Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed his pessimism about the metaverse.
On July 31, Vitalik Buterin responded to thoughts shared by Dialectic’s Dean Eigenmann about the future of the metaverse.
The co-founder of Ethereum is confident that the Metaverse will materialize at some point in the future, but he does not believe that the efforts of companies to build it will succeed.
He stated that there is no definition of the Metaverse at this time because it is too early to know what people want. Just like he has done with social media, the company formerly known as Facebook is trying to establish a dominant position in the Metaverse.
The "metaverse" is going to happen but I don't think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere. https://t.co/tVUfq4CWmP
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 30, 2022
A failed attempt at a corporate metaverse
The monopolistic activity of Meta has been the origin of the problem. The company’s cryptocurrency aspirations were thwarted by regulators and officials around the world, prompting the corporation to resign from the company.
The Federal Trade Commission launched legal action a week ago in an effort to stop Meta from acquiring another Metaverse-based company. According to FTC Deputy Director John Newman, Meta is trying to “buy its way to the top.”
Facebook has made an offer to buy virtual reality (VR) company Within, as well as app Supernatural.
Buterin’s words give the impression that Meta/Facebook is trying to exert control over the trend of the Metaverse without fully understanding what people want. If its goals are met, a Metaverse built on top of Facebook could be extremely dangerous for user data privacy and Internet security.
The company is expected to use it as yet another tool to flood people with ads, while allowing spammers and fraudsters to penetrate Web3 in the same way they do Web2.
Exploitation
Concerns around centralization and speculation will exist regardless of whether the platform in question is Meta or one supported by venture capital.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a leading venture capital firm, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in various Metaverse projects.
They will now have more influence over the platform than the community thanks to the governance tokens they will receive as a result of this action.
It seems more likely that the Metaverse is a society similar to that depicted in the movie Blade Runner, with relentless advertising and corporate dominance, rather than a free, open, decentralized virtual environment.
