Whether The Metaverse Is Going to Be a Good Thing

Facebook changed its name to Meta, and three weeks ago Zuckerberg and company released a video explaining the 'Metaverse' they are working to create. The comments are turned off, and YouTube won't let us see how many likes and dislikes Meta's video viewed 3.3 million times thus far has - which is telling. And this really gets at the manipulation of our view of reality which these Big Tech companies are only all the more capable of perpetrating in the next phase of the Internet Age, and why I am not so sure the Metaverse is going to be a net good for us. As a funny aside, check out Iceland's parody of the Metaverse announcement video here. It really is worth a watch or two. But at a bare minimum, we should consider the ramifications of engaging with what is coming down the pike. Hopefully Big Tech does not get to run the whole shebang. Hopefully there is a less centralized - and more human - way of interacting in the future.