Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on Second Life

Re:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on ... by retrocryptid on Monday June 12, 2023 @01:32PM (#36297508)

maybe the metaverse isn't for you. just because you don't want to do a thing doesn't mean there are others out there that do.

maybe all that blather about "the long tail" in the late 90s was spot on. the intarwebs allow small communities of people who are interested in a particular thing to do that particular thing.

if 99.9% of people don't want the hassle of maintaining an alternative identity online, that's fine. but that still means that 0.1% of people do.

if your critique is "the metaverse is laughable because the majority of people don't participate in it" you may be missing the point. if your critique is "it's entirely possible meta over-estimated interest in the metaverse," then i would heartily agree.

i think second-life-like online experiences are useful, but they seem to have been over-hyped (to say the least.)

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Re:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on ... by interestica on Monday June 12, 2023 @01:40PM (#36297677)

What part of their comment are you arguing with? They didn’t say they were against it.

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Re:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on ... by retrocryptid on Monday June 12, 2023 @01:50PM (#36297870)

"Meta seemed to be under the impression that people want to invent digital versions of themselves"

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Re:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on ... by interestica on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @04:02AM (#36307065)

The second part of the sentence that you left out seems to be the significant clause

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Re:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on ... by l33t233372 on Monday June 12, 2023 @01:52PM (#36297909)

I’m confused about what you’re saying here. GP doesn’t imply no one could possibly enjoy metaverse; when they are talking about “what people want,” I think this should be taken as “what [the vast majority of] people want.” This is in line with your .01% business.

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Re:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people still living on ... by anikom15 on Monday June 12, 2023 @02:15PM (#36298328)

The problem is that Facebook appealed to basically everyone. You had young and old alike from various social circles all using the platform.

If Metaverse only appeals to a small group of people, it’s a failure. Because it’s supposed to push Facebook forward, and it’s hard for a company to limit its own market. It could be done successfully by spinning the company off, but for whatever reason they just do not want to do that.

And I think fundamentally VR and virtual worlds is just not going to appeal to a mass market of people. There are so many people who are just not interested in spending time in ‘Techno-world’. These people liked Facebook because (a) they talked to their real friends and (b) it was unobtrusive enough to not bother them. A lot of people quit Facebook as soon as they felt it was encroaching their lives too much.

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