Opinion & criticism of “Metaworse”: The Metaverse is crap – and risky, pointless & dangerous for companies | Mechanical engineering & industry sector

When something new and exciting is announced, two behavioral patterns conflict in me: childlike curiosity and the critical look with the “cui bono tag” (to whom advantage marker).

Metaverse sounds as incredibly exciting as the word itself. It contains something that is still unknown and the announcements from Meta (formerly Facebook) give us a little idea of ​​what it could be. On the other hand, I wonder where the seemingly sudden hype about the metaverse is coming from? “Experts” suddenly appear, as if they have always known nothing other than Metaverse and have many years of experience.

In fact, Meta Inc. boss Mark Zuckerberg only announced in July last year that Facebook would become a Metaverse company in the next five years. A virtual reality world that will feel “like a mix of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world.”

What should be noted at this point: In 2014, Meta took over the XR headset manufacturer Oculus, which, according to the latest evaluation in Q1 2021, has a market dominant position with a market share of 75% in the XR headset sector. So it's in Meta's best interest.

Extended reality in mechanical engineering: VR simulator for construction machines & excavators with virtual reality - Image: Xpert.Digital

More about it here:

• Extended Reality in Mechanical Engineering: Komatsu Simulator for Construction Machinery & Excavators with Virtual Reality of XR Technology in the Metaverse

Share of extended reality ➡️ virtual reality headsets by brand worldwide – Image: Xpert.Digital

Share of extended reality (XR) headsets by brand worldwide

Oculus is the largest extended reality (XR) headset brand in 2021, holding 75 percent of the market. Sony took second place among providers with almost 12 percent of deliveries.

Oculus

• Q1 2020 – 34 in %
• Q2 2020 – 32 in %
• Q3 2020 – 29 in %
• Q4 2020 – 74 in %
• Q1 2021 – 75 in %

Sony

• Q1 2020 – 18 in %
• Q2 2020 – 20 in %
• Q3 2020 – 16 in %
• Q4 2020 – 6 in %
• Q1 2021 – 5 in %

HTC

• Q1 2020 – 6 in %
• Q2 2020 – 5 in %
• Q3 2020 – 7 in %
• Q4 2020 – 0 in %
• Q1 2021 – 0 in %

DPVR

• Q1 2020 – 7 in %
• Q2 2020 – 8 in %
• Q3 2020 – 8 in %
• Q4 2020 – 4 in %
• Q1 2021 – 6 in %

Pico

• Q1 2020 – 6 in %
• Q2 2020 – 10 in %
• Q3 2020 – 11 in %
• Q4 2020 – 3 in %
• Q1 2021 – 4 in %

Other

• Q1 2020 – 21 in %
• Q2 2020 – 18 in %
• Q3 2020 – 23 in %
• Q4 2020 – 8 in %
• Q1 2021 – 6 in %

But there are other aspects that should make you think. Facebook had been growing steadily until it recorded a decline of around one million users compared to the previous quarter for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2021. After these figures became known, the Facebook Group immediately lost around 40% of its share value (end of December 2021 to beginning of March 2022). Facebook company founder Zuckerberg referred to the rapidly growing competition from TikTok. Another problem that has been known for a long time is the “aging” of Facebook. Fewer and fewer young people are using the social media platform. This target group mostly uses Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube or TikTok and sees no need for Facebook.

The main reason for the reduction in sales was the data protection change Apple made to its iOS operating system last year. At issue is the impact on the advertising industry of Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature, which reduces targeting opportunities by limiting advertisers' access to an iPhone user ID.

"We believe the impact of iOS is an overall headwind for our business in 2022," Meta CFO Dave Wehner said on a call with analysts following the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. “It's on the order of $10 billion, so it's a pretty significant headwind to our business.”

Suitable for:

• Extended Reality with Facebook Metaverse
• Facebook name change: Meta

Decrease in daily active users in the 4th quarter of 2021 by around 1 million users - Image: Xpert.Digital

Facebook thrives on personalized advertising. In exchange for a “free” communication platform, it uses the data it collects to make money through personalized advertising. Facebook generated around 97 percent of its sales in 2021 through advertising. The worldwide growing awareness of one's own data and data protection endangers Facebook's future business model. In addition to the current difficulties with data protection in Europe, Apple's tracking protection introduced in spring 2021 also shows how vulnerable Facebook & Co.'s business model has become.

This also explains why Mark Zuckerberg announced a change from Facebook to a metaverse in July 2021. Because in your own personalized metaverse, all the resistance that stands in the way of tracking and the associated personalized advertising disappears into thin air.

The Meta Metaverse is primarily geared towards VR/AR entertainment, with a focus on our own personal data, interests and habits.

In 2020, a market share of 53% in the consumer sector was forecast. Compared to the areas of production, sales and others, this is a considerable proportion, which is primarily and only of interest to Internet companies whose business models are mainly found in the global and digital sector.

Predicted share of spending on augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) worldwide

Predicted share of spending on augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) worldwide – Image: Xpert.Digital

Share of global AR/VR spending by segment 2020

• Consumers – 53 in %
• Sales and services – 15.8 in %
• Production and resources – 13.8 in %
• Public sector – 12.7 in %
• Infrastructure – 3.2 in %
• Other – 1.6 in %

Since the end of 2020, Facebook's sales growth has not been going so well. It stagnates.

Facebook's revenue by segment worldwide through Q3 2021

Facebook revenue by segment worldwide through Q3 2021 – Image: Xpert.Digital

Facebook's advertising revenue was more than $28.2 billion in the third quarter of 2021. Facebook generated the largest share of advertising sales in this period with around 13 billion US dollars in the USA and Canada. In Europe, advertising sales of around 6.82 billion were generated in the same period. Around 5.4 billion US dollars were generated from advertising in the Asia-Pacific region.

More key figures about Facebook

Facebook's total revenue in 2020 was around $85.97 billion. During the same period, the California-based company's profits were about $29.15 billion.

Facebook users

In the US and Canada, the number of daily active Facebook users was 196 million in the third quarter of 2021. This means that the number of daily active users has only increased slightly compared to the previous quarter. In Europe, Facebook is used by around 308 million people every day, an increase of one million users compared to the previous quarter. Globally, Facebook is the most popular social network in terms of the number of monthly active users.

From this perspective, it is not surprising that the Metaverse is now seen as the next generation of the Internet. As is usual in such processes, the countless free riders and soldiers of fortune are not too far away and are outdoing each other in this hype with meaningless options and announcements or confusing promises that are dangerous for your wallet.

According to a media report, singer Justin Bieber is said to have paid $1.3 million to be able to hop through the Metaverse as a monkey. The truth behind this cannot be verified, but it is significant that such headlines are circulating around the Metaverse.

What is not yet Metaverse will be made into Metaverse in order to get involved in the saturated advertising-financed media hype. Then z. For example, games that were once called open-world like “The Sandbox,” which is somewhat reminiscent of Minecraft, have been renamed Metaverse. Another media headline reported that a virtual property in “The Sandbox” was sold for $4.3 million. Seriously? According to Wikipedia, adidas, Warner Music Group, Snoop Dogg, Pororo, Shaun the Sheep, The Walking Dead, Atari and PwC Hong Kong are partners. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss as well as the band Avenged Sevenfold are also among the investors in the virtual land in The Sandbox.

The twin Winklevoss brothers have been running the venture capital company Winklevoss Capital since 2012. According to media reports, they are said to have invested $11 million in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. In addition, they announced that they wanted to launch a fund for Bitcoins in order to make investing in Bitcoins easier for non-computer-savvy investors. In September 2021, The Sandbox invested $2.9 million in a “Bored Ape” NFT. These Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) are used for virtual goods. They are considered proof of the rights to digital things and can be collected and traded.

But what the added value or benefit for the physical and real world is supposed to be is more than questionable. It is reminiscent of the well-known Danish fairy tale “The Emperor's New Clothes”.

More stories are spun from stories like these. The “best of the best” are already propagating to experts: “Megatrend Megaverse. Invest in the new internet. The Internet of the future lies in the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a multi-trillion mega market.”

Now all the other buzzwords of the new and “everything about the positively changing future” come into play: cryptocurrencies, blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity (“The world is in a global digital war!”) and what not.

Cui bono? Is this art or can it go away? You can safely throw this “metaworse” in the trash can.

The Facebook Metaverse as a further development of a social (tracking-commercialized) technology is aimed purely at the consumer target group, whose supposed added value to the real world needs to be questioned more closely.

Other virtual worlds are working on using crypto and token technology to sell “secure” virtual properties on which the virtual owners can then operate shops, casinos, etc. So these virtual properties are not there to be able to go on virtual vacations (which would obviously be nonsense), but rather serve as a marketplace to do business. So to speak, a digital E-Bay 3D, Amazon 3D or something similar. But not for products that are then delivered to you in the real world, but purely digital products that only one person can own as individual digital items.

The best-known names behind it are the Metaverse projects Cryptovoxels, Sandbox, Decentraland, Substrata, Somnium Space, NFT Worlds, TCG World, Genesis World, Matrix, Utherverse and Realm.

A metaverse is intended to represent a legally secure space with extended reality (XR) technology in which property owners can own and operate a property in a “crypto-secure” manner and can conduct business with virtual and physical things and services. Be it a shop (digital or physical products) or services (digital games, tools or services of any kind).

Likewise, consumers who own virtual things in a “token-safe” manner and cannot lose them, but things for real life can also be purchased.

From a consumer perspective, owning virtual properties only makes sense if it somehow relates to “computer games” or something similar. can be sensibly linked together, in the form of a library or “storage space”. The focus is therefore on the digital things that you can purchase - and here the rarity of the real world should be replicated in the digital space. This is made possible by a blockchain like Ethereum, which also causes the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of a medium-sized European industrial country.

This is not sustainable or valuable.

Actually, a metaverse is a place where the physical and digital worlds come together. As a further development of XR technology, which is intended to enable interactions between digital 3D images (cf. digital twins) and digital 3D avatars with each other.

In fact, some metaverses are currently not 3D worlds, but poorly implemented 2D projections that give the illusion of an apparent 3D world.

The metaverse provides a space for endless, interconnected virtual communities using VR headsets, AR glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

All in all, the meaning and added value should be clear as to why the metaverse in question exists at all. All currently known metaverses use people's childlike curiosity and play instinct to lure people into their virtual world. Be it VR films, VR/AR games or pure VR/AR entertainment (Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality).

Investments in AR/VR technology worldwide in 2024, by use case – Image: Xpert.Digital

The commercial use cases for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) expected to see the largest investments in 2024 are education and industrial maintenance, with $4.1 billion expected to be invested in both areas. VR gaming, VR video/feature viewing, and AR gaming are the three largest use cases for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), with $17.6 billion expected to be spent in 2024.

Investments in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technology worldwide in 2024, by use case

• Education/training/education – $4.1 billion
• Industrial maintenance/maintenance/support – $4.1 billion
• Product presentations – 2.7 billion US dollars
• VR games, watching VR videos/movies and AR games; VR/AR Entertainment – ​​17.6 billion US dollars

Metaverse

The Metaverse is considered the next generation of the Internet and is where the physical and digital worlds come together. As a further development of social technologies, the metaverse is intended to enable interaction between digital images of people, the avatars, in a variety of situations. Whether at work, in the office, attending concerts or sporting events, or even trying on clothes, the metaverse is intended to provide a space for endless, interconnected virtual communities using VR headsets, AR glasses, smartphone apps or other devices to use.

AR/VR in business

The use of VR in companies is often evident in training exercises. Examples of this include scenarios where new employees are being trained on important, technical machines and equipment - taking these out of service for training purposes would be an expensive and disruptive process for a company, which is where VR steps in to alleviate this problem. AR can also help improve efficiency in a business, particularly with the “I see what I see” feature for remote assistance as well as overlaying data onto the image of the physical world. On-site assembly, security, and industrial maintenance are all use cases for AR that are expected to see strong growth in the coming years.

This is far from practical use in the company. Quite apart from the fact that Meta (formerly Facebook) will probably make the use of Meta-based products and solutions completely impossible in some companies due to its history on data protection.

In the early days of XR technology, it was primarily the high costs of the 3D models and the constant adjustments to the recurring operating system updates of the devices as well as new devices coming onto the market (mainly smartphones and tablets) that prevented .

For a long time, XR was only able to establish itself to some extent in the gaming sector (entertainment). Instead of using the potential of technology, the keyword “Metaverse” is assigned a connotation exclusively for “entertainment”, even though the underlying 3D technology has the potential to make our everyday lives, especially at work, easier and better – for all of us Save time, money and nerves.

With the first 3D frameworks for companies and no-code 3D platforms, costs could be permanently reduced and kept financially stable, allowing for increased and lasting use with demonstrable added value in the areas

• Training and education
• Industrial maintenance and support
• Product presentations

made possible.

The use of VR in companies is often evident in training exercises. Examples of this include scenarios where new employees are being trained on key technical machines and equipment - taking these out of service for training purposes would be an expensive and disruptive process for a company, which is where VR steps in to alleviate this problem.

AR can also help improve efficiency in a business, particularly with the “see what I see” feature for remote assistance as well as overlaying data onto the physical world view. On-site assembly, security, and industrial maintenance are all use cases for AR that will continue to see strong growth in the coming years.

The 3D experience for B2B Sales & Marketing from Vuframe – Image: Vuframe

The use of VR in companies is often evident in training exercises. Examples of this include scenarios where new employees are being trained on key technical machines and equipment - taking these out of service for training purposes would be an expensive and disruptive process for a company, which is where VR steps in to alleviate this problem.

AR can also help improve efficiency in a business, particularly with the “see what I see” feature for remote assistance as well as overlaying data onto the physical world view. On-site assembly, security, and industrial maintenance are all use cases for AR that will continue to see strong growth in the coming years.

It is in the logic of things that the use of extended reality serves a larger market in the consumer sector. However, the market only works with 3D images (digital twins) of the products and machines.

However, these costs and expenses are not even listed in the temptations for the Metaverse. This means that the Metaverse operators make the platform and everything surrounding it available to third parties, with costs that are lucrative for them. You leave the playing and “fun” to others.

This is where the next risks and problems arise for companies and manufacturers.

In no case is the data security of the CAD / 3D models of the products and machines guaranteed, they are easily extractable and lie unprotected at the feet of the competition.

In a 3D platform like that of Vuframe®, this data security of the CAD/3D models is guaranteed.

Non-reverse engineering / data security

Reverse engineering, also known as back engineering, is primarily the process of extracting information from a specific 3D model and reproducing it based on the information extracted through the reverse engineering process. This is not possible with the 3D platform from Vuframe, also called SmartVu (pronounced Smartview). The data stays safe! By the way, a unique selling point of Vuframe!

Whether smart 3D meetings, virtual showrooms, creating CAD / 3D models with a configurator or an intelligent and flexible trade fair appearance from your pocket. Everything from the perspective of data security.

No-code platform for all CAD / 3D models with Vuframe

As an editor without prior programming knowledge, manage and maintain CAD / 3D models like in a CMS backend, e.g. B. like in WordPress, Joomla, TYPO3, Drupal, Wix.com or Shopify.

SmartVu, the no-code platform for all CAD / 3D models with Vuframe - Image: Vuframe

Simply upload the data sets, adjustment and compression takes place automatically. In any case, data security is automatically guaranteed. Copying from third parties is not possible!

Suitable for:

• Smartview: Product photo 4.0 / Product image 4.0
• Framework: Viewframework - the programming framework for 2022 - including for product photo 4.0 and WebAR