Will the metaverse change the world?
The Metaverse, Deeptech, NFTs, Web3… The internet appears to have embarked on a new revolution in recent months. In 2021 Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, formally announced, amid great fanfare, the firm’s transition towards the “metaverse”, predicting a new revolution in the web sector.
A true fusion between the physical and digital worlds, where each person would live as a digital twin, the system already in gestation at Microsoft, Apple, and other digital players still struggles to convince some. Between the promises of metaverses, the crypto revolution, and new digital uses (NFTs, virtual reality…), does what is already called “Web3” have the potential to become a “deep tech” and profoundly change the world?
The metaverse, a disruptive innovation?
The term “deep tech” is used to describe innovations that are capable of creating disruption and of bringing about lasting change in society. Uberization and social media, to take just two examples, can be qualified as such because of their fundamental impact on our world today.
However, it is difficult to know whether the metaverse will have the same revolutionary potential in tomorrow’s world.
Metaverses are generally defined as persistent, massively multi-user, 3D universes capable of ushering in the era of a new internet. Initially based on limited interfaces (keyboard/mouse), digital technology could, in the future, be accessible through haptic devices capable of physically bringing users into an unprecedented and more immersive experience.
Digital expert Frédéric Cavazza warns that we must exercise caution regarding the metaverse as imagined in the past, when digital tools were still embryonic, and focus primarily on current technological developments. Today’s innovations, in domains as diverse as professional collaboration, entertainment, advertising, or video games, undoubtedly predict the metaverse more accurately than the cliched view of the metaverse as a vast, interoperable, paradisiacal – and very probably idealized – virtual universe.
The metaverse, the gateway to new (virtual) worlds?
Surfing on the gradual, but seemingly inexorable, metamorphosis of gaming platforms into versatile metaverses, many companies are investing massively in the field. Several GAFAMs are actively working on the topic:
Meta of course, which recently announced the upcoming redesign of its social network as a unified metaverse (dedicated to users’ social experience and data collection), a logical evolution that is part of the company’s long-term strategy, beginning with its acquisition of Oculus VR, now Meta Quest, in 2014.
And then Microsoft, which is seeking to unify all the collaboration spaces offered by its online tools (Teams, in particular) within a “collaborator metaverse”, the ultimate connected experience for office life (and especially teleworking) and the professional collaborations of tomorrow.
In this context, the interoperability of services and technologies is already a key point in the development of metaverses. Plurality is essential, as all the services could presumably coexist within a galaxy of competing offers, as is already the case for gaming platforms and networks, for example.
The hybridization of metaverse technologies
Far, in theory, from the tech sector, other brands are developing their value proposition by hybridizing metaverse technologies with their field of expertise. This is the case in sports, where the image of innovator is crucial, and where Adidas has bought space in Sandbox, and Nike in Roblox. Nike also announced its desire to launch virtual sneaker lines in the metaverse, by buying the specialized agency RTFKT.
How can these companies be transformed into virtual retailers? While some professions (in design or communication, for example) could find innovative new outlets here, others (such as industrial manufacturing) will be required to change permanently if this trend becomes stronger among such historic fashion and sportswear actors.
But the American giants are not the only ones to seize the eminently promising theme of Web3. In France, many start-ups, including several valued as unicorns, are already proposing exciting developments in the way we use the web, working in particular on the fusion between digital and physical uses.
Ledger, whose model involves combining cryptocurrency wallets with use in the physical world, or reinventing well-established uses, at the frontier between traditional sectors and new ways of living them.
Sorare, which has reinvented card trading games using NFT technology and has created a hybrid sports betting game involving the collection of virtual objects valued in crypto.
Countless uses can potentially be foreseen to invent the economies of tomorrow via these Web 3 technologies. And the GAFAM are not the only ones capable of innovating to create the “blue ocean” future of tomorrow. All sectors are potentially affected and many players are starting to take hold of the idea: in the supply chain, distribution, fashion, mobility… But to the point of replacing physical travel?
Following a period of successive lockdowns and the explosion of remote contacts, the subject seems more promising than ever, and is expected to have an impact on all sectors of communication, of course, but also on financial exchanges, data, and probably even tourism, restaurants, and culture. Some communities have already understood this: Seoul is one of the first cities to announce the development of its own localized metaverse, for example.
It is up to each industry to take advantage of the metaverse and related technologies to disrupt their markets and transform society in order to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
Metaverses also have their detractors
However, the metaverse doesn’t appeal to everyone. For Elon Musk, a major influencer of global tech trends, these technologies are a mere buzzword. The SpaceX and Tesla boss sees other territories to explore – in space – rather than the prospect of people strapping a “screen to their face all day”. From another perspective, but with a similar tone, Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, recently expressed his distrust of economic bubbles, stating that a luxury goods economy must remain anchored in reality.
The digital scarcity of NFTs, seen as artificial, attracts his distrust while fanning the potential risks for the image of his brands (as is already the case with social networks). For Bernard Arnault, the vocation of a luxury brand is not to “sell virtual sneakers at 10 euros”. Evidently Nike’s decision-makers do not share this vision.
At the same time, the development of Web3 will not be without inevitable ecological challenges: including the growing need for energy and rare earths for the development of terminals and the exponential consumption of bandwidth triggering an explosion in connection needs. Needs that are already growing according to a Senate study, and that Web3 will only fuel by exploding demand.
Conclusion: Assimilate to innovate
Exciting as well as divisive subjects, Web3 and the metaverse share a revolutionary potential specific to all deep tech. In the same way that digital technology initially fumbled and provoked suspicion before finding its role and integrating new uses, from the first forums to networks and Web 2.0, the massive disruption caused by metaverses will take place over time, and will link persistent worlds, cryptocurrencies, and decentralized exchanges.
In all layers of the economic fabric, at all levels of the value chain, it would be a shame, and even damaging, for the businesses community as a whole to neglect the potential of these technologies. Not necessarily to turn their practices and objectives upside down overnight, but to develop an active watch, a curiosity, and innovative projects capable of opening up the opportunities offered by these new technologies. Without over-investing in these subjects, it is up to companies to take possession of them in order to explore both the business and social possibilities of these new virtual territories.