Greetings, friends!
I recently came across a special report on the first ever website (http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html) going live, which was produced in the early 1990s. The website didn't appear as much, considering it was only a single page with a few texts on it! Next, a video appeared on still another website a few years later, and add a few more years, YouTubers with a larger reach than big media firms were already taking over.
The above progress demonstrates how technological advancements have resulted in the establishment of entire new industries and even economies throughout history! All Hive communities should take advantage of the next leap, which is already taking place as we read this piece. That leap is the METAVERSE, which has been trending for a few months now and will eventually transform how everything works!
A bunch of news media outlet are already painting the metaverse as a place where some sort of dystopian future would be built, and each of us will eventually turn out to be mindless robots roaming the surface of the earth but living in a matrix controlled by Zuckerberg! This is typical of the Sci-Fi thriller 'Ready Player One' and they are actually intended as clickbait.
I'm not writing about major corporations attempting to construct the matrix; rather, I write to help us all gain a better grasp of what's going on and to inform us of the opportunities for every Hiver to profit from the Metaverse.
One could say the Metaverse is currently in the same rank as the internet was back in the 90s. Social media, for example, did not exist back then, but in came the content creators who turned these platforms into sharing platforms, trade platforms, and even platforms that make other platforms! We basically have the power to make the Metaverse look whatever we want it to be like. The choice is ours!
The Metaverse sits at the crossroads of web 3.0, blockchain and virtual reality (V.R). Bring them together in the right proportions and these three elements make the Metaverse possible. It's worthy to note that, there are more versions of the internet than basic web 1.0, which looked like the initial websites described in the opening paragraph, with a couple of text and multiple hyperlinks to further pages only to expose more text. Web 1.0 is incapable of interactivity and lacks user-generated content.
Everyone is using Web 2.0 these days. It is often community-based, and the majority of it is user-generated content. It's also really interactive, and you can do some really great stuff with it.
Come to think of the fact that the only thing you can buy and own on the internet is a domain name, which makes every website unique. Other than this, pretty much everything on the internet is owned by corporations who call the shots on what is allowed to be published on their platforms.
Web 3.0 opens up new opportunities for us to be able to own parts of the internet. Everything you buy or sell on the internet is yours, and you have complete control over the data. Many thanks to blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)!
NFTs will be one of the metaverse's fundamental building components of value. Though many people have yet to see NFTs for what they are, rest assured that they are more than useless pixels on the screen owned by a bunch of lads willing to pay millions of dollars for them. After all, you can always download and save that very same picture on your device. Which brings about the question of how such things are valuable?
Well, think of money! How did it come to be and what makes us all think that pieces of paper are actually worth the $100 written on them? Why would anyone agree to trade goods and collect these wads of paper in return as payment?
It all boils down to mutual trust and understanding! This is more accurately described as a social construct that facilitates how we can go about exchanging things, everyone eventually grows up and tag along. As a result, the value of an NFT is determined by how much those who embrace it believe it is worth. In addition, ownership is offered because it can be monitored in the blockchain, where the NFT's ownership cannot be replicated.
When individuals argue NFTs are a fraud, I find it humorous when they go ahead and post an original asset on Instagram, only to be rewarded with digital hearts and tweets. People should instead take use of the ability to own something and use it in the context of web 3.0, which provides new ways to interact with virtual reality. And it appears that virtual reality has taken over the metaverse, despite the fact that it is simply a part of the system. It's simple to see why V.R is the most popular of the three components; it is still the coolest option we have until holograms emerge.
The Metaverse should be viewed as a natural technological progression as we venture into the possibilities of the future! Note that Facebook does not own the internet, blockchain, or even virtual reality, it then is a mistake to believe that they will own the metaverse. When blockchain becomes widely used, individuals will own the internet, which many people find difficult to comprehend.
To help us understand, we can take a look at the music industry and how NFTs apply to them. When an artist creates a song and distributes it as an mp3 NFT, and decides to sell it for a dollar, the smart contract for that NFT might include a clause stating that the artist can receive 80% of the return each time the song is sold, with the remaining 20% going to the seller of the song. The buyer could then opt to sell it for $1 to someone else who is willing to buy it, giving the artist $1 from the first sale and 80 cents from the second. And the cycle might continue indefinitely. The earnings will be deposited into the artist's digital wallet, bypassing third-party services like Spotify, Apple Music, and record labels. This allows the artist to make a lot of money while also allowing the artist's audience to benefit from his or her work!
The process described above allows for individual ownership, and everything in the metaverse might function according to the same formula. The Metaverse represents the emergence of private ownership, and Hive blockchain users should start thinking about how to build on and profit from it. It's a good thing we're all incredibly early adopters of the Metaverse concept, because we're only just learning about one of the newest technological developments.
This confirms my belief that the Metaverse has plenty of room to expand:
Wanna get awed a little?
—> You can now purchase digital land in video games, which is just the first step toward allowing gamers to own portions of the games. In the next years, I might consider pursuing a profession as a digital real estate investor.
—> Nike and Adidas have officially filed a patent for digital goods that will allow them to sell virtual Air Jordans in the near future. Guess, I'd be interested in working as a digital reseller.
For the time being, we'll keep track of how the Metaverse unfolds for all of us! Please leave your remarks, and I hope to see you all again on the future post.