The Metaverse: A New World Order
The metaverse is not a gimmick or a gadget — it’s the new world, and you already live in it.
Metaverse is The History of Empires Repeated
As Plutarch, the Greek biographer, documented in De Tranquilitate Animi (On Tranquility of Mind), “Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus’s lecture on the infinite number of worlds, because he thought it upsetting that there was an infinite number of worlds — and he could be the master of only one.”
Man’s desire to conquer new worlds has been the key driver of human history for centuries. Nearly every inch has now been traversed and claimed, and there’s very little new territory to cover.
The modern-day Alexanders have been growing restless.
So, we see attempts to move pawns on a crowded chess board (i.e. Putin / Ukraine, Netanyahu/Palestine), while others seek farthest realms of unclaimed lands (Musk/Mars). Others chose to find a new board entirely, piling up fresh dirt to fight over (i.e. Xi Jinping / South China Sea territories), like bored Coviders adding more hexagons to their Catan board to keep the game going.
While Putin, Xi Jinping and Musk looked outwards, the more introverted of our kind have been tunneling inwards*, mining their own imaginations for the next territory. Hence, the metaverse.
Like Alexander accumulating his empire, weaving together disparate lands from Greece to India into a single entity, tech leaders are each aiming to create an immersive virtual presence in the new world, and erect sovereign nation-states with power, populations, relevance and moats.
As Sweeney prophesized to Venture Beat in 2016: “This Metaverse is going to be far more pervasive and powerful than anything else. If one central company gains control of this, they will become more powerful than any government and be a God on Earth.”
We are watching the birth of new empires in a newly unlocked map, a new territory to conquer, but in this global order, the key players are the tech companies and their engineers.
Instead of rounding up small dominions, Facebook’s digital empire of the metaverse grows through acquisitions like WhatsApp and Instagram (Facebook), to interlink various user bases of digital communities into one empire. Others, like Epic, aim to build their empire organically, by creating a genuinely enjoyable, fair land that people want to pledge allegience to (voting with their time and attention).
The company best developing a territory in the Modern Metaverse is Epic, guided by CEO Tim Sweeney. Epic has been discretely and gradually expanding Epic’s product to host concerts, brand events, and more inside its own digital world. Smartly, Sweeney and team have slow-rolled connecting the pieces, optimizing what is best for its players in each domain before forcing it all together.
Though relatively small from a user-base perspective relative to Facebook right now, Epic is playing a long game, and building a world of loyal and deeply engaged citizens, which will pay off in the long run.
But, there will be other challengers, incumbents and disruptors, as in the history of empires. To understand what is at stake here, an appreciation for the economy and society that pegs Metaverse value to real life is necessary. Read here to understand the opportunity abounding in this new world.
