The last time I wrote a blog I was on a semi-deserted island in the Philippines between the South China and Sulu Seas, with the help of a generator and satellite Wi-Fi.
While I’ve always found calm and joy through writing… sometimes a bit too much if you ask those on the receiving end of my work emails… in the last few years, I’ve not come across any topic worthy of writing about consistently, much less clicking “Publish”.
Until now.
You’re 1000% right, the world doesn’t need another ‘POV’ on the metaverse. In the past months, we’ve all been flooded by whitepapers, articles, and "thought-pieces" about this new technology… uhh… platform?… channel?… concept?… “thing”. Not to mention the countless podcasts, TikTok and YouTube videos, webinars and conferences, and chitchats over coffee and Zoom.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a subject that is at the same time so new and innovative yet somehow already feels kinda dusty and dated.
And why shouldn’t we all be talking about this? I mean just the idea of the metaverse possesses such unlimited possibilities and boundless potential, yet also comes with so many unknowns and unpredictability - essentially the making of the world’s greatest science fiction fantasy ever where you're asked to choose your own adventure.
In the conversations I’ve had in the past few months with colleagues, clients, bosses, partners, and SME / consultants, there is a clear spectrum when it comes to the topic. On one end there are the die-hard optimists and on the other stubborn skeptics.
Optimists believe wholeheartedly that the metaverse has the potential to redefine everything we do, how we consume and socialize, what we value, and who we are as a society and people. In fact, a buddy of mine, a metaverse ETF investor, sized the consumer market potential of the metaverse by multiplying the total world population (8 billion) by the number of avatars an average person would have (3), and voila, we have a market size of 24 billion! Now he's the ultimate optimist.
On the other end, there are the metaverse naysayers. The virtual party-poopers. “The headsets are way too clunky.” “It was just a COVID-era fad.” “Decentraland is a wasteland.” “The Sandbox is hardly live.” “Governments will kill it.” “Corporations will ruin it.” On and on and much to the chagrin of the optimists, many of their points are actually pretty valid, at least for now.
In reality, most of us sit somewhere along the optimist-skeptic continuum, leaning on one end or the other, and then see-sawing depending on the climate of the day: a new celeb venture, crypto crash, Fashion Week, NFT rug-pull...
As someone who grew up at the starting line of the “information superhighway”, who in 2002 was working at an L.A. online video start-up that landed me on a conference stage, and with the help of an 8lb Fujitsu laptop and Palm Treo, performed an incredible magic act called "Live Streaming" to a room full of skeptics, it's probably not surprising that I am closer to being an optimist. Maybe not to the extent of buying into a 24 billion consumer market size… at least not until my friend can tell me someone's figured out a way to also triple the number of hours in a day and the size of our bank accounts.
So it is with hopeful optimism and a dash of caution that I start this blog where I'll try to document my journey of discovery, learning, and experimentation in this space. I'm treating this as a written time capsule that I can have to entertain myself decades from now, lounging in my colorful floating treehouse somewhere in Somnium Space where I plan to live forever.