WE'RE ALREADY LIVING IN THE METAVERSE

摘要

LIKE RELIGIOUS PROPHETS. BIG TECH LUMINARIES AREPREACHING the coming of the next internet. According to their gospel-blog posts by tech companies and venture capitalists alike-tomorrow's cyberspace will be empyrean, transcendent, immersive, 3D, and all folded together, the disparate sites and services we live and die by gathered under one love. It will be a super-platform that convenes sub-platforms: social media, online video games, and ease-of-life apps, all accessible through the same digital space and sharing the same digital economy. Virtual reality companies say you'll get there through VR headsets, while augmented reality companies say you'll wear AR smart goggles. And with boyish enthusiasm for science fiction fueling their piety, these preachers are calling this vision the metaverse, after Neal Stephenson's 1992 dystopian novel Snow Crash.