I do truly mean this: I hate it when I’m right.
I have to give credit to Zuckerberg for trying, I do. But when you are so utterly blind on a vision without understanding the very audience you’re trying to appease, you’re doomed to fail. And in doing so, Zuckerberg’s unfairly affected the lives of 11,000 people.
Okay, deep breath, try not to get too riled up. Because the one line in that article really pissed me off: “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.”
Expected. Like, somehow, he expected humanity would rush to buy over-priced and over-sized goggles to dive into a virtual world instead of … going out for a coffee and meeting with real people? Travelling to a city to have a conference with real people? Going out on a date and have it go fantastically well and have real sex with a real person?! I can only shake my head in the sheer stupidity that goes into this.
Look, visionaries come along and change the world, we’ve seen it multiple times in the last century: Einstein, Ghandi, Wright (several of them, actually), Churchill, Mandela, Hitler (look, he was an absolute evil, but a lot of people followed him blindly; not all visionaries are good), Thatcher, The Beatles, Chaplin, Ford, Disney, Berners-Lee, Turing, Jobs. All of them changed our world irreparably (not always in good ways) and we can see the effect of that change.
I don’t include Zuckerberg in that list. He created a nightmare, not a vision. I suppose, though, in context with Hitler, he’s not much different, though he’s not personally looking to rule the world … he’s just a tech bro wannabe who got lucky, and then ceased to learn entirely. He lives in his own virtual reality, separate from everyone else’s.
Which is why the Metaverse failed, because he didn’t understand. He pushed, believing the world would follow. But we don’t want to, not in its current state. There needs to be more to the experience for us to want to be in the Metaverse. Like I said, the Metaverse needs its COVID moment to evolve. And that’s not coming any time soon.
My thoughts go out to those who were affected, those who believed that something good might come of this. I hope your skills translate to another company, another industry, where you can have effect on this world, this reality. Because in a comparative percentage, it’s the only reality we have.
