*dramatic Nigerian accent*
Ah, the metaverse.
The new thing (that nobody can define). Pretty, pretty. Shiny, shiny. To the dreamers, it’s a worthy opportunity to influence the world in spectacular ways.
On this journey to web 3.0, we’ve now stumbled upon yet another interesting toy we can build. The Internet Age is over (the mejiverse), but that was just the beginning of this beautiful madness.
You see, the internet is just another expression of human nature, like language. Native food. Hobbies.
What makes it special is how available, accessible, and yet useful it is to all of us. Nothing like this has ever existed at such a scale, and we’ve watched it improve our lives in ways we could never have predicted. It is certainly an evolutionary miracle.
But if you asked people on a random street to define the internet, you’ll find very few people who can give you a textbook definition. The internet has emotional value now — abstract to most, useful for all.
Now it took a while to get here (only 200,000 years), but we’re always trying to advance our species. We’ve tried before (think VR tech from the early 2000s), and we’re trying again.
But this time, will they — I mean, will we — succeed? Yikes. 😬
I’m supposed to be narrating this piece, but I’ll just come clean since there’s no time.
I’m the voice inside your head. You represent the collective human consciousness — the same concept as the internet. You’re all of us and none of us.
Now, wear the fucking VR goggles.
What VR go — shhhhhh. I have important stuff to show you, so let’s get back in character. I am you, you are me. We. Accept it.
With these goggles, you’re going to play God.
You’re streaming all of human reality. Virtual reality. Got that? Put the goggles on and let’s begin.
Now, where do your fellow horny fucks look like they want to go this time ? Let’s see…
We’ve killed, stolen, cheated, lied to, and cursed each other. ✅
We’ve developed high standards — as lazy & pretentious as we are. ✅
We’ve created cheese, music & sex toys. ✅
What else can we do with all our time, energy, and intelligence? The one thing we’ve been doing — solving puzzles. When life gives us lemons, we make lemonade, pink lemonade, blue lemonade, and Lemongrab — because life served plainly is…
To simplify, we’ve been evolving from our discomforts. Those are the puzzles we’ve been busy with since we started existing. We created fast food, slow wine, dutty wine, red wine, ads, ice cream, name it.
In many cases, these solutions created more problems (thank Deity for getting even more of us out of purity culture), but for the most part, we’re just keeping busy. But where do we want to go now?
This time, it’s the new world wide web. 🕷
We’re tired of the institutions we’re subjected to and itching for more autonomy & freedom. Can’t you hear us?
There’s something new we’re complaining about on Twitter every day. Nothing is good enough. We want to destroy everything and each other — and that’s just a regular morning on Earth.
*sips decaf half-caf synthetic coffee with microplastic cream*
We’ve now leaned so heavily into branding that functionality sounds like a joke. Unfortunately, we’ll need more than clout and Red Bull to fly web 3.0.
Contrary to what has been happening, our new internet must become so essential that life almost feels impossible without it.
Society might be built on a lot of misconceptions, but we can’t deny our instincts. The internet has become one of the evolutionary tools in our utility belt + sweaty kpant on this mission to save ourselves and/or the world. Same thing.
That means we will never fully accept a web 3.0 that doesn’t serve a strong emotional utility. How do I know? Remember, I’m you. You don’t pay for anything that doesn’t hold you down emotionally.
It must mean something to you.
Knowing that we can utilize this natural instinct in the experience design of web 3.0.
So.
Hello, God. You have one task on your schedule for today.
We’re designing the Metaverseeeee *echo* * e c h o * * e c h o *
Ahem. We’re agreed, emotional utility is the skeleton that supports this internet meat.
So what has Web 2.0 done for us? Calmed a lot of our anxieties. Answered our questions. Carried our dreams.
Google understood that and pressed down on the nitro to wield its utility. They built the search engine (demand) and humanity searched for answers (supply).
So in the search for new demand, what does humanity want now?
Pragmatism.
An answer is not the answer. We want something we can trust a bit more. The true currency of Web 3.0 is trust.
If web 2.0 provided options, web 3.0 is an educated guess.
Google started ranking search results, this innovation didn’t start overnight. Google saw we wanted more than just options.
This also applies to all the big and successful ventures the world has seen. They gave us what we wanted, and made it easy to experience. Utility.
To apply that, let’s draw a graph. Ew, mathematics? 🤡
In this graph, we’re measuring the relationships between the two main factors that create a good product:
- It solves a problem as well as possible — utility (y-axis), and
- the solvers get paid as much as possible — price. (x-axis)
The graph measures the paid value of a product aka its economic viability.
For example, food is essential. You are an animal. You’ll do whatever you can to eat or you’ll die.
So let’s give food a linear path on this graph. People will pay for food. Stamped.
But with the branding craze that came after the mejiverse (web 2.0) achieved utility, marketers developed the habit of ignoring one fact:
It’s not a linear path when you move from physical products to purely emotional utility.
Maslow’s hierarchy referred to that point & below (on a psychological scale) as deficiency needs. But if we add lifestyle — habitual level of comfort — to this point and view it from a consumer psychology perspective, we get an interesting new puzzle.
On this graph of reality, when something loses tangible economic utility — purpose, value, selling point, balls — it won’t sell. Let’s call that the minimum selling point.
At that minimum selling point, both the Laws of Diminishing Marginal Returns & Utility apply. Basically, too much of a good thing is bad. That means if branding can increase the perceived value of a product — it also could become overhyped (where perceived value is distant from the minimum selling point i.e, it loses utility).
We no longer see/feel the point. The selling point.
If the metaverse doesn’t harness an unfulfilled need with enough weight behind it for global adoption, we’ll never be able to shape it or scale it.
So let’s go back to the original question — Dear God. What does the human race want now? Remember, you’re representing the human race in this VR experience.
Ah, yes. God-uh.
So what do you want then, ambassador of the human race?
Is it not ease? Ease is achieved through accountability aka trust. The Nigerian version of this is, “I just want dey”.
That ease/sense of calm can be achieved in a number of ways; from numbing fears to bringing pleasure. Pain and pleasure motivate all that we do, after all.
Trust soothes our expectations— pain or pleasure — from various scenarios.
That need for trust has created the blockchain; another tool in humanity’s utility belt. I’m assuming you know how it works, but it’s like in chess where a bishop and a pawn negate each other.
But how do we utilize a trustless trust system to reverse-engineer the next phase of the internet?
By facing the harshness of our reality, not running from it.
Everyone knows that if life wasn’t too stressful, we’d love it here. We want ease. What part of our harsh reality can we make easier?
That’s what web 3.0 will be built on. The blockchain is a proven success, but it must be harnessed as the building block for web 3.0.
How can we bring more trust/ease through the blockchain?
How can we embed the blockchain into the hot air of the metaverse to make it fly?
Make it more essential, not less, oh ultimate one.
If we want to progress, we must focus on humanity’s life experience and levels of satisfaction; web 3 is not usable without it.
I hate to admit it to you, but it’s now the time to be a kinder asshole. There’s going to be technology for it, like the blockchain.
So if we say web 3.0 should decentralize the world or lead us in that direction, it must hold economic weight. That means the next phase of the web must be useful for any human who potentially wants to wield it.
Access & utility for all of us in all our economic classes is the goal, but even moving one solid step closer is a worthy goal for our generation. (Maybe web 4.0 will be for complete integration of all matter or some other crazy idea, but I digress.)
Are there products useful to all of us that we can use to understand this concept? Yes.
I first noticed this during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Made them into an annoying acronym called LIFHEEE. Life. Heehee.
This is not an exhaustive list, but they are clear examples of what humans consider worthwhile. These industries stayed open during the lockdown, for life’s sake:
- Logistics (Saving time, energy, distance, effort e.g employees, courier, payments, airtime, cloud calling — anything that optimizes our human resources)
- Information (Internet) (Making better decisions)
- Food (Tummy)
- Healthcare (While secretly wishing for death, health is wealth)
- Entertainment (We’re a very bored species)
- Education (Just like the internet but used for earning money)
- Energy (The power to provide convenience, what logistics is based on)
Other important industries were on pause, but these ones remained essential when the whole planet was shaking in terror. Heck, they even kept us sane after being cooped up with our families or alone.
Seeing that the blockchain works, we can say that reverse engineering society is a good method of problem-solving in this new age.
Reverse-engineering human fears/desires is what builds a product people will pay for and even pour our intelligence, money, and energy to innovate.
We need to believe in it in a way that we can defend against anyone. It has to become matter-of-fact & usable, and that’s the single condition you have that makes web 3.0 possible.
A measurable benefit. Ever heard of the story of The King’s New Clothes? There. You get the concept.
Each tool that exists in the Web 3.0 utility belt is functional on this level of utility.
The blockchain holds us accountable, like a wedding ring. ⛓
AI & ML scale human intelligence. Soon, a lot of knowledge work will be taken over. 🤖
Finally, cryptocurrency is the basis for democratization, it’s always about resources. 💱
The metaverse’s job? To be the new interface of the trust in web 3.0. Reality, but virtual.
Now that we understand the UX design of a web 3.0 tool, we can apply this framework to the metaverse. What do we need? Deeper integration into everyday life.
We’ve already begun by joining Google Calendar with Gmail and then integrating that with the Google Assistant (AI). Google is about to make Calendly another generic tool bro. All of this assistance that we need shows that our dream lives are just not feasible for everyone — yet.
Side note, slavery & money (capitalism) are two forms of technology humans tried to use to solve this problem. They scale intelligence and effort, but there are costs to well-being.
We just want dey. All our technology is focused on creating ease in human life. So, back to the metaverse.
How do we make the internet easier?
What are the pain points of exploring/experiencing the internet?
Digital Interface: The Search Engine
Every tool has a backend and a front end. For the internet’s interface, we have hardware and software — the electronics & the connection (a search engine connects the internet).
In many ways, Google has been the front end of the web’s interface for a while. As the dominant search engine, they also try to maintain their dominance by becoming open source and leaving their apps “free” for use while they collect large amounts of data and sell them as targeting for ads.
Newer search engines & browsers have risen to take a piece of the cake. Ecosia, for example, plants trees using the money they get from the search engine business.
But what if we got paid for this data too? I believe a bunch of businesses have already kicked off around this concept of selling your data. I like it, especially if a person can earn a decent living from it. Imagine a universal basic income earned from your existence, filling up your digital wallet.
And why not? Companies like Google & Facebook should be eager to split profits with us if they earn from it and truly believe in our rights as humans. It’s all a collaborative effort, no? But then again, if they refuse, we should be able to find companies willing to pay and sell our data to them.
“Startups spend almost 40 cents of every VC dollar on Google, Facebook, and Amazon” - here.
That’s the front end. The metaverse must commoditize the individual’s data and give them full control over its use. Gbam.
I would recommend it be enough for basic food, housing, and healthcare in the richest country in the world. A healthy scope, I think.
The backend, then, is all the input and output devices in the internet of things, from your laptop to the undersea cables used to connect the internet.
We want them more connected. Everything should be linkable. That’s why we created applets, APIs, and embeds with software. IFTTT & Zapier too. We want to connect everything.
We must then connect our hardware. My recommendation is that we focus on scaling hardware if we want to build anything worthwhile. Take it from a civil engineer, we need a pile foundation to build a skyscraper.
Experience: Pain Points
The experience of the metaverse also has to become more connected. Instead of many websites, one webbed world. (Google is trialing this with the Journeys feature on Chrome.)
If the metaverse must become a platform to sell data, collecting it must become extremely easy, with hardware & software.
Creating a webbed, virtual world for surfing is easy for a capitalist.
Creating it in such a way that people own equal stakes in it at a bare minimum is harder because you’ll need them to cooperate — hence the trusty blockchain.
This internet also has to help people make more educated choices/guesses easily, and let them know the risk factor, and how to deal with them.
As an interface, it must blend in. It must merge with our reality. Hence XR and mixed reality — Microsoft Mesh, and Meta’s Verse. That’s the direction big tech companies have decided to invest in web 3.0–-the look & feel.
But the hardware and software required to execute such a sensory experience must level up. We must be able to build faster, as fast as a thought. Imagine an AI, Google Assistant-type solving your problem immediately it happens with a risk factor metric.
Web 3.0 must allow collaborations.
We have to be able to stack them like LEGOs. Software with software, product with product. Building blocks.
I’ve only done a month of Python but I know there’s a syntax with all programming languages. We could stack that if we don’t already. It’s doable, but there’s so much in the way.
Remember Google Glass? We need tech like it. We can’t be wearing VR goggles everywhere. We need to be able to communicate with computers with minimum effort.
In order to get there, we need to trust technology first — trust is the currency for all building blocks. Our internet must enable easy collaboration — Instagram is implementing that.
In this way, business becomes more social.
I learn from Michael Janda when I say that the strongest motivator for commerce is reputation. People want to know you can back your promise up, and they will spend. A guarantee.
Once trust exists, commerce is easy. You already buy the best-reviewed and most-purchased products online, and use your friends’ recommendations.
Social proof is one way we’ve been handling problem-solving.
People will pay for what they can trust, that’s why companies create a brand. A lot fail to become who they say they are, but the premise of the promise is what gains people’s trust.
With the metaverse, data collection, access, and available market are aspects that must be handled first. I can decide to sell data on my eating habits to a food company in my country. But it’s also hard without the hardware to collect all this data or the interested company.
Summary
If we want to get ahead with the metaverse, we first need more hardware investments. Hardware that enables us to condense the internet into an experience in tandem with reality. Hardware that brings us useful insights into our lives and experiences thanks to AI.
And I see it happening with smartwatches and earbuds. We’ll need glasses and hologram tech too, and we’ll need them cheap enough for everyone — like Google Cardboard.
While I love the premise of Google Cardboard, a better idea than ugly pathetic products is to talk to China & India. They can develop and mass-produce all the hardware — especially sustainably. Recycled materials & e-waste, even.
Sign smart contracts with them and get them good cuts of the profits. By paying 3rd world countries well to develop the hardware for the metaverse with advances & royalties, you utilize untapped and brilliant human resources.
We also need intelligence that helps us make better decisions. AI assistants must become our wisest and most intuitive friends.
That means we need to advance ML & AI tech greatly too. We also need global internet access. Russians, if you can hear me, Steal Elon’s Starlink technology and make the internet free.
In conclusion, web 3.0 is useless without you & your benefit. That’s why I made you wear the VR goggles.
To buy ease in the world, you sell your soul. Sell it to the whole world. Who else can we trust but each other? So we’re making this trust worthy.
As a reward for making it to this point, here’s some really great music. It’s about this whole experience of searching for the metaverse. Listen here:
