No guarantee metaverses will be built on Web3: Mark van Rijmenam

When people think of the metaverse, they make the immediate connection to Web3 and that is not always the right assumption, in fact metaverses can be built easily on Web2 technologies.

Mark van Rijmenam, future technologist and author of “Into the Metaverse” spoke to Digital Nation Australia about some of the myths that surrounds the metaverse and the business applications of the technology.

Van Rijmenam said he wants metaverses to be built on top of Web3 infrastructure but there is no guarantee that will happen.

He said, “We can perfectly build the metaverse on Web2 technology, but it's owned and controlled by the big tech. There's no need for any of the decentralised technologies to build a Metaverse that is as cool as you can remember from Ready Player One.”

If that does happen, it will bring about ownership problems, he said.

“That is very important to be aware of because if we do end up in that situation, I think as a society, we will have problems because then we will have no control over our data, over our identity and over our digital assets,” van Rijmenam explained.

“In the metaverse, where this immersive internet is so pervasive, we want to have that control. I believe we should strive for the metaverse being built on Web3 technologies so it is an open metaverse.”

Van Rijmenam said there is no guarantee that the metaverse will be Web3 based.

“You might end up with a walled garden metaverse owned by the likes of Zuckerberg, who charges 50 to 60 percent of every transaction, control your full identity and everything you do online,” he explained.

“People are lazy, and the Web3 or decentralised web requires hard work for everyone involved and it might very well be that people just prefer to have the convenience of a centralised world.”

He added, “I want to stress that there is no guarantee it will end up in open metaverse built on Web3, we might very well end up in a Web2 environment.”

The current state of the metaverse in 2022 is equal to how the iPhone was faring over 10 years ago when the technology recently launched and the apps were very basic and kitschy.

Van Rijmenam said, “It’s pretty ridiculous if you think about in today's tech, but that's how it started. That is the same thing with the metaverse, it is super early days. All these virtual worlds that are being built at the moment, are like the first apps that were built for mobile.

“We can just barely imagine what kind of applications we'll have 10 years from now, when the technology has caught up and when we have a metaverse that is truly immersive and accessible through a variety of means.”