Wagner James Au / New World Notes

The team at Blind, the anonymous social messaging app for tech employees, just passed along the results of a user-driven survey, asking the somewhat ambiguous question, "Are you buying land in the metaverse?"

Since it was posted December 17, 1400+ users have responded, with the most responses coming from employees with Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft/LinkedIn — answers above. Only 13% have answered that question Yes, with 87% choosing No or How?

So this survey suggests that tech employees are overwhelmingly disinterested or confused by the concept of the Metaverse — but also, that a substantial minority (over 1 in 10) are already personally investing in it. Personally I think the latter takeaway is more notable.

Here's some user comments from users at various tech companies, including some from firms directly involved in Metaverse development at some level (Unity, Amazon, Google, and Intel) :

• Pearson employee: "What a dumb investment. The whole reason that land/real estate is a good investment is because there is a finite amount. What’s the point of virtual land?"
• Unity employee: "There are limited resources, and there will be limited 'winning' jurisdictions in the Metaverse that people will coalesce around. Buying that virtual property from now is a bet on that jurisdiction being one of the key, most-used ones. They ARE limited, and NFTs ensure that they are unique."
• Google employee: "This is counterintuitive to the metaverse. You can create anything at any time. Physical locations no longer carry any meaning."
• Intel employee: "This reminds me of buying land in Second life. RIP"
• Speedway employee: "No. NFTs and metaverse are two brethren dumb ideas and fads which made plenty of people rich quick but leave even more bagholders. The easy money has already been made."
• Amazon employee: "I mean that’s always been there ever played RuneScape or New World or other similar games? You buy actual houses there from game coins which you would at some point need to buy with real money.."
• Wayfair employee: "the ones currently don’t have much utility, but a lot are being built, be patient and have a watchful eye"

Were this question asked the same time next year, I suspect the response would be completely different. Thanks again to Team Blind for the data!