The metaverse is dead

I tested Meta's metaverse 2 years ago.

There were no business use cases or applications. No serious videoconferencing solutions, no integration with major business applications or tools.

No serious entertainment applications. No 3D movies. Very few and primitive games.

(Photo: NightCafe)

It's time to admit the metaverse is dead. The Metaverse Is Quickly Turning Into the Meh-taverse. Microsoft and Disney gave up. Facebook, after renaming to Meta to ride the metaverse wave, but no progress in 2 years, simply stopped talking about it and starting talking about AI. It is understandeable, since their stock fell from $370 in Oct. 2021 when they anounced Meta, to $115 in Dec. 2022.

The metaverse was promoted too early. While it promised to solve very serious problems, the technology isn't there yet, and there is yet no content or ecosystem.

I would love to watch 3D movies in a 3D world - but there are no 3D movies available. Neither on YouTube, nor on Netflix, nowhere.

I would love to have a 3D collaboration space with my colleagues, but the experience has to be better than traditional videoconference, Office, Slack, Teams or Meet. Now it is worse. It has low video quality, the avatars are a joke compared to webcams, and there are no collaboration or productivity tools. Also, there is no integration with traditional videoconference or collaboration tools. No (simple) way to access documents, to send emails, to connect to MS Teams, Google Meet or Zoom, or even to use easily a web browser. You cannot share passwords. There is nothing available from what works nowadays so seamlessly on a normal computer or smartphone. There is no integration with computers or smartphones.

Yes, I would love to have virtual learning spaces and 3D eLearning simulations, but there are none available.

I would love to visit a 3D museum or castle, but there is no good museum available in the metaverse. E.g. the museum of Anne Frank is composed of black-and-white photos. Why would anyone go to a 3D metaverse museum to see 2D bw old photos?

I would love to play a Call-of-Duty game in 3D, but there are almost no games available in 3D. I only found a good FPS, not great - so that  I couldn't even finish it.

Also, the input devices are poor, their sensitivity is poor, the applications are somewhat buggy. There is no possibility to use a keyboard or even swipe. Pointers often malfunction, the sensors get desynchronized often. 

The metaverse will need a few more years to get serious and will probably come back, with something real next time. 

The same happened with AI: there were quite a few decades between the first AI hype and the current revolution.