If you’re wondering why Mark Zuckerberg has poured some $15B into his metaverse project despite seeing ‘no results,’ according to the tech press, we’re wondering why no one pays attention to the man behind the curtain. Following its developer conference, Meta was roundly slammed for not being further along, given the amount of money their Reality Labs received to develop it, to the point where Facebook’s ‘desperate’ metaverse push to build features like avatar legs has Wall Street questioning the company’s future, as Business Insider reported. The publication also asked “How many more warning signs does Mark Zuckerberg need to see before he pulls the plug on his metaverse?”

This just in: At least one big investor is calling for Mark Zuckerberg to throw in the towel on the metaverse, saying Meta ‘lost the confidence of investors’

Or does Zuckerberg see something we don’t? And where did all that money go?

Meta released a new metaverse-friendly headset, and the price tag aside, Meta’s New Headset Will Track Your Eyes for Targeted Ads, Gizmodo reported, coming yet one step closer to reading your mind. “Whether you’re resigned to targeted ads or not, this technology takes data collection to a place we’ve never seen. The Quest Pro isn’t just going to inform Meta about what you say you’re interested in, tracking your eyes and face will give the company unprecedented insight about your emotions.”

See what we mean about Business Insider et al having perhaps gotten it wrong?

 

As Life Hackers pointed out about a year ago (What is ‘Web3’ and Why Should You Care? Everything you need to know about Web3 and the way it will (or won’t) change the internet., “Web3 aims to fix the issues inherent in both Web 1.0 and 2.0 by creating a decentralized internet that is easily accessible to everyone, while respecting their privacy and anonymity. Decentralization and online anonymity are, in general, good things that most people want. It’s why some already do what they can to ditch Google, Facebook, and Apple and find open source alternatives to the products these giant companies own.”

 

If you think that’s as easily said as done, as one Gizmodo reporter reported, “I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible.”  Even if you stop using their devices and services. Amazon controls over 23 million web addresses that they publish – plus many, many that they don’t disclose. FYI, her devices pinged Amazon servers nearly 300,000 times that week of her experiment. Her takeaway: Big Tech – Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft – are tracking you, whether you know it or not. Should you decide to read the article, three of those services will be tracking you.

 

“You may not realize all the ways Amazon is watching you,” MSN warned (Tour Amazon’s dream home, where every appliance is also a spy). And millions of those devices already reside in many people’s homes.

 

So, as for the promise of anonymity and privacy, let’s say you go to the store instead of ordering online. Your phone is tracking you. Let’s say you pay cash, rather than via one of the convenient payment apps. Those many spying devices in your home are tracking your habits. Your connected refrigerator. Your connected vacuum. Your connected door buzzer is surveilling you – and your neighbors. Your television, too, of course.

 

For Web 3 – and the metaverse is part of it – to truly deliver on its promise, all connected devices that are currently part of the Internet of Surveillance/Things that have added such an amazing layer of ‘convenience’ to our lives will need to be replaced with blockchain-enabled devices, unless you opt to go full Luddite re appliances et al, including a television with rabbit ears. But even then, who knows how the HMDs are surveilling you, currently or in future.

 

During the lockdowns, it was drummed into our heads that a sequestered life would be the ‘New Normal,’ – a premise we never personally bought into. Humans are social by nature  – and to again quote Ed Yruma, a retail analyst for Piper Sandler  (Bloomberg News The Great Post-Covid Online Shopping Bet Was a Costly Delusion), “Everyone’s thesis was that we moved five years in the future. What’s been really interesting is, that’s been wrong.”

 

Decentralized? Anonymity?  You control your data? Great talking points, but not as long as you’re carrying that device in your pocket, with an OS developed by the tech cabal. Ditto connected devices in your home.

 

The press may be touting the Web 3 era as being a gamechanger, but do they always get it right?  Remember then-Facebook’s Libra? There was a time when analysts predicted that “the launch of “Facebook Coin” could add as much as $19 billion in revenue by 2021 and “change the story for Facecbook shares.”

 

And re the press getting 100% onboard with Web 3? In case you missed it, as Wrench in the Gears reported, IEEE Blockchain Chair Urges Speedy, Collaborative Open Metaverse Deployment (Before Mass Dissent Erupts). Their vision: everyone having a digital twin. Just consider the idea of Soulbound tokens. Seriously? Tech always seems to have a dark side, readily apparent or not, and our red flags are up.

 

Web 2 created an imbalance of wealth in the hands of the very few the likes of which the world has never witnessed before, and unbridled – and unchecked – power over our lives re the data they collect and do keep in mind that the lockdowns are still fresh in people’s minds, when their very movements and freedoms were controlled by the very few.   If the cabal is betting on the digital natives to readily embrace this brave new world that’s being promised, we will remind you that quiet quitting is very much subscribed to by Gen Z. Pay attention: the game is moving. But how is the tech cabal following – and they are, trust us

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Right now, Web 3 and the metaverse is primarily about building infrastructure, and that’s just what Zuckerberg, for one, is doing. Under the radar and in plain sight. Which is how he succeeded the last time: by ‘bringing the world closer together’ – while gathering the world’s data, with or without its permission.

 

Early days or not, the real focus should not be on the low numbers of participants willing to at least explore Web 3 and the metaverse to date. If you want to know the real story, time to pay closer attention to the number that really matters. Namely, the tech 1%. And while the press may banter about how Horizon World still has no legs, with his new super tracking Quest Pro, Zuck is quietly focused on his next move to once again you off at the knees.  Onward and forward.