As a reminder, a meta universe is a virtual space where users interact with each other through their own characters. This can take place either in the form of a familiar video game or with the help of virtual reality helmets.

The main idea behind meta-villages is the use of blockchain, which allows users to truly own certain assets within a virtual space. In fact, it also allows you to make money from the activity, as it is now quite possible to work in some meta-universes.


Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg

However, the association with Meta’s meta-universes is troubling – primarily because of Facebook’s Web2 nature. To put it simply, that company made money from its own users’ data by showing them ads. Therefore, the giant’s willingness to get involved in a fully decentralised sphere without financial interest is not believable.

So we can assume that Meta’s version of the meta-universe will be incomplete and limited – which is what makes fans of decentralisation and full-fledged digital assets wary.

What’s wrong with the meta-universe of the future?

The official mission of the Metaverse Standards Forum is to facilitate coordination and collaboration between the hundreds of companies currently struggling to create or even dominate the still nascent global meta-universe. It will be an immersive collection of digital spaces and worlds controlled by 3D avatars. And in a sense, the future of the entire internet.

Metavalleens from tech giants will supposedly be “open and inclusive”, but as we’ve already noted, such statements are perceived with caution in the cryptocommunity. Here’s what Meebits DAO general manager Danny Green said about it in an interview with Decrypt

I think we need to be sceptical about this. After all, we’re fighting for a decentralized future, and these corporations are the holders of a monopoly.

And indeed: the next generation of the internet, called Web3, means that the ordinary person, not global companies, will be at the centre of the ecosystem. He will be in control of his data, fully owning his assets thanks to blockchain and, if anything, making money without intermediaries. Again, the current tech giants are not thrilled with this idea, as moving to a new standard would mean moving away from the centralised world they embody.

Metaverse Standards Forum members

Despite his statement, Green also expressed the hope that Meta and other publicly traded companies would be sincere in their commitment to collaborate on virtual worlds interoperability standards. Here’s his rejoinder.

To the extent that large corporations with the money, talent and capacity to advance the ideas of meta universes do sign up to a commitment to virtual worlds interoperability, I’m excited about this news.

Key to the organization’s stated goal of creating an open meta-universe that no company can control is a specific word – interoperability, i.e. the universality and ability of platforms to interact with each other. Many imagine the meta-universe as a collection of multiple digital ‘neighborhoods’, each built by a different company. For these digital spaces to be easily interoperable, digital assets of all kinds need to move freely from one virtual universe to another.

The metavirtual universe

Achieving interoperability will be a feat in terms of technology. For example, in the future, the NFT of some object should move freely between different projects, take different forms and interact with different communities. Also, the “globalness” of the meta-universe is a major step both socially and politically.

Read also: Google has created a team to research the future of the Web 3. What does it mean?

Critics of the idea of creating an organization fear that the dominance of large corporations in the Web3 sphere will completely pervert the idea of a “new Internet.” Imagine a company like Meta taking complete control of digital platforms and sole ownership of their users’ data, disposing of it as it sees fit. No decentralization – and therefore no freedom, although Web3 implies just the opposite.

As a reminder, last year Facebook announced its intention to actively participate in the development of meta-universes, which is why the company's name was changed to Meta. Since then, many representatives of the crypto-industry, involved in the creation of decentralized meta-universes, began to say that soon it is even possible to "battle for the future of the Internet".

Apart from Green, other critics of the idea have been more radical in their views. Yat Siu, founder of venture capital firm Animoca Brands, declared that the Metaverse Standards Forum was like a “paper tiger. He compared it to the League of Nations, the international organisation set up after the First World War to foster multilateralism and prevent a new global catastrophe. However, the League of Nations did not prevent the birth of fascism and the outbreak of World War II.

The meta universe and the real world

We believe that big brands really shouldn't occupy the entire "internet of the future". However, this is unlikely to happen - given what is happening today, it is obvious that they will still have decentralised alternatives. The task of the cryptocommunity now is to support and promote them. That way, both the crypto market and society as a whole will have a valuable tool in the future.

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