In the metaverse that can teleport, "network dynamics" is more worthy of attention than "plot spacing"
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We may well be able to "teleport" in the upcoming metaverse. "Teleportation" will allow us to visit somewhere in the metaverse similar to visiting a website. This means that the dynamics that determine the value of the network (such as advertising, links, and search) will be mappable in the metaverse to some extent.
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Lot and teleportation
With the development of Web3 and VR technology, discussions about metaverse are becoming more and more common. VR promises experience, Web3 promises decentralization, and this emphasis on ownership naturally leads some involved in Web3 to focus on the economy of the coming digital world. Some of the questions I've seen recently like "What can we do to achieve a metaverse economy?" and "What's valuable?"
Especially the speculation about the value of metaverse plots is interesting to me. After all, real estate and its derivatives are a huge asset class in the "real" world. If one thinks that the digital world will attract more activity, then that activity has to be "located" somewhere. Take a look at The Sandbox, where some digital parcels have been sold for millions of dollars, proof that digital parcels have gained traction.
Extrapolating from current trends:
As VR advances, more and more activities are being digitized;
As the development and adoption of blockchain advances, the concepts of value exchange and ownership will become easier to digitize.
However, these assumptions alone are not enough to predict the future of plots in the Metaverse. The dynamics that give value to the “real” world will be replicated in the digital world of tomorrow. Let's take a deeper look at what these dynamics are.There is one simple fact that cannot be disputed: Many people want to live on limited land. Lots of people want to live near Central Park, major corporate headquarters, Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and every iconic Big Apple-esque attraction imaginable. This explains the demand side of the equation, but what about the supply side? This is where the connection between land in the real world and "lots" in the Metaverse becomes blurred. The amount of land within a 1-hour drive or 5-mile radius of downtown Manhattan is limited.
The closer the distance, the more valuable the land. In our world, the valuable land is limited, but in the future world, must it be so?
A certain metaverse experience creates many of the characteristics that define the space of the real world. Such a world can define a certain distance between any two points, as the distance increases, the movement between the two points will become more expensive (in terms of time, money, or other), and the movement between the two points requires Move along a path made up of other points.
It's hard to imagine us being given all these powers to shape a new world where the more freedom we have to go wherever we want, the more costs we incur. Chris Dixon of a16z uses the term "skeuomorphism" to refer to situations where old technology is replicated by newer, more powerful technology. Think about it, a car that originally looked like a horse-drawn carriage, or a website that first looked like a magazine, is nothing like the interactive pages that were popular at the time. In fact, in this case, a more powerful technique replicates the limitations of previous techniques due to lack of imagination. By that definition, the Metaverse, a world with traffic physics like our own strikes me as skeuomorphic.
The current view of the future is unimaginative, a view that naturally leads to follow-up questions. So, what is the imagined future?
If there were two worlds like the metaverse. In one of the worlds, after visiting one thing, only a few nearby things are easily accessible, and in the other, where everything is "close" to everything else, which would you choose? Apparently a world that can be teleported in an instant.
Imagine a not-too-distant future where, after an escalating battle to be the best online store, all the big players are offering immersive digital experiences for their online stores (for simplicity, let's call them "m- shop"). For example, at the Nike m store, you can browse their catalog and even try on shoes. In the store maybe there is a personalized space for everyone, or just one giant space. Nike is a popular company and their mobile store attracts a lot of visitors. After shopping at the Nike m store, customers can go anywhere in this metaverse. For example, move from Nike m store to Adidas m store.
I fully agree that digital teleportation will be ubiquitous.
Of course, this teleportable metaverse doesn't have to come directly from the internet. We don't need all "locations" in the metaverse to be "m-stores" to pass this parameter. This is just one example of how teleportation might be a common feature of the Metaverse. Thinking about the internet also leads to another important point: we're used to moving frictionlessly between all the sites on the internet, like our current 2D, centralized metaverse. If we already chose teleportation in Web2, and we are used to it now, how can we give up this ability in the future? Having tasted the sweetness, no one is willing to give up.
So, assuming a feature like teleportation is ubiquitous in the digital world:
Teleportation => each location is easily reachable from other locations;
Proximity is no longer rare;
The supply of land blocks accessible to a given location is limited only by the number of digital lands in the Metaverse;
Each digital parcel will be worth approximately the same as any other parcel.secondary title
Network Dynamics
Network Dynamics
Since we don't expect the supply and demand dynamics of physical land to be replicated digitally, what is a store of value in the Metaverse? I think here the Internet gives us another hint. 30 years ago, information was at a premium. Knowing what's going on today gives you a huge advantage over everyone else, who, at best, will know it in tomorrow morning's paper. Expensive encyclopedias were a necessary tool for settling arguments, and universities held a monopoly on learning in many disciplines. In the age of the Internet, this dynamic has changed dramatically.Thanks to the internet, we have more information available and we have it instantly, the hard part is where to get it and how to filter the noise from the various signals.
Likewise, in the real world, we primarily interact with places near us. For example, when we want to go out to eat, we usually eat somewhere within a 30-minute drive of us. Since the number of restaurants is limited, people are willing to pay to live in a place surrounded by ideal restaurants. We spend very little time thinking about places that would take hours or even a few dollars to get to. However, in a metaverse where teleportation is enabled, this dynamic also changes. Suddenly everywhere can be teleported instantly. Making a list of nearby restaurants suddenly becomes tricky. Just like on the Internet, the limiting thing has changed from what you have access to limiting your time and attention.
Web2's response to this attentional bottleneck is drastic. Some of the most valuable companies on the internet are those that control what information people are exposed to. Social media content filtering, digital advertising, and search query results have become a hyper-lucrative battleground. Even though we all know that the Apple Online Store exists, and we all know how to find its location on the web, Apple still pays Google a lot of money to have ads pop up to remind us of their existence. Companies are vying to be our center of attention.
The best case scenario for them is that we click on the ad and are taken to their site. Similarly, you can imagine that in the Nike m store, there is a button that takes you to the Apple mobile store. One could speculate that Apple paid Nike a fortune for such a link. What is the equivalent of Search in the Metaverse? What will the page rank of the Metaverse be? How do you know where your friend is? Will my metaverse be like yours? If not, what is the difference?My argument mostly boils down to constraints. As technological capabilities improve, something like a metaverse emerges, and transportation costs will become an artificially imposed limit. This is a restriction that is unlikely to be imposed. Therefore, the constraints on user interaction are shifted to time and attention. therefore,
In the Metaverse, systems that affect our time and attention will be assigned a great deal of value.By the way, an interesting counter point is that while time and attention limit people's instant movement in the Metaverse, they won't be as valuable as they are in Web2. Web2 values time and attention because this is monetizable (in the form of ads and data).
With tokenization and other unforeseen changes, value creation may shift from focused activities to something else (still not land). For example, your token can provide value to someone when you are not looking.
Of course, just because we can escape the cost of transportation doesn't mean we will. In some exceptional circumstances, we may choose to enforce transportation costs. People voluntarily choose to go to such places for the same reasons some people choose to use a turntable over a bluetooth MP3, or pen and paper over an iPad. In addition to the unsolicited restrictions, there may be other restrictions that we have not thought of, such as block space seems to be an issue now.
