How “meta” can you get when it comes to mapping out the metaverse? Appropriately enough, Meta itself has proposed an answer to that question. In a report shared exclusively with Digital Future Daily, the company has teamed up with the research arm of The Economist to apply the Inclusive Internet Index, originally developed to track affordability, access, and capacity for the 2D web, to the development of the metaverse itself. The resulting white paper is part history lesson on how we got to this point in the development of a virtual internet, and part troubleshooting of how much more work remains. The verdict in a nutshell: Metaverse developers are facing significant challenges when it comes to access and affordability, but they have necessary tools in place to tackle them. I spoke with Kevin Chan, Meta Platforms’ global policy campaign strategy director, about the challenges the company faces in trying to set global standards for a technology that still isn’t widely adopted in the wealthy West, much less the emerging nations the report also addresses. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity: Why did Meta set out to provide, essentially, a map or timeline of metaverse development? There are lots of reports and estimates that speak to the economic value of the metaverse, and what we’ve tried to do is give governments and businesses a bit of a road map about how to capture some of that economic value. There's no industry standard or policy framework to measure the readiness of countries, or whole regions, for the metaverse, whether it's today or in 10 to 15 years. This exercise the paper is launching is to establish a cross-country benchmarking tool. The hope is that governments and business leaders will take this tool and use it to map out policies and investments, so various countries and regions can then most effectively benefit from the economic value of the metaverse. In the paper, you lay out four “pillars” of metaverse development: Availability, affordability, relevance, and readiness. Which of these provides the most significant challenge, and what do you see as Meta’s role in tackling it? Making sure that the metaverse is relevant to the communities that will be using it. Are we, as an ecosystem, providing use cases, experiences, and content that is relevant to people? Obviously, a lot of the metaverse is focused now on gaming and entertainment. But also in workplaces, people are meeting virtually and using different types of platforms to connect. We also see a lot of cases where the metaverse can provide economic opportunity. In the U.S., PepsiCo and Amazon have digital twins, virtual representations of warehouses or fulfillment centers, and use a virtual representation to optimize or try new things before they're implemented. Surgeons have used Oculus Rift headsets to explore what surgery will look like before they actually go to the operating room. I think we have a big role to play in making sure that when it comes to relevance, we are building out compelling experiences. How ready are governments to actually work on the timeline you present in this paper? The metaverse is already well-embedded in existing regulations. The right way to think about this is to say, what are the things that existing laws and regulations already handle? I think they handle quite a bit already. Given how nascent the industry is right now, I’m not sure what kind of novel cases there are that would need to be addressed by government. Really, I think where the focus has been for governments has been in investment and readiness, making sure that the societies and the economies that we're talking about, are ready to maximize the value of the metaverse. The report points out that the European Union’s more strict regulations might be an obstacle to metaverse development and implementation. Given the novel forms of data collection and use that virtual reality poses, how do you avoid having a metaverse that functions in fundamentally different ways depending on where you are across the globe? People have concerns about fragmentation or splintering of the internet more generally, and I think the value of the internet has been the fact that you can connect online with anybody. Businesses can do business with anybody around the world, and the internet doesn't operate differently, the platforms ideally don't operate differently, and the way you transact is not different. To the extent that you, in your haste to try to address things that might be 10 to 15 years ahead, move prematurely, there are challenges that could lead to friction in people's abilities to connect and interact seamlessly. That's something that we want to think very hard about to avoid fragmentation of the metaverse. Speaking of which, I was somewhat surprised at how little the report mentioned China. How do you factor China into this global effort? We want to make sure the metaverse is infused with the values that made the internet successful. Openness, common and interoperable standards, being freely able to connect and interact and exchange information. There are already different forums like the World Economic Forum, the Metaverse Standards Forum, or the XR Association looking into working with partners across the public, private and civil society nonprofit sectors to ensure that ethos is going to carry forward into the metaverse. Does it pose a challenge that Apple is largely not participating in that effort? I can't speak for other companies, but generally speaking, this is still early days. A new and very important industry player has entered the market very recently, and I think that is a good thing. It's a validating moment for the entire ecosystem. It’s obviously a good thing when everybody works together, whether informally or formally, and so we look forward to welcoming them and working collaboratively across the ecosystem in the years ahead.
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