Facebook, Microsoft, and Others Look to $ 1,000 Billion “Metaverse” Opportunity, But It Contradicts Basic Web 3.0 Philosophy

• The future of the web is Web 3.0 – with Microsoft, Facebook and Apple, all interested in shaping it.
• According to crypto investment firm Grayscale, the industry represents a $ 1,000 billion opportunity.
• However, the philosophy behind Web 3.0 is for developers to take back control of their content from these tech giants.

Just as cloud technology has revolutionized data storage, Web 3.0 seeks to change the way the Internet works, but in much bigger ways. Most of the leading digital companies and industries, including the blockchain world. has a comprehensive list of what they expect from Web 3.0 for them.

“The metaverse is still emerging, but many key components have started to take shape and are revolutionizing everything from e-commerce to media and entertainment, even real estate, ”the investment firm’s November report said. in Grayscale cryptography.

Today’s Web 3.0 promises to be more reliable, decentralized – with control in the hands of the user – makes it possible to socialize for work and play across the metaverse, and makes payments cheaper and easier. At this year’s Facebook Developer Conference, founder Mark Zuckerberg laid out his vision for Web 3.0 and the metaverse. He even changed his company name to “Meta” to mark a new era of development. “I think the metaverse is the next chapter on the internet,” he said in October.

OG – Web 1.0 and 2.0

To begin with, let’s differentiate between “Internet” and “Worldwide Web”. The Internet is the physical infrastructure for cables, satellites, Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks, and routers, through which all data traffic passes. The web is one of the types of data traffic that circulates on the Internet. It’s the highway you take when browsing the internet, making a video call, surfing social media, or sending data from your computer to the cloud.

The first iteration of the Web, Web 1.0, is thirty years old. Think of business homepages, organized website directories, static webpages, and flash banner ads. Very few people were creating content and a large part of the population was just reading what they had to say. You are well beyond this stage and are in the transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.

Compared to Web 1.0, Web 2.0 has brought much more interactivity between people – think comments, blogs, wikis, social media, government websites for citizen services, video streaming, etc. While these services are accessible to everyone, including those with small smartphone screens, they are mostly hosted on centralized platforms.

This Achilles heel has left Web 2.0 vulnerable to cyber attacks, user data breaches, server failures and government censorship as seen with Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and the big tech giants of today.

The switch to Web 3.0

The 2020 pandemic has accelerated every building block of Web 3.0. From the ability for large groups of people to meet online for extended periods of time – a social and professional requirement – to the resulting large virtual economies of scale, aspects of Web 3.0 have led many businesses to step up to speed. their digital transformation plans. However, the thirst for schooling and working from any physical location has also led to the popularity of decentralized digital communities and virtual worlds that integrate with the real world, especially those that were previously unknown to the world. blockchain space.

Looking forward to Web 3.0 has started a rush for both, identifying and defining the future of the Web. In the era of Web 1.0, Netscape connected users to the online world. During 2.0, Facebook sparked a revolution by connecting people to online communities. Now, in the early stages of Web 3.0, platforms like Decentraland are creating community-owned virtual worlds.

The birth of the creator economy – why developers are prioritizing Web 3.0 and tech giants are trying to keep pace

This year Microsoft, Meta – the new name for Facebook, which many believe is Zuckerberg’s comedic attempt to shake off the bad press associated with the social network – and Apple have all announced their interest in the metaverse. .

Rather than being disrupted by other players, these tech giants are trying to disrupt themselves with the change in the way users spend their free time. Millennials and the generations that followed spend less time watching TV, preferring social media and video games. With the convergence of social lives and games, revenues from virtual game worlds are expected to reach $ 400 billion by 2025, according to Ark Invest estimates.

Additionally, game developers are seeing a trend where players are moving away from paying to buy a game – also known as premium games – towards free games that are monetized over the course of the game. Games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG ) are two of the most popular games in the online world today. Although the games themselves are free, players spend money to purchase in-game items to enhance gameplay and “bragging rights”, thereby improving their social standing in the virtual world.

And this is where the idea of ​​play to win (P2E) emerges, which is made possible by the open crypto metaverse networks of Web 3.0. P2E means gamers can monetize the time and effort they spend building digital assets within a metaverse. Players can own their creations in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These NFTs can then be traded in-game or sold to other players in exchange for tokens that can be exchanged for fiat currency, such as the US dollar or the rupee.

The two most powerful platforms driving this change are Decentraland and Axie Infinity. Even games like MIR4, which have been criticized for their tokenomics and overall gameplay, have thousands of users due to their potential for earnings, however small.

In contrast, a closed Web 2.0-based enterprise metaverse does not support the P2E model. For example, players can slowly collect digital assets in Fortnite or Grand Theft Auto and use them to play, but they cannot sell them in-game to make money.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the market opportunity for the Metaverse may reach $ 800 billion by 2024.

Currently, it is estimated that Web 3.0 virtual worlds have gained 50,000 users, leaving plenty of room for growth – crypto users worldwide are estimated at 220 million. Continuing this growth, $ 1.8 billion in funds raised in the third quarter of 2021 alone, towards the Web 3.0-NFT-blockchain gaming segments, out of a total of $ 8.2 billion raised by all cryptos over the course of the year. same quarter.



The move to P2E is a leap of faith and a challenge, as keeping digital assets locked in the game can be good business for the company, while also enabling the wealth from the game to be converted into real money in the pockets of people. gamers leaves the game open to downsizing in the future. For this reason, the pioneers of Web 3.0 P2E tend to be relatively new companies that started out with little to lose.

Examples of the value of Web 3.0 are already emerging

While efforts are underway to bring the benefits of the metaverse to virtual education and the office, this year it has shone in other areas that could bring an experience to a person.



In a great value opportunity, Sotheby’s is now present on Decentraland as a virtual art gallery where NFT digital art can be showcased by owners and auctioned off to bidders.

The public can safely attend large-format events with virtual music venues, like the concert rapper Snoop Dogg recently hosted at his recreated metaverse mansion The Sandbox.

Employees can collaborate and spend time together in their digital office, like the metaverse head office setup by the Binance crypto exchange.

Advertisers such as Coke and Dell also have metaverse advertising campaigns, promoting player brand awareness for a price, using digital billboards and other methods involving NFTs.

Casinos have also gone virtual, like Atari Casino on Decentraland, where players can earn in-game currency (MANA) and sell it on crypto exchanges for cash.

The “metaverse” is more than just a game

Beyond virtual presence and experiences, being at the crossroads of Web 3.0, crypto and metaverse allow much broader applications.

Sovereign Identity
You can have a digital counterpart of an Aadhaar, birth certificate or driver’s license, but present it virtually while having full control over who can see your data and when. It could also be used for credit scoring.

Decentralized cloud
If you are wary of cloud storage because of privacy, how about a solution like Filecoin that has decentralized data storage infrastructure for an added layer of security? While using this data in your virtual meetings by virtually accessing this storage in your virtual office, services like Livepeer enable decentralized video transcoding for your virtual office.

Decentralized governance
Metaverse Web 3.0 users can collectively decide the rules for their virtual space, using frameworks, value staking, voting, and auditing. In a community of like-minded users, there would therefore be no platform removal or cancellation by centralized companies.

Sovereign virtual goods

Metaverse Web 3.0 could allow NFTs to “travel” between virtual worlds, to be displayed in virtual museums or for sale. It could even be used for physically tradable NFTs, like purchasing a digital artwork to use virtually while you have the physical artwork secured in your locker.

Decentralized financing
DeFi allows the economy of a metaverse to expand beyond simple payment transactions in a digital currency. For example, lending platforms allow loans on virtual land, and decentralized exchanges (DEX) allow players to exchange one in-game item for another or for a currency instead.

While the ones described above have already surfaced, there may be other killer apps for Web 3.0 that are just a glint in the eye of a developer who is about to storm the web. metaverse world.

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The metaverse may change the way you earn money, shop, or even hang out with friends in the future.