Our thoughts on Web3 pathways, a primer series
The physical space dilemma
Physical spaces and their constraints
Physical spaces are constrained by the number of people who can represent, attend, participate and contribute, limited in ability to scale with inherent availability, accessibility and logistical roadblocks. Au contraire, virtual spaces are boundless, accessible from anywhere eliminating everything in-between. The COVID-19 era disrupted physical venues as we knew them, think workplaces, offices, schools, sports arenas, convention centres, parks, malls, live concerts, restaurants, clubs, gymnasiums, movie theatres amongst many other physical engagement constructs. Global lockdowns over the last 2+ years triggered a behavioural change where people learned to operate effectively outside of these physical spaces and this was enabled with rapid technology innovation.
Web3, although relatively new, will further enable this behavioural disruption culminating with it becoming the de facto standard for engagement. These are fun, exciting and thought-provoking times that present tremendous opportunities for further innovation leveraging the realm of Technology and its prowess. Behavioural changes have led to the rapid evolution of video conferencing as software products, feature-rich online meetings, manufacturing automation, virtual meeting places and conference rooms, immersive shopping experiences providing richer engagement to service this disruption in consumer behaviour. The continuous evolution to bridge these gaps has resulted in a new reality for the digitally native with reverse influence on older generations. With remote efficiencies soaring, people are in no hurry to get back to offices and have established alternatives for physical places for engagement and interaction powered by technology which is further evolving with the Web3 concepts above.
Figure 5: Physical space constraints
In essence, the web3 technology ecosystem enables people to play an intrinsic part of the internet within the internet. This is the key difference between web3 and its predecessors. A significant number of preceding technological innovations and disruptions in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) married with data, 3D real-time graphics, graphics processors and engines, specialised cameras and software transposed into the digital spaces now enables the Metaverse to realise immersive interactive digital properties. These properties deliver experiences beyond the physical realm to further extend our realities into the unbounded and limitless digital realm.
The world we live in is hot, flat and crowded but more importantly finite in its resources. The Metaverse however is limitless and is further evolving into a multiverse, an unbounded, infinite number of immersive digital universes. As with the Metaverse and multiverses, the notion of interoperability of identity, behaviour, culture and embodiment, has far-reaching implications beyond the examples cited here, they are mostly grey areas with no right answer. Nevertheless, identities, traits, behaviours, cryptocurrencies and embodiments will need to be interoperable intra-Metaverse and inter-Metaverse in the near future.
