The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything

by Matthew Ball

It’s not difficult to imagine how different the internet would be if it had been created by multinational media conglomerates in order to sell widgets, serve ads, harvest user data for profits, or control users’ end-to-end experience (something AT&T and AOL both tried but failed to pull off). Downloading a JPG could cost money, and a PNG could cost 50% more. Video calls might have only been possible through a broadband operator’s own app or portal—and only to those who also had that same broadband provider (imagine something like, “Welcome to your Xfinity Browser™, click here for Xfinitybook™ or XfinityCalls™ powered by Zoom™; Sorry, ‘Grandma’ is not in our network, but for $2, you can still call her . . .”). Imagine if it took a year or a thousand dollars to make a website. Or if websites only worked in Internet Explorer or Chrome—and you had to pay a given browser an annual fee for the privilege of using it. Or maybe you would have to pay your broadband provider extra fees to read certain programming languages or use a given web technology (imagine, again, “This website requires Xfinity Premium with 3D”).