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Will the metaverse replace social media? Will it be better or worse?

cormack12

Gold Member



70% of all influencers believe the metaverse will replace social media entirely, taking over current video platforms and opening new opportunities: both for profiting and communication.

We must also consider the fact that interactions in the metaverse are simply more personable than on social media. Conversations aren’t through text or a one-way video call, but are virtually in-person, bringing with the nuances of natural conversation that social media platforms lack.

Will the Metaverse Replace Social Networks?

While it’s impossible to say when the metaverse will replace social networks, I think it’s safe to say that it will. As mentioned, it unlocks new social and financial benefits, unlike anything we’ve seen before. As more influencers realize the benefits offered by the metaverse, they’ll tell their friends and word of mouth will keep the new users coming.

We must also consider technological adoption, however. While most metaverse platforms are available via a desktop, true immersion comes with a virtual reality headset. Companies like Meta are working to develop consumer-priced headsets, and have achieved as much with the Oculus Quest 2, but mass adoption is still a ways away.

That long timeframe isn’t a bad thing, however. Instead, metaverse platforms have years to flesh out their systems and for teams to build a reliable product. Alongside this, influencers and brands can establish monetization systems so new entities understand how monetization works right away.

The Competition

To understand how new organizations could take over social media in the Metaverse, you need to change your perspective. Social media is all about interaction, while the Metaverse is about gamification.

To that end, many platforms considered gaming spaces are slowly morphing into social media spaces. The top ones include Roblox and Fortnite, but there are many more.

Still, dedicated social media platforms are emerging in the Metaverse that differs from what’s already there and exploits the Metaverse’s benefits to create innovative new use cases. One such platform is Gravvity.
 

Gandih42

Member
I really dislike the idea of a "Metaverse" future.

I'd love to see games and social interactions evolve in the VR space, as I strongly believe VR can create awesome new ways to interact with media and each other. But the vision that companies like Meta has is honestly a little horrifying. It feels like the ever encroaching threat of monopolising human everyday life to achieve maximum eyeballs-on-products efficiency and get rid of dirty nasty real life human to human interaction.

Or maybe I'm just a crazy cynic. In any case, the ever awful state of the "metaverse" is hilarious to see.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Will the metaverse replace social media? Maybe.

I think it'll be worse either way.

I think a lot of the issues with social media is the indirect and latent nature of the platform.

I'm interested to see how that pans out in a live, direct atmosphere. Will it more likely mimic real life where people don't display their ridiculous online 'persona' or will the community largely be full of the same type of people.

Be interesting to see how it affects social movements as well.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Conversations aren’t through text or a one-way video call, but are virtually in-person, bringing with the nuances of natural conversation that social media platforms lack.
I don’t think so and this is pretty much the main reason. People tend to be lazy and writing some text on the go to check back later is a lot easier than actually having to interact live etc. etc.

There’s probably room for both though, but I don’t see this completely replacing social media.
 
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Kumomeme

Member
70% of all influencers believe the metaverse will replace social media entirely, taking over current video platforms and opening new opportunities: both for profiting and communication.

"There's a bunch of get rich quick schemes around metaverse. Most of the people who are talking about metaverse have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. And they've apparently never played an MMO. They're like, 'Oh, you'll have this customizable avatar.' And it's like, well... go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn't a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you're, you know, inventing." - Gabe Newell

"Obviously the gaming industry has been exploring these technologies for a long time," he said. "It will be interesting to see if anybody who's sort of coming to the party late has much to add, rather than a desire to have a whole bunch of people give them a bunch of money for magic reasons. But you know, in the end, customers and useful technology win out, so I'm not super worried about that."
 
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IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
It's still in its infancy. However, Microsoft, Epic, Meta, the South Korean government and a host of others wouldn't be pumping billions into the metaverse if they didn't think it would be a success.

In terms of revenue, the metaverse is predicted to generate more money than social media, consoles and the mobile market.

Personally, it's not something I can see myself getting into. It'll be interesting to see if it does truly take off like all these companies and governments are predicting.
 

Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
Never. Social media works because it is easy to jump into, make a bad hot take, close the app, go about your day, come back say more dumb shit and pop in and out of easily or doom scroll through a million opinions or titty pics. Metaverse has too high a barrier to that.

Plus its dorky and fucking stupid.
 

WoJ

Member
I don't even know how the metaverse functions or what it really is. So I guess it has zero impact for people like me.
 

Wohc

Banned
At this point, everything is possible. Never thought Smartphone games, the Switch or cinematic games would become popular. Never thought physical games or movies would die, never thoght GAAS/Microtransactios or NFT would become a thing.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Ar and VR solutions will be useful for activities zoom is used for, and it will get better as headsets get less jank, they have to be as comfortable as a zoom meeting or using a social media app, social media in VR/AR could be quite cool I envision a matrix style loading program where you can fly around looking at different people's channels, if they have 360 cameras or scanned environments you could go to where they are..

This will take a lot of time to get to a point where "it just works" and is not janky.
 

mortal

Gold Member
In the long term? I do see AR/VR integration becoming a norm for social media. Not sure if Meta the company will be the ones at the top in that paradigm, but the format and tech I think will be adopted.
TikTok and similar offshoots in the near future could possibly lean much more into AR side of things.

I have yet to see a metaverse even 10% as appealing as VRChat.
I see VRChat as precursor to the metaverse.
 

nocsi

Member
ITT, people expecting metaverse engines to resemble an unreal engine demo and not be engines to facilitate social interactions through input innovation
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
If metaverse is so much better than social media than it clearly means people didn’t get a kick out of things like sims, PlayStation home etc. being glued to an online world could be toxic.
 

Dr_Salt

Member
Not until the issue of motion sickness is resolved. I'm willing to bet most of the dumb people who have swallowed the metaverse pill have never even tried a vr headset.
 
I find it sad that this concept is the main endgoal for VR...when I got the HTC Vive in 2019, I imagined more practical uses for VR...learning new languages, seeing different countries, being able to animate/create content more easily, etc. some of these are possible, but this whole metaverse nft work from home stuff as the main gimmick of VR just doesn't gel well with me
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
The cost of entry into the meta verse is a VR headset compared to just using a screen on a computer or phone.

Untill the cost of entry is lower, I doubt the meta verse will overtake current social networks
 

Surf Ninja

Member
Here's why it will fail: people under 24 think it's dumb. This is for a fraction of a percent of Gen-X nerds who want to see the promises of their 1990s technology dreams realized in stunning dead-eyed avatars, and even they're not that stoked.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Not until the issue of motion sickness is resolved. I'm willing to bet most of the dumb people who have swallowed the metaverse pill have never even tried a vr headset.
It is pretty much solved already. The answer - young people. My kids can ride a virtual Rollercoaster in VR no sweat (and I mean that literally, I break out in a cold sweat on the more intense ones).
I can very much handle playing Pavlov though with snap turn, only took me a few tries to lose the motion sickness. Snap turn, jump movement, focal points, virtual blinders can all reduce motion sickness and are totally viable in the non-gaming space.
 

Sybrix

Member
I really dont get this Metaverse stuff.

Isn't it what PlayStation Home was? Second Life? etc?

Is the difference that these 'Metaverses' are going more mainstream and Facebook of 2050 will be avatars, homes etc like in Playstation Home?
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
This wreaks of old and out of touch minds trying desperately to appeal to people who already think this looks retarded.
Take a look at Roblox - it's basically a metaverse (although I'm still not sure what the definition of this is) and kids love it. Looks like trash to me, but then again Quake 2 was my first 'metaverse' experience.
 
I'm excited for the Metaverse when it fleshes it self out...its cool to have virtual spaces with graphics instead of our current social media spaces. I hate that its mostly tied in with capitalistic driven growth like everything in the world, but the concept itself is cool.
 

Holammer

Member
Give it some time and the metaverse like Second Life will morph into a furry playground.
Like a 24/7 Rainfurrest convention.
 
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levyjl1988

Banned
Metaverse will only succeed if it's on par with the technology and advancements similar to that of Ready Player One.
There has to be very little to no resistance at all to be successful.
The hardware has to easily be accessible and cheap.
The quality has to be absolute premium, and of course to get a much more enricher experience buy the hardware to get more feedback.
It has to be chameleon and work in conjunction with everyday life.
Light, programmed expertly, no flaws, glitches, appealing from day one.

If it's a bulky, cumbersome accessory of a battery with constant errors it's going to fail.
If no one wanted to wear 3D glasses during a movie, then that is the competition you are going against.
 

kyussman

Member
I'll continue to live my life in the real world rather than online regardless of if it's called social media or the Metaverse.
 

JimboJones

Member
I don't think I've ever seen something try to be willed into existence so hard.
Whatever it will be I honestly don't think it's going to be exclusively this home or vr chat style interface.
 
I think that Facebook desperately wants VR to replace social media or be the next evolution of it. Right now, social media is experienced through a 5-7" screen on our phones and then we stick the phone in our pockets when we're not using it. That's not good enough apparently. They want to strap a display onto your head and fire their ads right into your eyeballs at all times.

Right now, their headset is Virtual Reality. I think they will release a new version with Augmented Reality. I know the current headsets have a pass through camera but it's shit quality and black/white (at least it was on my old Rift). Apple is working on a VR/AR hybrid which could come out next year so I expect Facebook will release theirs around about the same time. They did say they were waiting to see what Apple did with their headset.

The idea of a hybrid headset would mean that you can wear your headset all the time. I think a lot of people think the metaverse is a virtual world like that shit Zuck showed off with his crappy little cartoon character. That's part of it. You're not going to put your headset on just to experience that shit. It's a metaverse so there will be layers. The virtual world, the augmented world, and the real world. Facebook doesn't want you living in the real world but they will be happy to augment it for you. When you come out of that cartoon nightmare world you will see the real world but there will still be things coming up to distract you. Advertisements will be placed on real world landmarks, notifications of your FB/IG account will pop up in the corner of your vision, and you'll be able to look at photos/watch videos will still seeing the world around you.

There is the potential for headsets to become the new smartphone. Will that be better or worse? I think it will be much much worse. These companies are not happy with the amount of data they get from you or how much ads they can show you. With a headset it further seperates you from reality. People are already addicted to social media as it is right now so how do you think things will go if they have a headset on?

From what I've seen the reception to metaverse has been largely negative which is good. I hope people push back against Facebook and Apple. This is a very slippery slope to go down. For now it's all good and funny that people are hating on Zuck and FB but I'm worried about Apple releasing a headset because a lot of people will buy it just because it's Apple and they can set trends.
 

Fuz

Banned
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