Since Facebook changed its name to Meta, Metaverse gained popularity. Like the Blockchain and NFT mania, many investors are lining up to buy land in the Metaverse.
The developers are trying to convince us of many potential use cases of virtual land in the Metaverse. In reality, there’s only one practical use.
The only reason to buy land in the Metaverse is to flip it in the future for a profit. Besides that, buying land in the Metaverse is useless and a waste of money because Metaverse land has no effective use and purpose.
No doubt, many will make a lot of money flipping virtual lands. However, most of the articles written about those are and will be an advertisement thinly veiled as news.
Metaverse doesn’t exist yet:
Numerous publications write as if Metaverse already exists, but it’s not. They treat virtual worlds such as Decentraland, Sandbox, Second Life, Horizon Worlds as a Metaverse. But these are not Metaverse.
Metaverse will become a reality when these virtual worlds interconnect and become interoperable. Interoperability means — in the real Metaverse; we can take our digital assets from one universe to another.
There could be hundreds of thousands of universes — virtual worlds (VW) — but only one Metaverse. But not everyone will become successful in attracting users. Without users, these virtual worlds are useless.
Moreover, until these VWs become interoperable, these platforms are nothing but isolated VR apps.
Metaverse is not the next internet:
There’s a common misconception among many that Metaverse will replace the internet. It’s not only misleading; it’s not factual.
Metaverse and the internet are not the same things. Metaverse will use the internet to provide services; it will not replace it.
For instance, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon didn’t replace the internet. It’s using it to provide their services. Similarly, Metaverse will use the internet to provide its functionality.
Metaverses future is unknown:
Second Life came into existence in 2003. Currently, we have Decentraland, VRChat, Facebook’s Horizon World, Microsoft’s Mesh, Fortnite, Minecraft, Sandbox, etc. These are all virtual worlds.
It’s impossible to predict which one of these platforms will gain a significant user base. Many of these platforms will fail, and numerous new ones will come in the future.
Why is a Land in the Metaverse Valuable?
Scarcity and demand make a product desirable and valuable. But land in the Metaverse universe is not scarce.
There could be an unlimited universe in the Metaverse. Even a single digital universe is not limited. The developers can add more land at any given time unless they create an artificial limit like Bitcoin. Therefore, we can speculate that Decentralands’ land will become popular but what if it fails?
Since the success of Bitcoin, many new cryptocurrencies have come into existence, but most of them failed to get significant traction similar to Bitcoin. For example, many investors tried to become the next crypto millionaire with the Dogecoin mania in 2021. But ultimately, many lost thousands of dollars.
Metaverse land isn’t valuable. Don’t buy land because a celebrity or company said so. Most of the time, those influencers receive a monetary benefit or have a vested interest to prop up a particular virtual world for their benefit, which they don’t disclose.
Metaverse land isn’t helpful either. What are we going to do with it other than flip it in the future? Many claim that we can build houses, offices, schools, shops in the Metaverse land and do business. These ideas are hilarious.
The primary purpose of technology is to make our life easier. It’s why we use Amazon to shop online, watch Netflix, use Uber, etc. On the contrary, Metaverse makes many simple tasks complicated and time-consuming. Here are a few examples.
We frequently hear that company X is opening a store in the Metaverse where we can buy our clothes, or company Y is opening a pizza store. But buying pizza in the Metaverse is more complicated than ordering by phone or on the UberEats app.
To order a pizza in the Metaverse, we have to –
- wear VR goggles or turn on our PC,
- navigate to the Pizza store,
- and order pizza from the menu.
- Paying is another nightmare as different virtual worlds in the Metaverse are dependent on different cryptocurrencies.
Therefore, instead of making our lives easier and saving time, Metaverse is making our lives worse.
Because of this, most people would avoid Metaverse. Thus, no user, no demand, no future.
Same product in a new package:
Virtual Reality (VR) is not new. Second Life’s virtual world is an old platform. The current Decentraland, Horizon Worlds, Sandbox, etc., are not a new concept either. Except for the initial hype, Second Life failed to gain popularity. Only a niche community loves Second Life.
Similarly, many of these VW will be popular only among niche communities because these are not different from Second Life.
Once Yahoo search engine was popular. Then Google came with better service and became popular. We had Hotmail, Yahoo mail. But Gmail came with better service, and it also became popular.
On the contrary, Second Life was never popular, and people don’t want or crave a better Second Life platform. Thus, Decentraland, Sandbox, Horizon Worlds, etc., will remain niche. It will not replace anything.
Be Skeptical, Be Cautious:
It’s your money, your decision. You can spend it however you like. However, we are highly skeptical of Metaverse land fortune.
But some companies are buying — is not a compelling argument to convince someone to purchase land in the Metaverse because we don’t know the absolute intention behind those company’s decisions.
