Good conversation over Philip Rosedale’s pretty surprising comments last week, positing that the Metaverse may “never be for everybody”, and that in any case, Meta/Facebook definitely shouldn’t succeed at making the Metaverse. (Well, knowing Philip, that last point isn’t all that surprising.)
“What a journey,” Alex D observes, then surveys the current state of things with an expert eye:
One thing is clear from decades of VR and virtual world product innovation (failures and successes): you can’t make people use/buy something unless it solves real ‘jobs to be done.’ No matter how much we love the connections that are unique to virtual worlds, or the immersion<>empathy correlation, the platform doesn’t solve all problems for everyone. It’s shocking that Facebook is bucking decades of Silicon Valley new product development wisdom with a top-down PR push.
When Philip says “I hope they don’t [succeed]” I read that as a statement about creativity and freedom, almost a throwback to the original vision of a beloved public utility, open, ubiquitous, one that supported unlimited expression and connection. If Facebook’s metaverse becomes ubiquitous, what does that say about what the Internet has become and who controls our experiences on it?
Worth keeping in mind that IBM devoted tremendous resources trying to solve the “jobs to be done” challenge in Second Life, even building a whole corporate campus that thousands of employees held regular meetings in, but gave up on it after a few years. (Though that virtual labor protest on IBM’s campus was fun.)
Kaylee West, longtime Metaverse advocate for education, one of the thousands of educators who used (and still use) Second Life as an education platform, echoes this “jobs to be done” challenge with a campus point of view:
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