Matthew Ball on the metaverse future: What could go right; what could go wrong

Matthew Ball on how the metaverse future: What could go right; what could go wrong – Video transcript

Joe Kornik: Welcome to the VISION by Protiviti interview where we look at how current megatrends will impact global business over the next decade and beyond. Today, we’re talking about the metaverse future.

I’m Joe Kornik, Editor-in-Chief of VISION by Protiviti, and I’m joined by Matthew Ball, managing partner of Epyllion, which operates an early-stage venture fund as well as an advisory arm. He’s the author of the important and very influential book, The Metaverse And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.<>Kornik: Matthew, if I could ask you a best-case scenario and a worst-case scenario for the metaverse future, I guess what I’m asking is what could go right and what could go wrong?

Matthew Ball: When we talk about what could go wrong, there are really two different questions. One is to talk about the impediments to actually constructing the metaverse. The internet was commercialized after it was established and indeed, it was established around the premise of exchange. That is what the internet is. The term comes from internetworking. Really, we had a fleet of standards and protocols which supported myriad different use cases. The idea that AT&T, Telefonica, IBM, Verizon, Comcast, China Mobile can all exchange an email with the same structure, none of them actually managing the global system for email, is remarkable. Of course, many of these companies try to have their own de facto networking standard.

One of the things that can go wrong is not that the metaverse doesn’t happen, but the various for-profit initiatives and endeavors mean that where it is established, it’s limited and therefore, while we talk about the internet and the software layer on top of it, it’s perhaps possible that there’s very little commonality for the metaverse. This pollyannish ideal of an interconnected 3D simulation is not possible, just the limited exchange of information with highly siloed and comprehensive but for-profit kind of islands within it. You’ll see that from the 70s through the 90s, there was an expectation that’s what the internet would be, we’re very fortunate the internet was not, but that doesn’t mean that history will repeat.

The second thing that could go wrong is to understand that there are many downsides with the internet as it exists today and the metaverse will challenge many of them. Most of us are dissatisfied with the role of algorithms, the contribution of the larger social platforms to our state of mind or well-being or happiness. I would certainly say that data rights and data security aren’t what they need to be. More broadly, we still contend with harassment toxicity, mis- and disinformation, and radicalization on the internet. Going to a live shared, more global, 3D-immersive experience will not make those problems easier. It will make them harder, and it will also deprecate some of the best practices that we’ve established over the last decade.

In addition, some of the virtual reality and extended reality devices and technologies that we envision will produce very severe challenges. Right now, many of us contend with the fact that Siri listens to everything that we say, but Siri doesn’t see inside your home. It doesn’t see your tax returns. It doesn’t see your children running through the home. Trying to figure out how we progress, how we regulate, how we figure out what the requirements should and shouldn’t be, that’s going to be a real challenge, and I do think that there’s a way in which we can fear that outcome.

But if you ask me what can go right, look, the internet has been not perfect—far from it—but I would certainly argue it has done far more good than ill. It has certainly given voice to billions who lacked one before. It has made the global economy more competitive and fostered greater openness.

Many companies may be displaced by the metaverse. That means their business models, their philosophies, and their leaders will as well. If you imagine that the metaverse is as transformative as I imagine it to be and the forecasts of third-party agencies are to be realized, then you almost have to imagine that there’s going to be widespread disruption in displacement because the technological platforms and software and services that we use today will change.

It’s very hard to affect change midcycle because of the entrenched leadership, but to the extent in which we’re dissatisfied with the metaverse as it exists today, I actually think that the swap to a next platform, plus the learnings we have as consumers, developers, users, governments, affords us a rare opportunity to reset the internet as we know it today to be a better one in the future.

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Subscribe to VISION by Protiviti (vision.protiviti.com/newsletter) to view the complete interview with Ball, where he talks about how the metaverse will disrupt traditional business models and legacy brands, and which sector he thinks will be most positively impacted by the metaverse in the future.