Everything in your second paragraph is right, and the internet is amazing. I also think VR goggles are cool, have a place in providing relatively short term immersive experiences (though not replacing 16 hours of screen time for some people) and am excited to see where the tech goes.
The reason I use quotes is because Zuck has stolen a word to represent his vision of a world people are already incrementally building for themselves, outside his control. His vision, where his Meta company is central to all this stuff, acts as identity provider and general enabler, and a market -- where Meta is central to even the concept of a metaverse, is shit.
Claiming the name as a brand is a scummy move. It's absolutely dripping with greed, hubris and cynicism. They created this problem, where it's difficult to promote or criticize the general idea of the metaverse and the Meta company version independently. It's the latter that I am confident will be a Black Mirror style horror story if come to fruition, and am urging people not to promote. Any major effort by a big tech company to wrangle the frontier into their walled garden is bad news, but Facebook's past behavior says they'd be especially bad.
The reason I use quotes is because Zuck has stolen a word to represent his vision of a world people are already incrementally building for themselves, outside his control. His vision, where his Meta company is central to all this stuff, acts as identity provider and general enabler, and a market -- where Meta is central to even the concept of a metaverse, is shit.
Claiming the name as a brand is a scummy move. It's absolutely dripping with greed, hubris and cynicism. They created this problem, where it's difficult to promote or criticize the general idea of the metaverse and the Meta company version independently. It's the latter that I am confident will be a Black Mirror style horror story if come to fruition, and am urging people not to promote. Any major effort by a big tech company to wrangle the frontier into their walled garden is bad news, but Facebook's past behavior says they'd be especially bad.