The Metaverse: Everybody loves a good tech crash

The Internet came in the mid-1990s amidst great hype and promptly crashed at the turn of the century. But that hysteria greatly helped the Second Wave and the mass laying of Internet lines and connections fueled it, among other things.

The Indian telecom industry all but crashed before the mobile broadband revolution unleashed by Jio. India had dozens of telecom players. But a series of closures, mergers and exit left only two full players (Jio and Airtel) and two half-players (Vodafone India and BSNL). Adani has lately joined the 5G party, but the future remains to be seen.

The Indian startup scene saw a great boom in the pandemic era with a record funding and record unicorns, but a decline (if not crash) seems to be happening with lukewarm IPOs and falling share prices. Many unicorns still are in the doldrums with others unable to see the elusive profitability target.

The hype crash of the metaverse

Just when the metaverse was gaining traction and a lot of buzz around it, Facebook changed its name to Meta in October 2021. Some said that it was to divert attention from the whistleblower Frances Haugen. Since that time, Meta’s fortunes have dipped.

After Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg was the most familiar face of Facebook/Meta. She stepped down after more than a decade and there were other controversies related to that too. Meta’s share prices later crashed to more than half of what they were before the time of the name change. (They may have gone up or down by the time you read this.)

Meanwhile in the last year the concept of the metaverse seems to have collapsed in the global mind space. It’s all talk with no real solutions. Everyone is going meta without anyone really seeming to do so. Web3, cryptocurrency, blockchain and NFT have all been linked by experts. The NFT craze seems to be waning while actual widespread blockchain solutions are still elusive. Bitcoin has seen a great crash this year.

But maybe it’s not just the metaverse. Tech giants did phenomenally during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, but they have been brought down to earth in terms of sales, grown and valuations in 2022.

But the thing about tech crashes is that the tech usually does return with a vengeance. We are all living in the Internet. We all have a smartphone. Everyone’s scrambling to get on to the cloud. Eventually we will all end up in the metaverse, I guess. But when?

You’ll know the metaverse is around the corner when the following things start happening…

1. Realistic Virtual Worlds: When the likes of Facebook came, they created rich 2D worlds where friends could post messages, then came an enriched daily feed followed by apps like Farmville that became a craze. That hasn’t happened yet. So far what we have been offered are poorly thought-out virtual universes. The way gamers want to immerse themselves in their games indefinitely, the common person will need to do so in the metaverse.

2. XR headsets and glasses: We are not seeing a revolutionary sale of XR—Extended reality = Virtual Reality (VR) + Augmented Reality (AR) + Mixed Reality (MR). The Oculus headset is heavy, and you can’t wear it all day. VR headsets didn’t really catch on. The Google Glass was a relative success but withdrawn due to security reasons. Maybe light inobtrusive AR glasses are the way forward.

3. Haptic gloves and suits: You may not want to become a vegetable in the Matrix, but haptic suits may keep you physically active while your movements are mirrored both in the real universe and metaverse. You can be exercising and running around to be healthy and moving around in the metaverse for a great virtual experience.

4. Holographic equipment: Why should you wear something or sit in front of a screen for a metaverse experience? Why can’t the metaverse come to you in the real world? Why can’t everything in your house create a holographic experience and you have the world there while your workmates, friends and family visit you?

5. 5G: You will not want to sit in one corner of your room and vegetate in the metaverse. You will want it everywhere and in every device. You will want to carry it with you, and you will want continuity in your daily routine. Only 5G can give an all-pervasive continuous broadband experience.

So how far away are we from the Age of the Metaverse?