Safe to say, most people remember how magical their first experience was with an iPhone. Carrying a supercomputer in your pocket with unlimited access to infinite content was a mind-blowing experience.
The iPhone is looked at as the beginning of the mobile internet era. The Metaverse hasn't had that moment or experience just yet but it's coming and it promises to be as big if not bigger.
Matthew Ball is a prolific Metaverse leader and describes it as 'as a sort of successor state to the mobile internet'. His essays are incredibly insightful and well written. Needless to say, he's a very positive add to your content diet!
Below is a quick synthesis of his essay "A Framework for the Metaverse" (link):
The iPhone was enabled by an ecosystem and series of innovations that came before it but was a massive driver of the mobile internet.
It's difficult to describe the Metaverse without using highly technical terminology but describing it broadly and what it isn't can be helpful.
Matthew believes the idealistic version of the Metaverse is decades away, he is confident we will get there and projects the collective value created will be in the trillions.
Matthew tracks the Metaverse via 8 core categories: hardware, networking, compute, virtual platforms, interchange tools / standards, payments, Metaverse content / services / assets and user behaviors.
"Instead, we need to think of the Metaverse as a sort of successor state to the mobile internet. And while consumers will have core devices and platforms through which they interact with the Metaverse, the Metaverse depends on so much more. There’s a reason we don’t say Facebook or Google is an internet. They are destinations and ecosystems on or in the internet, each accessible via a browser or smartphone that can also access the vast rest of the internet. Similarly, Fortnite and Roblox feel like the Metaverse because they embody so many technologies and trends into a single experience that, like the iPhone, is tangible and feels different from everything that came before. But they do not constitute the Metaverse."
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