Content: the reason to Metaverse.
The development and adoption of complicated and expensive new technology is rarely, if ever, done because technology is great for its own sake. Even in a world with tremendous money chasing after ideas, I’d like to assume that most companies will be trying to sell you something that you actually want.
Before I get into content, I’ll acknowledge that a lot of the current talk about the metaverse appears to be largely to protect existing businesses, promising a re-invention, but really seeking to build more walled gardens and reduce choice instead of expanding it, but for the purpose of this I’m going to assume that the big content providers actually are going to be a force for opening up those walls, because nobody will buy into 30 different metaverses that don’t talk to each other, particularly not if you want to spend money on VR/AR experiences.
So what is the content on the metaverse? It starts out just like it is today. Online porn is a $15B+ annual market but hard to measure and very probably larger, Netflix, Music, and content streaming in general are all substantial and in that 10B+ range. The gaming industry clearly has a huge component that isn’t really directly related to the Internet, but a slice of that ~$200B pie is another element that needs to be considered.
In all of these cases, I think we can expect to see things to transition pretty slowly, just because of the quantity of money involved, most companies will be pretty conservative. Services like the cell-phone only streaming company QUIBI presumably taught some very expensive lessons, and are a reminder that you don’t want to throw a billion dollars at trying to create a market unless you are pretty sure there is someone waiting to buy your product. So the first few years will be about watching or listening to the same content you have today, from the same providers, probably exactly the same way you do today, or maybe through an updated browser or maybe a new VR headset.
I think the next round of expansions are about taking things that exist now like shared viewing experiences and making those much more common, again, this is more about taking existing technology and just expanding the market. Fortnight concerts and other high production value special events seem to be a huge opportunity, and as higher quality interfaces and perhaps lower friction ways to get more and more people involved are developed these should continue to explode. If the cost and complexity of a big shared event follows the same trajectory that video production has for movies, in just a few years mid-level Youtubers may be hosting their own, rather than having them reserved for Ariana Grande.
Looking out to 2027, what could the cutting edge be then? I’m going to take a few wild guesses.
Live events seen from anywhere. What if you could bring up a VR/AR stream, and buy a seat in a stadium to see any live performance or sporting event? From Wicked to the Superbowl, some variety of seats being sold at different costs, and giving you the sights and sounds that match that seat. Something more crazy might be to experience a football game, live, from the view of the quarterback or some other unique computer mediated experience.
Real time information. Most useful for AR, but what if your content is just knowing more about what’s going on? Imagine deep, detailed feeds of information you can call up as needed about people, places or things to supplement your own memory. Handy just walking around, but what about a sales person with a profile of every customer that walks into their store? (Not saying I’m eager to see this exist, but I’d imagine someone will try to sell it).
VR games, and what are presumably more casual AR games are obvious, and if we have shared identity across the metaverse, maybe a more open sharing of information between different services. If not Ready Player One then perhaps something close to that.
Education. To end on something more uplifting, what if we can further democratize education, giving amazing experiences to people with a vastly lower cost structure and exclusivity than we do today. Online classes, but with the best of both worlds, virtually hands on learning, improved interactivity in classrooms (responding on message boards is so ‘99) and giving increasingly useful sensory feedback for things that aren’t easily learned by reading an online article. The best teachers, feedback and assistance tailored to your needs, and possibly your ability to pay, but expanding educational access at all levels beyond what can be accomplished today.
At the end of the day, content is the carrot that will drive users to adopt new technology and to tolerate change, it is our responsibility as customers, and hopefully as technologists, to make sure that each of the tradeoffs we make along the way do more to enhance our world than to diminish it.
