You receive an invitation to a party. You don’t know very well where it is, what the plan is, nor do you know who will be there. You have only heard the rumor that it will be the party of the century, to attend or not to attend? That is the question.
The same hesitation invades companies and citizens every time they read and hear about the metaverse – quite a few times a day these days. Apparently this virtual reality and 100% digital is the party that no one should miss and some seasoned -Microsoft, Sony, Oculus and, of course, Meta, but also the Rafa Nadal Academy or the Spanish Uttopion sponsored by Juan Roig- have already confirmed attendance.
Each of them has their reasons, but there is one that is common: technology and experts agree that the metaverse will mean a digital revolution only comparable to the one experienced with the transition from mobile phones to smartphones. “I remember what happened in the early 2000s, when mobile technologies came out and then the mobile internet, and I think actually the metaverse phenomenon will be comparable to that. It will be a revolution in the way we communicate”, says Markus Reinisch, VP Public Policy Europe, Middle East and Africa at Meta.
A change in communications that, following the trend, will configure a new society. It is not necessary to resort to fortune tellers or consult a crystal ball to imagine it. It is enough to review how remote communications have been chiseled through emails, SMS – how can we forget them – and IG Stories, until they have become more immediate, close and plural, and how this has led to new business models and new variables of consumption. What novelty will the metaverse bring? That is what many are wondering.
“What seems certain is that it is already generating new opportunities almost across the board for many sectors,” says Nacho Rosés, partner at matteria_ and senior advisor at Relathia. However, the expectations do not stop there. If we take into account that “the metaverse feeds on technologies such as virtual, augmented or mixed reality. In other words, it is about overcoming the current 2D Internet; it’s about getting off the screen, we may be facing a ‘space revolution,’ ” he adds.
That is to say, it will modify how we relate -of course-, but also the where and, in a certain way, also the who. Because it will not be us but our avatar who will step firmly in the metaverse and get us a job, take us to concerts and buy us the house we dream of.
A small change for the user, a big step for businesses if we take into account that “in the metaverse we will be able to acquire objects that cannot be used in the current reality, because that is a reality, but virtual. With which the economic factor is going to change a lot, it will go from an economy based on advertising to one based on the things we acquire in the digital world”, says Esteve Almirall, metaverse expert and professor at Esade.
But the metaverse is not just a place for leisure. “There is a playful component, but what it is proposing to us is a different reality in which everything is possible. Through this tool, which is also immersive, we can exploit different facets of daily life and this includes business”, recalls Elena Pisonero, founder of Relathia.
It’s already happening. “Very close to us, we can already see what is going to happen in the field of gaming, fashion, tourism and also -and very importantly-, training. There are many sectors that lend themselves to moving your current offer, your current product and your services from the real world or the two-dimensional world of the internet to the metaverse,” insists Reinisch.
The good news is that there will be cake even for those who arrive later to the party because “the first ones will have the opportunity to capture a lot of value, but the potential that is deduced from the metaverse will mean that there will also be opportunities for those who enter later” , observes Almirall.
The future that the metaverse outlines seems promising, but like everything that is linked to the digital world, it also arouses misgivings. What role will the individual play? What rules will govern this new world so that it is not dystopian? Will it be accessible to everyone?
That is precisely one of the challenges; that the metaverse increases profits without doing the same with the digital divide. “If we think of the metaverse as an updated Second Life, no one is going to go. For the metaverse to work and go people, we need a series of devices that are still being developed, “explains Almirall. The race to manufacture high-resolution glasses, that weigh little, that have quality sound, that move at the same time that you shake your head… it’s already underway. Now, “it doesn’t seem cheap or immediate,” he adds.
From the metaverse, it is also frightening that it perpetuates or normalizes some behaviors that already occur in social networks by haters. From Meta they trust that the fact of crossing the screen will be like knocking down a wall. “You and I will interact like now. This can help bring people together when they’re not around, and I’m not so dystopian thinking that in the future people will only be in the metaverse. We will continue to have normal, human, analog interactions as before, ”says Reinisch.
Avoiding a drift towards those dystopian futures that Reinisch mentions in which the role of the individual is blurred is another challenge that administrations should not delay in addressing. “Personally, I am concerned about a limitless metaverse. We have to establish rules because, even if it is a virtual world, it is still an environment of coexistence,” says Pisonero.
They are nothing more than the typical basic rules of courtesy that everyone -or almost everyone- knows and puts into practice when attending a party, regardless of how and in what reality -physical, virtual or augmented- it is.
