The Metaverse will be a Living Hellscape
I’ve made it no secret that I barely tolerate the idea of the metaverse. It’s a digital world of manufactured scarcity and empty promises. Facebook assures us that it will blow everyone’s mind. However, I’m not buying into any of its marketing tactics. There are too many variables at play for this concept to function effectively. Computer work is convenient because we can do it from home comfortably. While teleworking isn’t perfect (and we’ll get to that soon enough), it brought us some unique benefits. We could wear almost whatever we wanted, and strapping a headset to our head was optional. However, unless we develop AR (augmented reality) technology that displays a holographic interface into a mostly empty room, that gear will become a literal pain in the neck. Want to wear the AR glasses instead? Better hope they fit comfortably and don’t cause headaches. If those aren’t a problem, then what about the costs? VR headsets aren’t cheap. Essentially, if you want consumers to enjoy your product, you have to make it both accessible and convenient, but the metaverse seems like anything except that.
As per Lark Snyderberg, the metaverse aspires to be a place where people can socialize, work, and play. On paper, it doesn’t sound so bad. After all, people already do those things on computers with much less immersion. To any lizardfolk who doesn’t understand humans on a fundamental level, it would make sense that they would love to do all those things inside their virtual world instead. However, VR is a gaming/socializing tool; people use their headsets to unwind after a long day. If they start associating work with the metaverse, it will become stressful instead. Not everybody enjoys seeing their co-workers daily; people even purposely turn off cameras during Zoom calls for this reason. Furthermore, we’ve all seen people who turn their hobbies into work and end up hating them over the long term. Burnout is real; the idea of work being inescapable is a daunting one, and Facebook inadvertently seeks to make that a reality.
Workaholism and technostress go hand-in-hand. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an increase in these types of stress-related injuries that came with working from home. Suddenly, people found themselves working longer, receiving text messages from managers at odd hours, and logging back on to their work after finishing up for the day. Unable to separate their sanctuary from the anxiety of the workplace. Blurring the lines of how they saw their once safe homes, they could never elude work. During the pandemic, our house was no longer an escape after a rough day because work was always a login screen away. People even started experiencing insomnia, anxiety attacks, mental fatigue, and other symptoms associated with stress disorders as a byproduct of this environment.
The metaverse’s design will make it even harder to find a safe place because even video games will become entangled in that mess. Picture the following scenario. First, you’ll be playing poker with your friends, and a notification arrives of a new work email. What’s stopping you from just peeking at it? You don’t have to answer it right now; your mind understands that. But, since you know the response already, it won’t hurt you to do it now, will it? After all, why leave for tomorrow what you can do today? But, then, you reply, and it becomes easier to do so again. Next thing you know, you’re staying up late answering emails and fiddling with an excel spreadsheet for a report that’s due next week. Eventually, you realize that work is always around you; the same escape you once used to unwind no longer sparks joy because it’s also your job. I mean, when was the last time you went into your office for fun? The metaverse seeks to intertwine games, work, and socialization within the confines of a single platform. Frankly, it sounds completely unappealing.
I wouldn’t want the scenario mentioned above to be my life. But, for that same reason, I separate my personal life from my professional one. My loved ones don’t need to know what happens in the office all the time. Consequently, the co-workers in my office don’t have to hear about my family life, only that I need a vacation to spend time with them. But, the metaverse will inevitably void all that; the privacy that comes with disconnecting from the office will not be there if they see my avatar online and hanging out. Facebook’s messenger already made it immensely easier to reach almost anyone quickly. Once the metaverse releases, they’ll also be able to see a digital manifestation of us during our off time. If that doesn’t strike you as a dystopian nightmare scenario, then nothing will.
Yet, it’s not just the work/life separation that’s worrisome. The metaverse is a complex system of programming variables and computations of excessive proportions. Think of games like Battlefield 2042, Cyberpunk 2077, and more aptly, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim; what do they all have in common? They are bug riddle messes, Skyrim in particular is on its 47th re-release and still has game-breaking bugs. If the glorious Todd Howard and Bethesda Softworks haven’t been able to work out all the kinks in that system, what hope is there for the metaverse?
Facebook is setting out to develop this incredibly intricate system. But, what’s going to happen to the metaverse when there are 10,000,000 instances of it running simultaneously? Skyrim was a single-player game, and it somehow managed to have dragons flying backward and chickens reporting your crimes. What sort of glitches will the metaverse bring with it, and how can they avoid them? It’s impossible to stress test a product of this magnitude without releasing it to the public first, so how will they fix all the bugs beforehand? They can’t, and it will likely release in an unfinished state, which will leave it vulnerable to exploitation from hackers and gamers.
If you’re asking yourself, why are gamers a problem here? Well, that’s because that is a subset of people who are notorious for breaking games. Don’t believe me? Head on over to the Spiffing Brit’s channel on YouTube and watch him play. The man makes a living discovering ways to break games. While I can’t speak on his behalf, the metaverse is marketing itself as a gaming platform, placing it within the scope of his domain. If the Spiffing Brit doesn’t do it, someone else will pick up the mantle of breaking the game. Next thing you know, you’ll have hordes of exploiters running around imitating someone they saw on YouTube. If you don’t believe me, please think back to the early days of VR Chat.
The only thing that came out of VR Chat was memes and nonsense. Remember Ugandan Knuckles? That was a crazy time; people were running around harassing players, clicking their tongues, and being an overall nuisance. Was it funny? Perhaps a little. Yet, the cultural impact of VR Chat was minimal at best and irrelevant at worst. Why do I say that? Because despite the sales of the Oculus Quest 2, only 24,000 concurrent users actively play the game. On Steam, the numbers hover around 20,000 active users, bringing the total closer to 45,000 between both platforms. These aren’t great numbers for VR Chat, especially when comparing it to something like World of Warcraft, which has millions of active players to this day. Why does this matter to a company like Facebook, though? Well, sustaining an environment the scale of the metaverse will require more than a few million users.
Running a server carries significant overhead costs, hard drives, supporting the network infrastructure, and recording the profiles of every user will add to those prices. Who do you think will bear the brunt of those tolls? If you think it’s Facebook, you’re correct, but they’re going to pass those on to their userbase. I mean, that’s been their whole mode of operations this entire time. Facebook isn’t free. We pay for it with our information. Every time you click an ad, perform a search or chat in their app, you’re giving them data they can sell. Those ads for products you mentioned to a friend earlier? They’re not just in your imagination. You are Facebook’s product, after all, not the network. The more you buy from the ads on their website, the more wealth it generates.
Consequently, I couldn’t fathom a world where the metaverse isn’t running rampant with advertisements. You won’t be able to look in any direction without seeing one form of advertising or another. Especially since the only way to make the metaverse accessible and profitable is to make it “free.” Most people already pay enough subscription fees for cable and internet service; they don’t want to buy a membership to something they already spent $300 to buy. What other monetization options does that leave for Dank Dinkleberg?
The answer? Microtransactions, Facebook will monetize the hell out of every costume, decoration, cosmetic for your virtual home and avatar. Microtransactions are a slippery slope, especially for those they deem as whales or other exploitable demographics such as children. Kids don’t have a concept of value; they don’t fundamentally understand money. But, that doesn’t mean they won’t use their parent’s credit card to buy that cool costume or picture frame of a monkey for their house. Alternatively, whales are people who have a hard time controlling their spending on games and are a prime target for predatory monetization tactics. Flashing advertisements, limited-time offers, and other lures are only some of the tactics employed by these companies that engage in these practices for the sake of milking every dime out of those poor souls. The metaverse will be a breeding ground for all sorts of predators looking to make a quick buck. Particularly at the expense of people who are neurodivergent or are too young to understand the consequences of their actions.
But, finally, that brings us to our final point, which is comfort, safety, and health. VR headsets can cause eye strain and pain. I know, in my case, I can’t wear my headset for more than an hour per session. Otherwise, I will become dizzy and nauseous, and I’m not the only one who experiences these symptoms. If headsets affect me this way as an adult, what effect will they have on children, instead? Well, that’s a separate can of worms.
The Oculus and other headsets aren’t good for children’s eyes. It’s true; some will say, well, the metaverse isn’t for children, but that’s not how the world works. The amount of children who play in VR Chat and other virtual reality games says otherwise to the appeal towards a younger audience. Facebook’s metaverse will draw children to it, and not every parent bothers to pay attention to what their kids play. As such, if their children’s eyesight is damaged because they were playing with their Oculus, it will be too late to stop the problem. Of course, these are just the physical effects of the products. There are plenty of other ways the metaverse can affect the development of children. However, that is a topic for another day.
Ultimately, I don’t think my one-person crusade against the metaverse will have any impact on Facebook’s success. But, we must take these concerns with a degree of seriousness. A good work/life balance will stop us from becoming workaholics who can’t escape work. Avoiding predatory marketing practices will keep our finances in check and assets safe. Protecting our health and that of our children is crucial for our survival. If we allow the metaverse to jeopardize these things, we risk becoming the dystopian hellscapes of the films that inspired it in the first place. Because whether we like it or not, life does indeed sometimes imitate fiction.
Now, let’s recap on our topic today.
The metaverse will inevitably:
- Make it harder for people to separate work from home and hobbies.
- It will be a bug-riddled mess when it releases due to the difficulty in testing a system of its magnitude.
- Be vulnerable to exploitation from gamers and hackers.
- Be monetized to hell and back due to its scale and potential overhead costs.
- Be operated behind the scenes by lizard people.
- Potentially harm children and neurodivergent people via predatory marketing tactics.
- Cause physiological injuries due to eye strain and excessive use of the headsets.