Who owns real estate in the XR Metaverse

While ‘crypto-influencers’ sell the concept of “scarcity” in the Metaverse; a grift in my opinion… what does it mean when we explore the XR Metaverse – where Digital content is pin-registered to the real world? Surely then, the cryptoverse scarcity augment holds right? Or does it…

The argument made is that you create, or, you want to buy land in the metaverse because it’s going to be scarce and that a community is going to be built around there so you need to get in, fast. But, who travels by walking in the metaverse? No one travels by walking in the metaverse so what do you mean by scarce?

If I know there’s something good happening in some part of this virtual universe, I’ll teleport up there. I won’t walk in the metaverse. The rules of physics and natural geography that govern navigation and transportation in the real world, don’t apply.

The XR Metaverse:

But then it comes down to the XR Metaverse. For example, what I mean is in the video, Bukit Bintang, is a famous location in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Similarly, in Dubai, Sheikh Zayed road is prime prime real estate. Who owns these places in the Metaverse? As a storyteller, if I’m building a whole world in Meta’s [Facebook] metaverse… now what do I mean first of all by the XR metaverse?

The Metaverse can be a place where you ‘jack in’ via Virtual Reality eyewear and then there’s the AR Metaverse, where the Metaverse is pin-registered to the real world, spatially and usually at world-scale, as a digital overlay – the XR Metaverse.

Imagine Bukit Bintang [Malaysia] out there in the real world and you decide you want to put an ancient or even a futuristic structure in Augmented Reality, permanently (persistent AR) locked down right there where the small McDonald’s sign is, in the video. You could see that well, you could put something in front of the sign maybe a digital arch or some kind of branding of McDonald’s that’s futuristic looking. But what platform are you using to view this augmented digital overlay?

Okay, if you’re In Facebook’s metaverse so you will likely use Instagram to view the digital overlay. What happens to those who use Snapchat to tune into the XR Metaverse? So let’s say some big Ad agency was instead contracted by McDonald’s to use Snapchat to put up a whole digital façade in front of their real-world branding. If the campaign is going very well someone else… let’s say Burger King says, “Oh wow, that’s great” and pays a lens developer for Instagram to put an AR façade right on top at that very location.

Hijacking Augmented Reality Air Space in the XR Metaverse

People using Snapchat at that location are looking at McDonald’s branding, while people who are using Instagram are seeing Burger King on top of that. It’s like hijacking that virtual real estate space.

So, in the end, who controls the XR Metaverse or these Metaverses (multiverses?) that will be around us as AR eyewear gets created? Does Apple control it because Apple will have its own ecosystem? There is the open Metaverse forum; it’s got all the big people in there and guess what – Apple is not part of it because Apple seems to want to do things differently. Via Web-XR you can today, on your Android device have AR without needing to download any app. Yet, Apple does not support WebXR. Anyway, that aside, Apple will have its own metaverse. What happens if Google decides to do its own Metaverse and for that matter, what happens if the Telcos decide on their own flavor of Metaverse?

People access the internet through some Telco or Telecommunication network. For instance, in the UAE there are two. Both or either can if they want to, be gateways to alternate “Metaverses”. Could the Ministry of Transportation in Malaysia control the ‘AR airspace’ around Bukit Bintang, saying any digital overlays out there have to be authorized by them?

Food for thought – Avatar Identity Theft:

Avatar Identity Theft: Bank robbery in the XR Metaverse?

We can also get into areas about our Digital selves; our Avatars in the XR Metaverse. So, your avatar could be walking in this metaverse…what happens if I steal your identity? What happens if I hijack – and we know even so-called decentralized, immutable ledger registered NFTs are being hijacked all the time, right?

When you have an avatar as an NFT, what happens if I hijack it 5 years down the line? You’ll be walking down the street in the XR Metaverse as your meat-bag human self and via your AR eyewear (glasses, visor, contact lens) you see your friend’s “digital surrogate” down the street, and you’ll think it’s them, but it’s actually me. I’m spoofing someone else out there…robbing an AR ATM machine perhaps as your friend.

These seemingly far-out scenarios are what I like to think about… the Metaverse and storytelling…it opens up our minds and can actually drive real conversations in an incubator, in a think tank, and we then come up with regulations or we can inspire and seed ideas on how to navigate the Metaverse through the stories we tell as animators, as game designers, as filmmakers.

It can then inspire regulatory bodies to the government to think ahead before disasters happen. So again, we have the VR Metaverse where you’re jacked in and what I call the XR metaverse that will be pin registered to the real world. This concept is not grounded or forged in stone, but put out here as food for thought.

Hopefully, the Metaverse evolves into a place that can bring people and minds together, unlike in the real world, that’s pushing people apart. The Metaverse could be a parallel world where like-minded people congregate to chart our course as a species with higher purpose.

Also published here.