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The
social media giant made waves last month by changing its name to
Meta Platforms and announcing a focus on the buzzy "metaverse".
However, with few details beyond the rebrand, metaverse
participants doubt it is ready to embrace the spirit driving
creativity and profit in the space.
"What Facebook is doing with meta...is a 'fake metaverse,'
unless they actually have a real description as to how we can
truly own it," said Yat Siu, chairman and co-founder of Animoca
Brands, an investor in and builder of metaverse platforms,
speaking on a panel at the Reuters Next conference.
"Until then, it's just Disneyland. It's a beautiful place to be,
but we probably don't want to really live there. It's not the
kind of place that we can actually build a business."
The metaverse refers to an array of shared spaces accessed via
the internet. Some use augmented reality, via smart glasses,
though current platforms often look more like the inside of a
video game than real life.
Serious money is sloshing around in there, with a patch of "real
estate" in an online world called Decentraland changing hands
for the equivalent of $2.4 million last week.
Such plots and other virtual objects typically transact
blockchain-based assets called non-fungible tokens (NFTs), sales
of which topped $10 billion in the September quarter, according
to market tracker DappRadar.
Facebook's entry has further turbocharged interest in the space.
It had no immediate response to an emailed request for comment
on Wednesday, and has not previously responded directly to
criticisms of its metaverse plans.
But Siu said ownership is the bedrock for improvements and new
paths for products and commerce, much like car ownership gave
rise to baby car seat makers or how home ownership drives demand
for furniture and businesses like Ikea.
SAME, SAME, BUT DIFFERENT
For fellow metaverse pioneer Benoit Pagotto, co-founder of
virtual sneaker company RTFKT, digital ownership makes room to
change the roles of brands and consumers.
"It's a huge shift in (the way) the relationship between
business, creativity and consumerism is working," he said at the
Reuters Next conference. "A product is not a one-off thing. You
need to think of how you can continue to update it," he said.
"It's very, very much more fluid. I think the real world will
soon be overwhelmed by that because the possibilities of
interaction in a digital world are so much deeper."
In the meantime, there has been a scramble to catch up, both by
brands wanting a slice of the action and lawyers trying to pin
down what digital ownership really is.
NFTs are largely unregulated and fraudsters lurk. Anybody can
create and sell an NFT and there is no guarantee of its value.
"It is causing a little bit of headaches to people in the legal
profession trying to reconcile the vocabulary with what's
happening in fact," said Sophie Goossens, a partner specialising
in technology and media law at Reed Smith in London.
"Ownership in legal terms means something...(generally) a
monopoly over a resource that is enforced by the state," she
said. "The type of rights that you are being granted on digital
ownership of an NFT are slightly different. You may not have the
right to control fully the asset that you own as an NFT."
Still, that does not appear to be holding back the metaverse's
reach into the mainstream, especially for young people who are
already video game or fashion consumers.
"I think we're going to see a blend of digital assets seamlessly
fitting into our real environment," said Natalie Johnson,
founder of Neuno, a forthcoming marketplace for fashion brand
NFTs, as tech firms launch augmented-reality glasses.
"You don't need to be a hardcore gamer to be embracing and
playing with this new technology. It's going to be for
everyone."
(This story refiles to fix literal in last paragraph)
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London; Writing by Tom
Westbrook; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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