Good Morning! ☀️
I know, I know, I’ve been horrible at writing consistently. I got caught up in reconnecting with individuals and engrossed in studies on my leave of absence. I was able to indulge in an excessive amount of reading and converse with an amazing amount of designers and design leaders around the world.
Not only was it an amazing use of time, I’m getting convinced more companies should find ways to support this. Perhaps part of a growing flexible approach to the future of work.
Right now, I’m back at argo in an expanded role driving growth in Europe. I’ll be writing about that transition more in upcoming newsletters.
However today, I wanted to share a quick provocation on something that has been irritating me for months. It’s also a topic that no one is possibly sick of talking about - the Metaverse (hold the wild applause).
I know we all love Snowcrash and Ready Player One. We also love Matthew Ball’s essays on the Metaverse as a digital world, but let me be contrarian.
The Metaverse is not a singular place, it’s not a 3D world, it’s not a replicated physical world in a digital space, and you don’t need a VR headset to get into it.
The Metaverse is simply the internet. It’s where we live now. It’s just being extended with new and growing technologies. Specifically virtual worlds, decentralised protocols, ownership and portability of identity, and additional augmented reality devices.
Remember when we called the internet on phones “the mobile internet”? We treated like some other version of the internet until we realised it’s all the same with different viewports? Sound familiar?
Let’s stop separating “the real world” and “the digital world”. Let’s stop trying to separate “the Metaverse” from “the current internet”. We have one world, and there is simply a spectrum of technologies, implementations, different viewports, different levels of infrastructure and distribution, and different cultural and generational forms of usage.
So how should we think about what is happening and the current hype train?
Here is how I’m currently viewing the extension of the internet (Web3, VR, AR, etc) and how companies are participating across it.
Z-axis - Spaces: This is about the spaces we inhabit from Physical (Meatspace) to full Virtual Worlds. In the physical world, we are initially connected by portable and wearable computers and interfaces (Phones and watches). We then have augmented reality in terms of audio and soon visuals. then we have full immersive virtual spaces like Fortnite, Roblox, and VR headsets.
X-axis - Ownership: This is about data ownership, identity, and control. I don’t see Web3 and decentralisation completely replacing aggregators (at least not for decades). I see a spectrum of platforms and aggregators, and ownership of personal identity and decentralised portability. On one side we’ll still have platform aggregators like Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon, that will control data and aggregation. On the opposite side it’s ownership of identity and personal data. The middle could be platforms that allow for great portability of identity and data.
Y-axis - Personalisation: This is all about the level of personalisation that is offered. On the top, it’s personalised curators feed like Tiktok that offer a constant personalised feed, and on the bottom, open viewing and streaming such Twitch or open knowledge systems like Wikipedia. Where it’s open and more search / find based.
With this framework, companies can now have better conversations about where they fit into this growing and scaling world. they can also have a conversation around what they stand for as each end of each axis represents very different values. Finally they can understand where they want to be relative to others in the space.
Just as video didn’t replace text, VR won’t replace the physical world, and decentralisation / crypto won’t replace centralised platforms (for now). It’s all additive. It’s all extensions, and building blocks. The only zero sum is time and attention
That’s all for this week. Thank you for reading and exploring topics with me!
Until next time!