Re:The Missing Link to the Metaverse
by Animats on Friday November 05, 2021 @03:00PM
(#29123417)
There are some groups talking about "metaverse standards", but they're off in philosophical territory and nobody is paying much attention to them.
We need metaverse standards in at least three areas:
- Portals. You should be able to move your avatar through a portal from system A to system B, and it should Just Work, assuming B will let you in. That's what the author is talking about here. Systems not resident inside a web browser need to do more work to do this, but it should be made to work. This is what makes multiple virtual worlds a metaverse.
- Assets. You should be able to take your purchased asset, if you really own it, from system A to system B, assuming B will let it in. The NFT crowd does not have this. Try to export an NFT from Decentraland.
- Money. When in system A, you should be able to buy from anyone who wants to sell to you, and not be required to use system A's currency or payment system. This is what Apple and Epic are currently litigating.
For standards purposes, it's time to talk about the mechanics of this. If it works and some systems offer those features, users will clamor for interconnection. (And third parties will somehow bolt it on whether the systems like it or not.)
We need metaverse standards in at least three areas:
- Portals. You should be able to move your avatar through a portal from system A to system B, and it should Just Work, assuming B will let you in. That's what the author is talking about here. Systems not resident inside a web browser need to do more work to do this, but it should be made to work. This is what makes multiple virtual worlds a metaverse.
- Assets. You should be able to take your purchased asset, if you really own it, from system A to system B, assuming B will let it in. The NFT crowd does not have this. Try to export an NFT from Decentraland.
- Money. When in system A, you should be able to buy from anyone who wants to sell to you, and not be required to use system A's currency or payment system. This is what Apple and Epic are currently litigating.
For standards purposes, it's time to talk about the mechanics of this. If it works and some systems offer those features, users will clamor for interconnection. (And third parties will somehow bolt it on whether the systems like it or not.)