Think about the evolution of the Internet: How many different search engines do you currently use? How many different social media tools do you use for active communication? How many different sites do you use to watch videos? To watch TV series and movies? To send mail? To listen to music? The Metaverse will not have a different fate.
The blood flowing in the veins of companies like Facebook consists of our data, and without that blood, these giants cannot survive if you do not voluntarily share your data with the idea that the service is “free”, with the idea that “it provides you a convenience”.
So we don’t pay for social media with money; but we do it with our time, our data, our knowledge, our willingness to produce and share something. These companies create an identity of us by using our data and they sell us and the identity information they collect from us to companies under the name of “advertisement” in return for money, they market us.
This is the reason why the Metaverse will be gathered in one hand or in a minority if it is not intervened now: No company will do something like the metaverse that will cost trillions of dollars in the long run, just to advance humanity. He will do it to make a profit. The income source of the system will also come from its ancestor, social media; i.e. advertisements.
In order for these ads to be displayed in a way that interests you, data stacking will be required. But think about it: The fact that you’re going to be almost physically involved in the digital world instead of being largely outside of it, as it is now, means these monopolies can manipulate you much more effectively.
For example, Mark Zuckerberg explains in his speech that the system can even track your gestures and facial expressions. Now think about it: It’s one thing to see a 5-second pizza ad pop up while reading this; In a metaverse that seems real to you, an avatar created to look exactly like someone you admire, eating pizza in front of you and advertising to you is something else entirely. Political advertising is something else entirely. Ads and algorithms, which even now have great debates about their harm to people and society, will be much more borderless in the metaverse.
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