Here We Go Again

It all sounds so new and exciting. Virtual property. Virtual reality. The Metaverse. Companies flocking to buy up space and presence. What baffles me is the frightening shallowness of context. After all, this isn’t the first time companies and individuals have laid out real money for virtual value.

Dial the time machine back about 15 years and it wasn’t the Metaverse it was another alternate reality option called Second Life. It still exists though you rarely hear anything about it anymore. Like so many iterations of Internet phenomenon it crested in popularity over a decade ago. It also promised broader vistas than the humdrum everyday work-a-day world of actual reality. Pick your look. Pick your outfits. Spend real money to upgrade and customize, to suit your every whim and taste. Not just your personal avatar but your living quarters and even your business. Yes, Second Life boasted a robust commercial presence of major industries as well as hopeful start-ups selling skins and other in-world options.

So to read the breathless hype about Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is somewhat, well, stale. It’s been done before. Maybe not on the scale Zuckerberg promises or envisions. Then again, perhaps those visions are supported by tenuous presumptions. And though Facebook’s run has been impressive, the Internet is a short history with a lot of corpses. Many of which were top dog in their day, and people could never imagine an Internet without them.

Granted, Second Life never claimed to be more than entertainment, while Zuckerberg undoubtedly has loftier goals. Still, it’s a precedent at least worth mentioning and remembering.

So, don’t sink your 401K into buying virtual property just yet. It may well be true there’s nothing new under the sun, and therefore there’s a sucker born every minute. Or every decade or so.