Mark Zuckerberg explains how he's building the Metaverse. Does he know why?
I just listened to an interview with Mark Zuckerberg on the Joe Rogan podcast. I was very curious about this one because I had a specific question. How does an ultra-rich and powerful person pick their life mission, out of the endless possibilities? Bill Gates chose saving lives in less developed countries, Elon Musk picked space and self-driving cars, mostly. How about Zuck? Early in the interview he asks: "what would be the ultimate expression of people using technology to feel present with each other?" and I think “Real Reality! Extremely low latency, amazing bandwidth, you get all five senses to convey information. RR rocks!” But no, he believes it’s fundamental to make people feel present without being physically together. VR is the answer to this. That is now his calling.
If we think about this from first principles, what is the problem we are trying to solve? I could phrase it like this:
Connecting with others and nurturing relationships is an important component of life satisfaction and long-term health. How can we help people do this, particularly as modern life introduces new types of obstacles?
I can think of many possible solution paths to explore.
Design urban areas where like-minded people want to move.
Incentivize living close to your family and friends.
Extremely fast travel technologies (e.g. go anywhere in the world in less than an hour.
Teleportation? A nerd can dream.
Of course there is room for VR in the solution. For example (and to his credit MZ mentions this), VR would make some kinds of remote work more effective. This might disincentivize moving to another city for work. However, this is not the main area he says they are exploring. Their goal is to get people to spend as much time as possible in the metaverse, doing everything imaginable. He mentions all sorts of gaming, entertainment options (“holographic poker night” sounds like something Bender from Futurama might concoct). If this is the case, then it becomes a wash at best. We all know what screens can do to relationships. If I were trying to help people, I would want to make sure that devices stay out of the way as much as possible. Connect in real life whenever you can, and use technology when all else fails. Example: you have to choose where you live, and you are torn between staying close to your family and moving to an industry hub. A VR solution might help you work remotely, and then kick you out after the work day is done. Play with your kids, go see a friend. Ok, you want to stay in touch with your old friend who is stationed in Antarctica researching penguin mating habits. Sure, VR might be better than nothing. Maybe both of you could go for a walk in penguin robot avatars. Still, a well designed system should make you aware that you want to limit the time in VR. Eventually the relationship will deteriorate if you don’t meet in person.
The cynic in me imagines the situation like this:
Facebook is one of the main tech companies. They need multi-billion dollar revenues in order to justify their existence, and they know how to convert attention into money.
They don’t control the hardware, so they are at the mercy of the manufacturers when it comes to collecting data to feed the algorithm that targets ads. Apple dealt them a huge blow a few months ago. Apparently they wanted a large cut of ad sales, and they couldn’t work out a deal. So Apple limited what they can collect on their devices, and Facebook’s stock price imploded.
Mark Zuckerberg is not the most charismatic industry leader. He is also in a strange position: he is the main shareholder of the company and he cannot be fired by the board. None of the other large stakeholders work at the company anymore. I imagine he must be surrounded of yes-men who don’t challenge his ideas enough.
VR is potentially very cool. It might take a while before AR/VR is at the level in which it can take a significant share of our attention away from screens, but it will happen.
With all this, I can see how someone could tell himself a story to justify devoting his life to creating a Metaverse. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that VR could be a net positive for the world. Just like with social media, plenty of bad will come with it and it will offset a lot of the good. However, it’s hard to justify spending tens of billions of dollars developing this tech when one could be attacking some of the most obvious problems of humanity. We live in a world full of unnecessary pain and suffering, disease, and premature death. Mark is about to turn 40, and perhaps he hasn’t witnessed the painful agony of a friend or relative with cancer yet. Maybe he hasn’t experienced the first signs of getting old, and does not spend much time thinking about how the last few years of typical life could be made so much better. Maybe he will grow out of it like Bill Gates seems to have.
