FACEBOOK is not creating an all-encompassing metaverse, according to a Meta executive.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s President of Global Affairs, said that the company – formerly known as Facebook – will not be building a metaverse after all.
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A metaverse is defined as a digital world that combines gaming, social media, augmented reality, and cryptocurrency for an integrated user experience.
“The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection,” Meta writes on a webpage that also hosts a 13-part audio series detailing Zuckerberg’s vision for the virtual space.
This, however, seems to be paradoxical with Clegg’s post which asserts that the company will not be developing “a Meta-run metaverse.”
He then likened that to the fact that there isn’t a “Microsoft internet” or a “Google internet”, because the internet “isn’t ownable.”
Instead, Clegg claims that the metaverse will be more of an umbrella beneath which Meta can release thousands of products for.
“All of us have a stake in the metaverse, it isn’t an idea Meta has cooked up,” Clegg writes.
The vision, according to Clegg, is that the metaverse will be a “universal, virtual layer that everyone can experience on top of today’s physical world.”
“One where you can have a consistent identity (or even set of identities) that people can recognize wherever they see you,” he added.
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This ‘vision’, however, is confusing to experts who say that Meta has shown us the exact opposite so far with its Horizon World platform.
In fact, that virtual world is now taking a large amount of the earnings made by users.
A staggering 47.5% of sales made in Horizon Worlds will go to Meta and the rest to the user.
Given this scenario, it’s a common assumption “that most of Meta’s new venture will encompass the basic definition of a metaverse,” Matt Wille writes for Input Magazine.
However, according to Clegg, this is allegedly not the case, as Meta wants to keep the concept decentralized, per Wille.
“If Meta isn’t owning the metaverse space — owning at least its share of the market — then it loses what’s kept it so valuable,” Wille said.
“It’s unlikely the company will purposefully give up the control it’s wielded for so long to stick to this decentralized ideal.”
Putting the confusion aside, only time will tell how Meta moves forward with its metaverse plans – or even markets its metaverse-adjacent products.
“Clegg can assure us there’s not a ‘Microsoft internet’ or ‘Google internet’ all he wants, but both of those companies do have extreme power over the internet as we experience it,” Wille said.
“That control is how Big Tech makes its big bucks.”
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