, but I don’t think the existing attempts by big companies to intentionally create a metaverse [nut hebben],” writes the well-known developer. “My criticism is more profound than ‘metaverse Wikipedia will beat metaverse Encyclopedia Britannica’. We’re not quite sure what the definition of “the metaverse” is yet, so it’s too early to know what people really want. So anything Facebook (read: Meta) does misses the mark,” he adds.
The “metaverse” is going to happen but I don’t think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere. https://t.co/tVUfq4CWmP
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 30, 2022
My critique is deeper than “Metaverse Wikipedia will beat Metaverse Encyclopedia Britannica”. It’s that we don’t really know the definition of “the metaverse” yet, it’s far too early to know what people actually want. So anything Facebook creates now will misfire.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 31, 2022
According to him, it is therefore unavoidable that many companies will fail badly in their development of such a futuristic platform. If you don’t know where to look, it’s hard to steer in the right direction.
But that doesn’t just apply to large companies. There are also projects with cryptocurrencies operating in the metaverse. It is of course obvious that the problems Meta faces will also apply to the decentralized alternatives to a greater or lesser extent.
Criticism of Meta
Meta has been criticized since it started working on the metaverse. It is regularly accused of developing a dystopian digital world where your user data is sold to the highest bidder.
At the same time, it buys up competitors. The US Federal Trade Commission sued Meta last week for trying to buy up such a competitor. Actually, Meta already had an app that competed with the metaverse company that Meta wanted to buy. We do not yet know exactly what the purpose of the purchase is.
Last month it was announced that Facebook has more ideas than just creating a metaverse. Facebook is getting support for NFTs.