Neal Stephenson isn’t giving up on the metaverse–or crypto | Hacker News Reader

Neal Stephenson isn’t giving up on the metaverse–or crypto

fastcompany.com

7 pointsSLHamlet10 comments

Lot's of people aren't giving up on the metaverse/vr. Having seen this movie many times, the primary use case of "meetings and socializing" still has very little appeal.

Tools where engineers in a Teams space can work on CAD modelling for nanotech together, and can link/jump in and out to open source model libraries, and can jump to a music jam space (on another platform) after work - much more useful in my mind.

Basically, to me, Zuck was just working on MySpace for VR.

> people still highly active on metaverse platforms including Roblox, Fortnite, Rec Room, VRChat, and Second Life

Does any massively multiplayer game count as "the metaverse" now?

It's more correct to say that Zuck tried to appropriate "metaverse" for his product, Meta. The metaverse, coined in 1992, has existed, in primitive form, at least since the days of MUDs. <https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/17/1068027/ultima-o...>

If they're trying to get metaverse investors' money, then it's a metaverse company.

Those are all walled garden universes, to me. "Meta" I thought meant "above", in a self-referential/pomo way. If the different platforms allowed linking together while retaining a consistent user profile, a directory of those worlds (even in something like VRML) would be "meta". That is what Lamina1 sounds like: basically, a consistent API that all platforms use.

Yes, though the Metaverse in "Snow Crash" very much looks and acts like a (mostly) walled garden. With Lamina1 I suspect NS is trying to connect what he envisioned with SC with the crypto/blockchain movement that was inspired by "Cryptonomicon". (Which hasn't proven to be a good fit.)

Wow, interesting point. Read Cryptonomicon so long ago, didn't clue in to the connection with crypto/blockchain.

I think my take on it was more just that he called the virtualverse "metaverse", where 10 years before the idea behind it was in "True Names" by Vinge, as the "Other Plane", and Gibson's "Neuromancer" with "matrix"

Also, been reading your blog for years. Great stuff, and thanks for all the content!

Thanks much for reading!

No. But Roblox, Fortnite, Rec Room, VRChat, and Second Life in particular all have the key features described as comprising the Metaverse in "Snow Crash". Also Roblox, Fortnite, VRChat, and Second Life were directly inspired (the founders have said/told me/I've personally seen it referenced in design talks) by the novel.

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