Five Reasons Why Metaverse Is So Important

The idea of metaverse has existed in one idea or another since the early 1990s and has gained popularity through video games and situational fiction. But it is not until the last few years that metaverse has gained mainstream momentum. As early as April 2021, Epic Games announced a $1 billion effort to create virtual worlds, and Facebook followed suit, renaming itself Meta and spending billions of dollars to turn to its own Metaverse platform. Other companies are staying close, as Pokémon Go developer Niantic announced that it will wield its latest $300 million investment on developing virtual world experiences. Kucoin Labs also has a new $100 million metaverse fund, which Morgan Stanley mentioned in an investor report as their next big investment plan.

Examples can go on and on to show that the industry is very bullish on the metaverse. The technological advances over the past decade — blockchain, encryption, interoperability and affordable VR — indicate that Neal Stephenson's dream of a metaverse is about to become a reality.

Here are the five reasons why MetaVerse is so important than you might think.

1. It could be the next internet

In addition to 3D/VR/metaverse, there is another similar concept that’s gaining traction: Web3. Leslie Shannon, head of trend scouting at Nokia, mentioned this in her VRARA Global Summit presentation, talking about the importance of the metaverse or spatial Internet. Meanwhile, Deloitte has developed frameworks for the spatial Internet and Web 3, concepts that are closely related to the metaverse. In addition, Mark Zuckerberg referred to the metaverse as the Internet of Things in his founder's letter announcing Facebook's Renaming.

Also Check :-

MetaVerse | Future of the Internet

8 Metaverse Jobs in The Near Future

All of these point in one direction: the metaverse could be the next major online destination for global users to gather, engage, buy, sell, entertain and work. It will start by becoming an alternative to social media and eventually encompass the World Wide Web as we know it.

2. Work and collaboration will be transferred into virtual worlds

2020 sees increasing adoption of VR for work, collaboration and learning/education. Spatial, the company offering a VR alternative to Zoom, saw a 1,000% increase in usage during this period, and Facebook launched its own product, Oculus for Business.

VR will be an important enabler as companies realign around the expectations and requirements of their employees in the new normal. It will help with the transition to hybrid work and ensure that remote employees enjoy the same level of engagement and access as their office colleagues. In a recent survey, nearly two-fifths of respondents said they were excited about AR/VR-enabled learning in the workplace. And, as the fatigue of Zoom appears, virtual worlds may be a compelling option for many.

3. There comes exciting investment opportunities

The metaverse will inspire a thriving new economy at every level. For content creators and VR developers, this means another source of monetization.

A crypto-based economy would also allow for more equitable incentives for content and regular royalties. Beyond that, venture capitalists are eager to get in on the early action of the metaverse market and invest in promising startups. Any one of these startups could be the new Facebook, and early investors could soar in the years to come. Once the metaverse is executed, new opportunities will arise through advertising, digital events, e-commerce and more — a $1 trillion opportunity, as experts estimate.

Finally, let's not forget the potential for job creation in the metaverse. Facebook has announced 10,000 new job openings in Europe alone to build on its vision of the metaverse. Nike has already started recruiting virtual material designers for its NIKELAND, and by October 2021, 270 job openings refer to virtual worlds. In the future, It is a trend that can hardly be ignored by professionals.

4. The metaverse has significant legal and regulatory implications

Just as tech giants now dominate the global conversation around user privacy, data rights, cybercrime, and regulation, the metaverse could also be the next minefield. The early WIPs for the metaverse indicate some risks, but at the same time great excitement. NFT fraud could become true, land rights in virtual worlds can be problematic, and avatars — extensions of your true identity — also raise challenging questions.

Today, even if you're not a Facebook or Twitter user, there are still inevitable concerns about data privacy and misinformation. The same is true for the metaverse a few years from now. That's why organizations, regulators, advocacy groups and individual users treat it as a big deal in order to prevent similar and even more complex impacts in the future.

5. We are only one leap of interoperability away from a true metaverse

The most common argument for why the metaverse may not be that important is that it will take years or even decades to develop itself.

In a recent U.S. survey, one-third of respondents said they had never heard of a metaverse, and only 36% were interested in participating. Interest went significantly lower among those aged 30 and older (the majority of the working population) compared to younger respondents.

But the metaverse may not be as far-fetched or distant as we think. Mark Zuckerberg laid out the project timeline in his 2021 founder's letter. He noted, "We hope that within the next decade, virtual worlds will reach out to one billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce, and provide jobs for millions of creators and developers." Given that it took Meta eight years to grow from 1 million to 1 billion users, we can expect the company's first iteration of the metaverse to launch sometime in 2023.

All the infrastructure is already in place in the form of a sophisticated global blockchain network, ergonomic VR design, scalable AI, and last-mile Internet connectivity for much of the world. This is exactly why the metaverse is so important: because it's knocking on the door.