Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Than Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and how the tech are you today? We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the future, and I've got jokes about that,
Speaker 1: because the future is where you and I will spend
Speaker 1: the rest of our lives. For those plan nine from
Speaker 1: other space fans out there that shout out as to you,
Speaker 1: this episode is sponsored by Nissan. Nissan asked me if
Speaker 1: I could talk about the future, and it was really
Speaker 1: exciting to get that opportunity and I'm happy to seize
Speaker 1: it now. I've talked a lot in recent episodes about
Speaker 1: stuff like the metaverse, uh, the concept of web three
Speaker 1: some people call it web three point oh, and the
Speaker 1: controversial subject of n f T S. And I've been
Speaker 1: pretty critical of how things are going so far. But
Speaker 1: I thought this is a good opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: take a step back, try and take a more objective look,
Speaker 1: talk about what the premise is behind all of these
Speaker 1: semi related topics, and to get an idea of what
Speaker 1: could be. Because again we're going to talk about the future,
Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about how things are going
Speaker 1: right now and give some unfortunate examples of fumbling the bag,
Speaker 1: because that has happened. It tends to happen whenever there's
Speaker 1: a massive transition in tech. So this is not me saying, hey,
Speaker 1: remember all that stuff I said that was critical of
Speaker 1: these technologies, forget it. This is saying, all right, there
Speaker 1: are problems right now, but what could we expect assuming
Speaker 1: we work out all the problems, what could be the
Speaker 1: future now? In order to do that, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to talk about a lot of different cons ups. One
Speaker 1: of those a big important one is the blockchain, which
Speaker 1: of course was made famous by cryptocurrency. One of the
Speaker 1: earliest descriptions of blockchain came out of a white paper
Speaker 1: written by someone who was going by the name of
Speaker 1: Satoshi Nakamoto. So this was the same white paper that
Speaker 1: first introduced the concept of bitcoin. So what is a
Speaker 1: block chain? Well, as simply as I can put it,
Speaker 1: it is a shared ledger that is made up of
Speaker 1: blocks of transactions or other data. Transactions don't have to
Speaker 1: be you know, I spent as much money to buy
Speaker 1: that thing. Transactions can be I sent a message to
Speaker 1: this other person but they are blocks of transactions that
Speaker 1: are arranged in a chain, with the earliest transactions at
Speaker 1: the far end or beginning of the chain, and the
Speaker 1: most recent transactions being in a block that's at the
Speaker 1: end of the chain. Each block along that chain depends
Speaker 1: in part upon the values of the blocks that came
Speaker 1: before it. This is really important because it means you
Speaker 1: cannot make a change to an earlier block in the
Speaker 1: chain without affecting all the blocks that come after it.
Speaker 1: So I'll use an example. Let's say that I was
Speaker 1: one of the first folks in on bitcoin. I wasn't,
Speaker 1: or else i'd be a bazillionaire. But let's say that
Speaker 1: I was, and I get some bitcoin one way or another.
Speaker 1: We don't really have to go into cryptocurrency mining or
Speaker 1: crypto exchanges in this episode. And I use that bitcoin
Speaker 1: to buy something like a pizza. And at the time,
Speaker 1: because bitcoin are worth practically nothing, it takes thousands of
Speaker 1: bitcoin for me to buy this pizza. And I'm so
Speaker 1: early in the bitcoin days that this transaction takes place,
Speaker 1: and say just the third block on the chain, which
Speaker 1: means within thirty minutes of bitcoin hitting the scene, I
Speaker 1: have been part of it. Now flash forward a few years.
Speaker 1: All right, it's several years since my eventful pizza purchase
Speaker 1: with bitcoin, and I'm reflecting on how I spent I
Speaker 1: don't know, like fifty thousand bitcoin to buy a pizza,
Speaker 1: but now a single bitcoin is worth thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: Back then, it was worth a fraction of a penny.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there thinking, Hey, if I had just
Speaker 1: held onto those bitcoin that I owned, I'd be so
Speaker 1: dang wealthy. Now i'd be I'd be crazy rich. So
Speaker 1: maybe I want to be all sneaky and I want
Speaker 1: to go back and delete my pizza transaction that I
Speaker 1: did so many years ago so that I can repossess
Speaker 1: the money that I had spent. Well, that would mean
Speaker 1: I'd have to go into this public ledger and change
Speaker 1: block number three in the chain. And now there are
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of blocks that are after
Speaker 1: number three. So the big problem, of course, is that
Speaker 1: block number four and every block after it depends in
Speaker 1: part on the value represented by block number three. So
Speaker 1: if I make a change in block three, it affects
Speaker 1: the whole chain after that. And because the chain is
Speaker 1: a ledger and this ledger is shared with everyone in
Speaker 1: the system. Everybody can see that the ledger has been changed,
Speaker 1: that someone has tried to alter it, so the system
Speaker 1: can then be corrected and my nefarious crypto heist will
Speaker 1: be thwarted. So one thing that makes block chains useful
Speaker 1: is that they represent a trustworthy chain of custody. If
Speaker 1: the data in a system is in the form of
Speaker 1: a block chain, it is effectively immutable, unchangeable. This could
Speaker 1: be useful for all sorts of transactions. Imagine real estate
Speaker 1: deeds that are stored on a block chain. It would
Speaker 1: be clear who owned the rights to any particular estate.
Speaker 1: If the deed were to change hands, it would be
Speaker 1: reflected in this ledger. You could avoid situations where you
Speaker 1: have multiple parties all claiming ownership of the same thing.
Speaker 1: Because the record of transactions would be viewable and unchangeable,
Speaker 1: you would know for sure who has ownership of it.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's still other things you have to worry about,
Speaker 1: like people tricking each other into giving up access to
Speaker 1: their digital wallets that's where digital assets live, like cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: for example. So while the blockchain itself is secure, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the system as a whole is secure. You've
Speaker 1: still got weak points that batties can target. This is
Speaker 1: why we hear about stuff like hackers stealing bitcoins and
Speaker 1: n f t s and stuff like that, because the
Speaker 1: hackers typically target either individual users or they target cryptocurrency exchanges,
Speaker 1: but the chain itself remains steady. Okay, now I just
Speaker 1: mentioned n f t s, so let's really get into
Speaker 1: that because the way people have behaved around n f
Speaker 1: t s people and companies has given n f t
Speaker 1: S really bad name, So we're gonna talk about that too.
Speaker 1: N f T stands for non fungible token. Fungible means
Speaker 1: something that is interchangeable, Like if you have one of them,
Speaker 1: you can interchange it with any other one of those
Speaker 1: things and you walk away with the same value. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here's a here's a simple example. Let's say that I
Speaker 1: buy a toy, but the toy doesn't work out of
Speaker 1: the box, so I take the malfunctioning toy back to
Speaker 1: where I bought it and exchange it for a new
Speaker 1: working one. The two toys are essentially identical, ignoring that
Speaker 1: one works in one doesn't, and so from the store's
Speaker 1: point of view, they're interchangeable as long as I have
Speaker 1: proof that I bought it from there, I can switch
Speaker 1: it out. This is getting close to fungible. It's not
Speaker 1: quite because you couldn't just exchange your broken toy for
Speaker 1: a working toy with anybody, because they'd say, no, it's
Speaker 1: not the same thing. You just doesn't work. So it's
Speaker 1: not truly fungible. Uh. However, a dollar is fungible. So
Speaker 1: let's say that I've got a five dollar bill. I
Speaker 1: can swap my dingy, tattered five dollar bill at a
Speaker 1: bank for a crisp, new five dollar bill. In fact,
Speaker 1: banks do this all the time, where they will take
Speaker 1: cruddy money out of circulation. It's a way of getting
Speaker 1: rid of dollars that are falling apart. So I bring
Speaker 1: my ratty five dollar bill into the bank and I
Speaker 1: exchange it for a nice, crisp five dollar bill. Even
Speaker 1: though my five dollars is ratty and the other ones crisp. There,
Speaker 1: they both represent the same value that are interchangeable. They
Speaker 1: are fungible. I can also switch that five dollar bill
Speaker 1: for five one dollar bills and that would be the
Speaker 1: same thing. It remains fungible across all these variations. Now,
Speaker 1: let's say that I have a classic rare baseball card,
Speaker 1: and my baseball card a bit beat up. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's in good condition, but it's not perfect. Well, I
Speaker 1: can't just take my good condition, rare baseball card and
Speaker 1: go exchange it for the same baseball card that's in
Speaker 1: mint condition, because the actual condition of the cards affects
Speaker 1: their value. The baseball cards are non fungible. They are
Speaker 1: not interchangeable. Non fungible tokens are also not interchangeable. Uh,
Speaker 1: they represent something unique, or really, I should say they
Speaker 1: represent a unique instance of something. Essentially, an n f
Speaker 1: T is a digital token that represents some other digital information. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of n f t s that we've been
Speaker 1: hearing about involves stuff like digital art, where people are
Speaker 1: sometimes spending tens of thousands of dollars to acquire a
Speaker 1: digital token representing some form of image or maybe it's
Speaker 1: a tweet or what ever, and the token represents ownership.
Speaker 1: But what about beyond that? What does it mean beyond that?
Speaker 1: Because I've often said n f t s are kind
Speaker 1: of like a digital receipt, that it's not the thing itself,
Speaker 1: it's the receipt showing you own the thing. So on
Speaker 1: its own, a digital token just means you own that
Speaker 1: instance of that digital asset. Nothing stops someone from minting
Speaker 1: multiple digital tokens for the same asset. They can do that,
Speaker 1: but this is kind of like someone creating a limited
Speaker 1: edition item. If you've ever shopped around for limited edition stuff,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them are numbered, right, You'll
Speaker 1: have a lot of limited edition items and each one
Speaker 1: will be individually numbered. So you might see that you
Speaker 1: have like number four hundred twenty eight out of a
Speaker 1: run of one thousand of whatever it is. Well, you
Speaker 1: happen to know that there are nine other instances of
Speaker 1: the same thing that you own, and each of those
Speaker 1: has a number from on to one thousand, excluding number
Speaker 1: because that's the one you own. And n f T
Speaker 1: s can be the same way. Owning an n f
Speaker 1: T doesn't mean you are the sole owner of a
Speaker 1: piece of digital art. You are the sole owner of
Speaker 1: one instance of that digital art. And it gets a
Speaker 1: bit mind bindy right now. You can buy and sell
Speaker 1: n f T s and the transactions are on top
Speaker 1: of a block chain, So again, by referencing a blockchain,
Speaker 1: you can see when and how often an n f
Speaker 1: T changes hands. This also prevents someone from trying to
Speaker 1: sell the same n f T multiple times. N f
Speaker 1: T s also confused people a lot. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of uncertainty about what an n f T actually
Speaker 1: allows you to do with the thing you purchased. I mean, sure,
Speaker 1: there's a record on a ledger that shows you are
Speaker 1: the person who owns that digital token, which in turn
Speaker 1: represents some digital asset. But what good does that do?
Speaker 1: What does that give you the right to do? Does
Speaker 1: that mean you have the right to start putting up
Speaker 1: like T shirts featuring the artwork you bought? Right, maybe
Speaker 1: you bought n f T representing a piece of digital art,
Speaker 1: does that mean now you can merchandise that art? Or
Speaker 1: if you purchased an n f T representing digital audio,
Speaker 1: does that mean you can charge licensing fees for people
Speaker 1: playing that audio? Now? The answer to those questions is
Speaker 1: not necessarily, and typically they fall into probably not. There
Speaker 1: are ways to include licensing rights and other i P
Speaker 1: rights in an n f T transaction, so that is possible,
Speaker 1: but it's not mandatory, it is not standard. A basic
Speaker 1: n f T transaction just represents a simple purchase of
Speaker 1: an instance, if I went out to a bookstore and
Speaker 1: I bought a copy of the book The Hobbit. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that I now own the publishing rights and
Speaker 1: other i P rights to the Hobbit. Right, I can't
Speaker 1: sell Hobbit merchandise. I can't print copies of the Hobbit myself.
Speaker 1: I just own a copy of The Hobbit. And a
Speaker 1: basic n f T is like that. It's just a
Speaker 1: record of a transaction. But it is possible to include
Speaker 1: stuff like merchandizing rights in an n f T, and
Speaker 1: some n f T artists do this. They sell their
Speaker 1: n f t s and they include the rights so
Speaker 1: that whomever buys that n f T will actually have
Speaker 1: the right to produce merchandise featuring that art if they
Speaker 1: so choose. Also, because n f t s exist on
Speaker 1: a blockchain, it is possible to build into n f
Speaker 1: T s a feature in which the person who originally
Speaker 1: minted that n f T in the first place will
Speaker 1: get a cut every single time that n f T
Speaker 1: is sold to someone else. So the artist creates an
Speaker 1: n f T to represent a digital piece of art.
Speaker 1: They sell that n f T to Person number one,
Speaker 1: and they collect money from that transaction. Person one sells
Speaker 1: that n f T to person too, well, some money
Speaker 1: from that transaction still goes back to the creator, and
Speaker 1: if I minted an n f T representing this very
Speaker 1: episode and then sold that n f T to someone,
Speaker 1: I could potentially get a cut of every subsequent deal
Speaker 1: in which the n f T changed hands from that
Speaker 1: point on out. If I so designed my n f
Speaker 1: T minting process that way, that's actually pretty cool because
Speaker 1: it represents a way for digital creators to receive long
Speaker 1: tail compensation for their work. Now, early on, n f
Speaker 1: T has got a really bad rap, and justifiably so,
Speaker 1: because there was just so much speculation around them. People
Speaker 1: were treating n f t s like they were commodities
Speaker 1: or stocks. Uh, there was no real concept of actual value.
Speaker 1: The speculation just inflated everything. The hype was driving prices
Speaker 1: way up, which was really confounding some people and then
Speaker 1: exciting others, and it soured a lot of folks on
Speaker 1: the concept right away. Now we're going to take a break,
Speaker 1: but when we come back, I'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about some of the issues with n f t
Speaker 1: s and then some of the ways that n f
Speaker 1: T s could be used in ways that I view
Speaker 1: as positive. But first, let's take a quick break Okay,
Speaker 1: so before the break I talked about how hype and
Speaker 1: speculation really gave n f T s a black eye.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, you also had n f
Speaker 1: T scams to deal with. People were minting n f
Speaker 1: T s for properties they didn't actually own, which is
Speaker 1: fraud right, Like if you don't own something and you
Speaker 1: sell it, you're you're being fraudulent. Uh. This is essentially
Speaker 1: the high tech equivalent of walking up to a tourist
Speaker 1: in New York and trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 1: It's the same sort of thing. Uh. In other cases
Speaker 1: you had people selling valid n f T s, but
Speaker 1: they were using other methods to artificially pump up enthusiasm
Speaker 1: around on those n f t s, and a classic
Speaker 1: pump and dump scheme. That's just when you weren't to
Speaker 1: inflate the value of something that you possess. Then you
Speaker 1: sell that stuff off when it's at the highest price
Speaker 1: you think it can get, and you get the heck
Speaker 1: out of dodge while the price comes back down to
Speaker 1: reality once people realize that the the perceived value of
Speaker 1: that thing is much higher than its actual value value.
Speaker 1: By the way, it gets super tricky to talk about
Speaker 1: because really, when it boils down to it, value is
Speaker 1: whatever people are willing to pay for something. Right If
Speaker 1: they're not willing to pay for something, then the you
Speaker 1: would argue that someone is trying to price something above
Speaker 1: its value. But it's very fuzzy. It's not like it's
Speaker 1: a hard and fast number that you can point to. Now,
Speaker 1: on top of all that, you had a lot of
Speaker 1: big companies that were really getting into n f t
Speaker 1: s very quickly, sometimes without really considering why they were
Speaker 1: doing it. Yawned it being no more than say, a
Speaker 1: cynical cash grab. That that's tricky, right like, And in
Speaker 1: some cases it probably wasn't a cynical cash grab, but
Speaker 1: that's how it came across, and people reacted very poorly
Speaker 1: to that. Even in cases where n f t s
Speaker 1: could arguably make sense, such as for in game assets
Speaker 1: for video games, there's been a huge backlash When you
Speaker 1: hear about games that are considering using n f t
Speaker 1: s for in game purchases. You're a lot of gamers
Speaker 1: getting upset about that, and I think part of that
Speaker 1: is because of how n f t s have performed
Speaker 1: up to this point. But I also don't think it's
Speaker 1: necessarily a bad thing, depending on how it's handled. That's
Speaker 1: what is key, because it's absolutely and how it's handled.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about a way of using n f
Speaker 1: T s in a video game that could potentially work. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of video games out there offer up DLC,
Speaker 1: or downloadable content, and this is content that is supplementary
Speaker 1: to whatever the main core of the game is, and
Speaker 1: players have varying opinions about DLC. I think generally speaking,
Speaker 1: most folks think that an expansion to an original game
Speaker 1: can be absolutely fine unless they find out that that
Speaker 1: expansion was always in the game and the DLC was
Speaker 1: just to unlock what was already there. That tends to
Speaker 1: take gamers off because what that tells gamers is, oh,
Speaker 1: you always had this content. What you did was you
Speaker 1: sold me an incomplete game, and I have to pay
Speaker 1: in order to get the complete game. That's kind of
Speaker 1: how the perspective goes from the gamer's side. If in fact,
Speaker 1: the DLC was always part of the core game and
Speaker 1: you had to pay to unlock it. Now, if the
Speaker 1: DLC isn't more gameplay content, let's say it's just cosmetic features,
Speaker 1: such as a new character skin for the character you
Speaker 1: play in the game. I think most gamers are actually
Speaker 1: okay with that, because if they want the cosmetics stuff,
Speaker 1: they can purchase a skin that they like for their
Speaker 1: character or for their in game items or for whatever.
Speaker 1: And if they don't want it, they just don't buy
Speaker 1: the stuff and they continue to play the game. And
Speaker 1: then you have DLC that includes in game features that
Speaker 1: change how the game plays to some extent. This has
Speaker 1: a much more shaky reputation among gamers because it can
Speaker 1: lead to players spending money in order to get an
Speaker 1: in game advantage, and gamers will often call this pay
Speaker 1: to win, and generally speaking, it's looked down upon. If
Speaker 1: your DLC includes stuff like special weapons that you cannot
Speaker 1: get in any other way in the game, and those
Speaker 1: weapons give you an incredible advantage, that is frowned upon
Speaker 1: in the gamer community generally speaking. But all right, let's
Speaker 1: say that you are a video game publisher and you've
Speaker 1: created a franchise of games, and there's a long history
Speaker 1: of these and they're all kind of connected together, at
Speaker 1: least thematically, and let's say you start offering cosmetic DLC
Speaker 1: in the form of n f t s for the
Speaker 1: latest title in your franchise. Now, if a player buys
Speaker 1: that cosmetic upgrade, they get an n f T, a
Speaker 1: digital token representing their purchase. And this means that maybe
Speaker 1: in future games that you create in the series, that
Speaker 1: same player will still have access to that cosmetic upgrade
Speaker 1: only within the new game because they have the n
Speaker 1: f T that shows that they've purchased it. It's they
Speaker 1: don't have to buy it again, They've already got it
Speaker 1: and it can be applied to the new game. There's
Speaker 1: there's nothing, by the way set in stone that says
Speaker 1: this would ever be the way this would work, but
Speaker 1: it's one potential way it could work. And also they
Speaker 1: could potentially even sell their n f T to someone
Speaker 1: else and sell the cosmetic asset to some other player.
Speaker 1: Let's say that it's a game franchise where they created
Speaker 1: a cool cosmetic three games back, but now they don't
Speaker 1: sell that cosmetic anymore. They don't they don't really that
Speaker 1: that game that's three games old isn't really heavily supported
Speaker 1: by the publisher. You still have access to that cosmetic
Speaker 1: skin because you purchased it three games ago as an
Speaker 1: n f T, and it's supported in the most recent
Speaker 1: version of the game, but you can't buy that new
Speaker 1: cosmetic skin from the publisher. Well, because you have an
Speaker 1: n f T, you might be able to sell that
Speaker 1: n f T on a on a market in the
Speaker 1: game or even outside the game, to someone else who
Speaker 1: really wants that cosmetic Maybe you make money off of it.
Speaker 1: That's a possibility and one that I don't think is
Speaker 1: necessarily bad. It could work, but it would have to
Speaker 1: be done well, and unfortunately, in the early days of
Speaker 1: n f T S things weren't done very well, and
Speaker 1: they have cast a pretty dark shadow on the concept
Speaker 1: in general. But let me present another possible use of
Speaker 1: n f T S. This is one that could potentially
Speaker 1: be transformational. Let's say that you are a developer, you're
Speaker 1: a programmer, and you write some really cool code, and
Speaker 1: that code is useful. It could be adapted for lots
Speaker 1: of stuff, and traditionally it's pretty darn hard to ascribe
Speaker 1: credit two lines of code, particularly for projects in which
Speaker 1: you have a lot of different people programming code for
Speaker 1: that project. But if you could mint an n f
Speaker 1: T representing the code you created, now you have credit
Speaker 1: for that code. Of course, for that to work, you
Speaker 1: would also need a system in place to verify that
Speaker 1: the person minting the n f T actually has ownership
Speaker 1: of the code itself, and it might not be the programmer.
Speaker 1: In fact, for really big projects, I imagine that this
Speaker 1: would be kind of the company behind that project. That
Speaker 1: would meant the n f T not the programmer themselves,
Speaker 1: unless we saw a massive change. But it still could
Speaker 1: be a big benefit in the programm or community if
Speaker 1: it were deployed properly. There are a lot of qualifiers
Speaker 1: for this. So my point is n f t s
Speaker 1: aren't inherently bad, but the way that companies and people
Speaker 1: have been treating them hasn't really been that great, and
Speaker 1: so they have a bad reputation understandably so, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have been one of the people critical of the
Speaker 1: way n f t s have been handled so far,
Speaker 1: But I think n f t s will eventually settle
Speaker 1: down at some point and potentially become really useful. It's
Speaker 1: just gonna take some time, and this often happens in tech.
Speaker 1: We see it happen in tech all the time. In fact,
Speaker 1: back in the nineties, we saw it happened with the
Speaker 1: dot com bubble, right we saw all these companies spring up,
Speaker 1: these web based companies. We saw crazy speculation which ultimately
Speaker 1: drove unsustainable business practices, and then the whole thing came
Speaker 1: crashing down when the bubble burst. But after the crash
Speaker 1: it was an instant but after the crash there was
Speaker 1: recovery and slowly we established the web that we know today.
Speaker 1: I think n f T S could potentially be on
Speaker 1: a similar path as long as folks layoff the speculation,
Speaker 1: the crass cash grabs, and people are more alert to
Speaker 1: things like n f T scams. So not a ringing
Speaker 1: endorsement for n f T S, I understand, But I'm
Speaker 1: saying like the technology makes sense if it's properly used.
Speaker 1: We just haven't seen very many cases of that as
Speaker 1: of yet. All right, now, let's switch gears from n
Speaker 1: f T S and talk about Web three. So the
Speaker 1: concept of Web three is one that sounds interesting and
Speaker 1: appealing on the surface. Uh. It's about a decentralized version
Speaker 1: of the web built on top of the blockchain. Data
Speaker 1: exchanges will be transactions which themselves will be part of
Speaker 1: a public ledger. It will allow for direct communication without
Speaker 1: the use of an intermediary, so you can communicate with
Speaker 1: your friends without going through a platform like Facebook, or
Speaker 1: you can send someone money directly without it passing through
Speaker 1: a payment services app, that kind of thing. The argument
Speaker 1: here is that Web two point oh, which used to
Speaker 1: be defined as UH websites that had user generated content,
Speaker 1: they had dynamic elements in them, they were changeable, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. The way Web three views Web two
Speaker 1: is that it's an It's a web where massive companies
Speaker 1: like Meta and Google absolutely dominate the experience because these
Speaker 1: are the companies that gather user information to modify it,
Speaker 1: sell it off to advertisers, target those users with advertising,
Speaker 1: and so it's companies like Google and Meta that determine
Speaker 1: what you see when you're on the web. That that's
Speaker 1: why you see the ads that you see. It's why
Speaker 1: when you go to Facebook, it's why your your news
Speaker 1: feed is the way it is. When you and a
Speaker 1: friend who might have very similar interests compare your news feeds,
Speaker 1: they could look totally different because of all the data
Speaker 1: that Meta is gathering and then using to determine what
Speaker 1: to feed you and win and how that's the concept
Speaker 1: Web three says about Web two, and that Web three
Speaker 1: will not be that you will not be going through
Speaker 1: these massive companies. They will not be the entities that
Speaker 1: dictate what your experiences and what you see. Now this
Speaker 1: is all hypothetical. There are actually conflicting visions of what
Speaker 1: Web three point oh will be and how it will manifest.
Speaker 1: So we don't have a set in stone definition of
Speaker 1: Web three. But generally the idea is that these ledgers,
Speaker 1: these blockchains, which would i there be public, or they
Speaker 1: would be viewable by some designated group of entities. A
Speaker 1: blockchain does not have to be public, by the way,
Speaker 1: it does have to be viewable by all the parties
Speaker 1: that are part of the not a regulatory but oversight board.
Speaker 1: You might say it has to be viewable by all
Speaker 1: those parties, but it doesn't have to be for everyone
Speaker 1: in the system. In fact, Meta was proposing a blockchain
Speaker 1: based currency that would have only been viewable by the
Speaker 1: partners of that project. That all fell apart. Moreover, all
Speaker 1: people would have equal access to Web three. There'd be
Speaker 1: no gatekeeping, so there'd be no censorship in the sense
Speaker 1: of people being prevented from being on there. So Web
Speaker 1: three proponents are saying that platforms like Twitter and Facebook,
Speaker 1: which occasionally do ban people, would not have the authority
Speaker 1: to do that on Web three. So I'm sure that
Speaker 1: a lot of you have already seen some potential problems
Speaker 1: with this vision. One is that while idealistically it's great
Speaker 1: that everyone has access and no one has denied, it
Speaker 1: can very clearly lead to situations in which bad actors
Speaker 1: use such a platform such a Web three philosophy to
Speaker 1: ramp up misinformation or disinformation campaigns, or hate speech harassment,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You can easily see where this
Speaker 1: would be abused. Uh, and that is a big issue
Speaker 1: that would have to be worked out because, uh, it
Speaker 1: would just it would get too chaotic, and anyone who
Speaker 1: was from any kind of vulnerable population would be at
Speaker 1: very high risk of being abused in some way or
Speaker 1: multiple ways. Another Web three's features is that it gets
Speaker 1: away from those massive companies have been dominating the web
Speaker 1: so far, like I mentioned companies like Meta, Amazon, Google,
Speaker 1: and so you wouldn't have the data intermediaries anymore. The
Speaker 1: idea being that if you're on Web three, you own
Speaker 1: your data. You can choose to share your data or
Speaker 1: sell your data, but it is your data, you have
Speaker 1: control of it, and theoretically, if you're able to put
Speaker 1: something up, you're able to take it down. That's easier
Speaker 1: said than done. More likely than not, you put something
Speaker 1: up and it stays up, because otherwise you have a
Speaker 1: very fractured and unstable platform there. But the concept is
Speaker 1: that you have that ownership, it does not go through
Speaker 1: anyone else, and that is one of the big things
Speaker 1: that appeals to a lot of Web three point oh advocates.
Speaker 1: I've got more to say about Web three, including some
Speaker 1: other potential consequences, but before we get into all of that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. So before we went to break,
Speaker 1: I talked about how Web three one of the big
Speaker 1: selling points is that it is not beholden to these
Speaker 1: massive companies like Google and Amazon and Meta and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Some people have pointed out that the
Speaker 1: the fact that this quote unquote decentralized is only decentralized
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, like kind of gets into a
Speaker 1: George Orwell animal farm kind of thing, like, yeah, it's decentralized,
Speaker 1: but some platforms are more decentralized than others. People have
Speaker 1: pointed out that the owners of the blockchain, that the
Speaker 1: the the exchange is not really owners, but the exchanges
Speaker 1: that exist that uh, that are facilitating these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Will end up effectively taking a similar place to these
Speaker 1: massive companies. That really all you're doing is replacing the
Speaker 1: overlords for a new set of overlords. That's one of
Speaker 1: the criticisms. Of course, these things don't really exist yet,
Speaker 1: so it's it's hard to say whether that criticism is merited.
Speaker 1: It's simply been raised. Another big downside is that currently
Speaker 1: blockchain transactions are typically pretty slow. For example, Well in
Speaker 1: order for a transaction to go through, it has to
Speaker 1: be verified first, and on the Bitcoin blockchain, a transaction
Speaker 1: on average takes about ten minutes to verify. This is
Speaker 1: closely related with the crypto mining process for Bitcoin, but
Speaker 1: it's not the case across every blockchain. On on Ethereum,
Speaker 1: the average length of time actually varies widely, between fifteen
Speaker 1: seconds on the short end to verify a transaction up
Speaker 1: to five minutes on the long end of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The amount of time it takes depends on lots of
Speaker 1: different factors, including network contolution, So the busier it is,
Speaker 1: the longer it's going to take for things to really complete.
Speaker 1: A web three that's built on top of blockchain transactions
Speaker 1: is going to need to solve some serious scaling issues
Speaker 1: to allow for faster verification or else we would see
Speaker 1: the experience of using Web three platforms as being far
Speaker 1: too clunky and clumsy and slow for people to see
Speaker 1: it as being worthwhile. Um. Anytime you encounter any kind
Speaker 1: of lag, people start to lose patients quickly. Like I'm
Speaker 1: sure you can all remember a time when accessing the
Speaker 1: Internet required more patients, right that you had to wait
Speaker 1: longer for a page to load, or for a video
Speaker 1: to buffer, or things of that nature. And then as
Speaker 1: connections improve and our access to those connections improve, we
Speaker 1: become used to being able to access things much more quickly,
Speaker 1: and if we ever encounter a situation where we can't
Speaker 1: do that is in credibly frustrating. That's one of the
Speaker 1: downsides to Web three is that right now blockchain transactions
Speaker 1: are slow, and I think a lot of people would
Speaker 1: find it very off putting to have an online experience
Speaker 1: that requires that much waiting. Um. But that's not to
Speaker 1: say that these are problems that are unsurmountable. So we
Speaker 1: might find solutions to these problems, and Web three may
Speaker 1: well be the future of the Web. I have my doubts,
Speaker 1: largely because I worry about some of the consequences of
Speaker 1: Web three, particularly when it comes to things like keeping
Speaker 1: a handle on hate speech. But that's not to say
Speaker 1: that by the time we actually start seeing real Web
Speaker 1: three factors emerging beyond just the theoretical and the pilot programs,
Speaker 1: maybe by then we'll have an approach to dealing with
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff. So it's it's too early to
Speaker 1: pass judgment. In other words, I have my concerns, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that those concerns won't be met. Right
Speaker 1: we might be able to address them, So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to keep an open mind. Now, let's talk about the metaverse. Okay.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, a metaverse is a persistent online world in
Speaker 1: which you can do pretty much all the stuff you
Speaker 1: can do in the real world plus more. Or it's
Speaker 1: an it's an online series of touch points that can
Speaker 1: spill over into the real world if you're using something
Speaker 1: like augmented reality glasses. Now, there are examples of limited
Speaker 1: metaverses today right now. One that's been around for ages
Speaker 1: is Second Life. That's a virtual world in which people
Speaker 1: can own virtual real estate, they can interact with one another.
Speaker 1: At one time, there was this kind of general belief
Speaker 1: that businesses we're going to go all in on Second Life,
Speaker 1: and a few actually really did spend quite a bit
Speaker 1: of money to establish a presence in Second Life, building
Speaker 1: out a virtue will storefront, or virtual customer experiences, so
Speaker 1: Second Life users could visit these these companies presence in
Speaker 1: Second Life and then interact with the business in some
Speaker 1: presumably meaningful way. You can do things like go to
Speaker 1: concerts in Second Life, or you could hold business meetings,
Speaker 1: or you know, just hang out with your friends. You
Speaker 1: could do all sorts of stuff, at least in theory,
Speaker 1: and Second Life got a lot of interest, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't able to sustain it, at least not on a
Speaker 1: wide scale. I mean, Second Life still exists, people still
Speaker 1: use it, but it never took off to become the
Speaker 1: future of business, communications, socialization, the Internet. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of people were predicting that back in the early days
Speaker 1: of Second Life, it did not achieve that by any means.
Speaker 1: And some people will point to stuff like Roadblocks as
Speaker 1: a type of metaverse. Roadblocks is an online game platform,
Speaker 1: and really the appeal of Roadblocks is that it lets
Speaker 1: users create and play games of all sorts within this
Speaker 1: online world, and those games can be really sophisticated, and
Speaker 1: they can have complicated rules and incentives for play, or
Speaker 1: they can be way more loosey goosey. It can turn
Speaker 1: into essentially like a giant game of Make believes, sort
Speaker 1: of the the sort of stuff you would encounter if
Speaker 1: you were to, uh watch kids play on a playground
Speaker 1: and watch them makeup games on the fly. That can
Speaker 1: happen on Roadblocks as well. And Roadblocks has tools available
Speaker 1: for people to create stuff, and it serves as a
Speaker 1: place where those creations can then be experienced by other people.
Speaker 1: So it's a sort of unorganized metaverse in a way
Speaker 1: that is determined by its users. Uh. In a similar way,
Speaker 1: there are Minecraft servers that do something that's you know,
Speaker 1: similar to what you find in Roadblocks. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: people who play Fortnite who have gone to call SERTs.
Speaker 1: Within Fortnite, there are folks who like to role play
Speaker 1: in a grand Theft Auto five server, turning it from
Speaker 1: a game that's all about committing crimes into simulacrum of society.
Speaker 1: It's just an online society. Maybe you play the part
Speaker 1: of a shopkeeper or a cop or something, or just
Speaker 1: a you know, an average citizen. There are role play
Speaker 1: service for that which blows my mind. But the metaverse
Speaker 1: concept goes beyond these fairly narrow manifestations. You could you
Speaker 1: could point in these and say like this, this is
Speaker 1: almost more like a proto metaverse. Often the metaverse concept
Speaker 1: will incorporate technologies like mixed reality. That includes virtual reality.
Speaker 1: That's a system where a computer creates everything you see
Speaker 1: and interact with, and you use something like a headset
Speaker 1: in order to access it. And it also includes augmented reality.
Speaker 1: This is where a computer system overlays digital information on
Speaker 1: top of your actual real world experience. So the classic
Speaker 1: example is a pair of a R glasses that will
Speaker 1: overlay information as you look at the world around you.
Speaker 1: So you look at a building and it lists out
Speaker 1: the businesses that are in that building. That's an example
Speaker 1: of augmented reality. So imagine that you pop on a
Speaker 1: VR headset at home and you jump into a virtual
Speaker 1: environment and you meet up with your friends who similarly
Speaker 1: are there virtually, and you all spend time hanging out
Speaker 1: together and you maybe you play some games, maybe you
Speaker 1: shoot the breeze with each other, maybe you sing some karaoke,
Speaker 1: Maybe you decide to put on a virtual sketch show
Speaker 1: like you actually put on a play in this virtual environment,
Speaker 1: with each person playing other characters. Really, the possibilities are
Speaker 1: only limited by whatever the platform can support, and even
Speaker 1: in cases where a platform can't natively support whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're trying to do, people tend to be creative
Speaker 1: enough to find ways to make it work by kind
Speaker 1: of jerry rigging a solution. We see this happen all
Speaker 1: the time. The g t A five role playing servers
Speaker 1: are a great example of that. It was not meant
Speaker 1: to be a role playing game, but people turned it
Speaker 1: into that. That's the same sort of thing we should
Speaker 1: expect with the emergence of more robust beta versus. Maybe
Speaker 1: you'll use your VR headset so that you can virtually
Speaker 1: attend a huge concert. So imagine being able to go
Speaker 1: to an enormous venue with thousands of other people, but
Speaker 1: in reality you're at home, sitting in a air conditioned room,
Speaker 1: maybe standing in it if you want to be up
Speaker 1: on your feet, depending on the band. Um. I used
Speaker 1: to think that this was a really goofy use of technology,
Speaker 1: but the more I think about it, the more it
Speaker 1: actually appeals to me. See, I'm not comfortable in large crowds,
Speaker 1: I I get a little agoraphobic. Um, if I'm not
Speaker 1: near the edge of the crowd, I start to feel
Speaker 1: very trapped and my anxiety starts to rank way high.
Speaker 1: I don't quite get to the point I can't function,
Speaker 1: but I am very uncomfortable and I rarely enjoy myself.
Speaker 1: So I actively avoid big concerts for that reason. I
Speaker 1: do not go to them. I'll go to smaller ones,
Speaker 1: but I can't like big outdoor venues things like that.
Speaker 1: I just can't do them. However, if I could attend
Speaker 1: virtually where I'd be able to see the act and
Speaker 1: the audio that's being fed to me would be from
Speaker 1: a soundboard, so the audio is going to be great
Speaker 1: no matter where I am in virtual virtually in relation
Speaker 1: to the act, that would be a big appeal to me. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know how I would handle that. From
Speaker 1: a programming standpoint, what I program it so that wherever
Speaker 1: I am virtually in relation to the stage, I get
Speaker 1: sound that reflects that. Like, if I'm further away, would
Speaker 1: it be quiet if I'm closer to the left side,
Speaker 1: would the left side speakers be louder to me than
Speaker 1: the right side? I don't know, I would probably just
Speaker 1: want to have the cleanest audio possible from the live performance.
Speaker 1: That would be my own personal preference, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's how it would ever feed out anyway.
Speaker 1: To me, that is a little bit more exciting than
Speaker 1: just watching a flat video of a concert online, right
Speaker 1: being able to see a virtual representation of it, and
Speaker 1: in fact, like we have the technology where the act
Speaker 1: could be appearing as actual video representations as opposed to
Speaker 1: say a cartoonish avatar. Like I think of being able
Speaker 1: to see the struts Um perform live. I've seen them
Speaker 1: perform lives several times, really really enjoy their live shows.
Speaker 1: I would much prefer to see them perform live as video.
Speaker 1: Then I don't know now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: if they were appearing as like Roadblock style characters, that
Speaker 1: has its own kind of charm too, But anyway, you
Speaker 1: would have lots of options, uh, And that that would
Speaker 1: mean that you would be able to kind of be
Speaker 1: there virtually in person and be able to see the
Speaker 1: interactctions between the act and the crowd. To me, that's
Speaker 1: a big part of the fun of going to live
Speaker 1: events and seeing that interactivity or heck, imagine using VR
Speaker 1: to explore places that you would otherwise never be able
Speaker 1: to go to. Not just like other places around the
Speaker 1: world right now, you could go to places that no
Speaker 1: longer exist, like a virtual recreation of historic sites that
Speaker 1: have long since been demolished. Being able to explore those
Speaker 1: would be amazing. Or maybe you could visit the Moon
Speaker 1: or Mars, or maybe a fantasy setting that never existed
Speaker 1: in the first place. All of these are possibilities in
Speaker 1: a metaverse. Meanwhile, you still have the opportunity to incorporate
Speaker 1: commerce into this experience. Companies could establish an existence in
Speaker 1: the metaverse, giving you the chance to interact virtually with products.
Speaker 1: You could purchase virtual replications of stuff so that you
Speaker 1: can use it in your in metaverse avatar. Like you
Speaker 1: know Nike has made sneakers this way, virtual sneakers. I
Speaker 1: don't know that to me is gets a little silly,
Speaker 1: but then it might just not be for me that part.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you could actually order real goods and services
Speaker 1: through virtual storefronts to get a chance to see what
Speaker 1: something looks like in person or virtually in person, and
Speaker 1: then order it without having to seek out a store.
Speaker 1: This would be really useful for stores that don't have
Speaker 1: a presence in your particular region. Right There's some stores
Speaker 1: I hear about that I would love to visit, but
Speaker 1: there aren't any close to me. So being able to
Speaker 1: do that virtually and being able to get like a
Speaker 1: good feel for what the product looks like within a
Speaker 1: virtual world that could be really useful. So that's something
Speaker 1: that has a lot of companies really excited right now.
Speaker 1: And it's also a place where we're seeing n f
Speaker 1: t s come up in conversation. Again, so a n
Speaker 1: f T could represent a purchase of a digital item,
Speaker 1: giving you the use of that item as long as
Speaker 1: you possess the n f T or maybe you then
Speaker 1: decide to sell that on the market later on. You
Speaker 1: can do that in an n f T marketplace. You know,
Speaker 1: we just have to get through all the nonsense with
Speaker 1: n f t s right now that are giving the
Speaker 1: tech a bad name. And again, it will all depend
Speaker 1: on how it is deployed. It can still be deployed
Speaker 1: in a way that's just terrible, and n f T
Speaker 1: s never live up to their potential. That's dependent upon
Speaker 1: us making systems where the n f T s makes sense.
Speaker 1: They're not a scam and they don't become just a
Speaker 1: speculative investment pump and dump. And because there's this general
Speaker 1: notion that Web three could be the future of the
Speaker 1: web and the metaverse could be the future of how
Speaker 1: people interact with each other online, there's a real rush
Speaker 1: in these spaces to establish footholds there. And this is
Speaker 1: where we're seeing a lot of the stuff that's giving
Speaker 1: people a bad feeling about where things are going, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sloppy decisions that are being made
Speaker 1: on the way. So Meta slash Facebook has really pushed
Speaker 1: for the metaverse. You know, they've famously sunk billions of
Speaker 1: dollars into it already, and the company's reputation is you know, tarnished, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's arguably one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: Facebook changed its name to Meta because Facebook has got
Speaker 1: a bit of a stigma against it, so naturally a
Speaker 1: lot of people are wary of any metaverse that is
Speaker 1: spearheaded by Meta. And I think what Meta and several
Speaker 1: other companies are hoping for is to be the first
Speaker 1: to really establish a robust metaverse. Because if they can
Speaker 1: be the first to do it, and if they can
Speaker 1: prove they already have a large installed base of users
Speaker 1: interested in it, then they can attract all the other
Speaker 1: parties to join that particular metaverse. And by parties, i'm
Speaker 1: talking about like major companies and stuff. So if Meta
Speaker 1: can say, hey, we've got the metaverse platform and we
Speaker 1: already have three billion users be as they have accounts
Speaker 1: set Facebook, then that is a powerful selling point to
Speaker 1: get other parties on board. I mean, it sends a
Speaker 1: message to a company that they can't afford to ignore
Speaker 1: this place where everybody is already, they need to be there.
Speaker 1: So my guess is that's really Meta's game plan to
Speaker 1: establish a metaverse that effectively becomes the default. It's kind
Speaker 1: of the anti web three because it would be as
Speaker 1: if Meta owned the web, assuming, of course, that the
Speaker 1: metaverse actually became the primary way that people interfaced online
Speaker 1: with each other and with commerce. That's a big presumption, however,
Speaker 1: but assuming that that did happen, then that's kind of
Speaker 1: what Meta's goal is, just to be, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of the gatekeeper for the whole thing. So the anti
Speaker 1: web three. Meta is not the only company attempting to
Speaker 1: do this. I've been calling them out a lot because
Speaker 1: they're the most high profile company but there are lots
Speaker 1: of companies that are involved in this, and then there
Speaker 1: are some companies that are more interested in building out
Speaker 1: things that could be a foundational element of a metaverse
Speaker 1: rather than building out the whole metaverse themselves. Meanwhile, this
Speaker 1: is still all under the assumption that this is the
Speaker 1: future that people want and that people will be eager
Speaker 1: to interact with and able to interact with. So for
Speaker 1: all of that to happen, we're gonna need a lot
Speaker 1: of other things to fall into place. One is that,
Speaker 1: assuming the metaverse is going to require mixed reality hardware,
Speaker 1: that hardware has to be available and affordable. You probably
Speaker 1: also want it to be untethered. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to have to be connected or physically anchored to
Speaker 1: a computer in most of these cases. And for that
Speaker 1: to work, you need really good wireless connectivity solutions, and
Speaker 1: you need a strong edge computing system. We're gonna need
Speaker 1: to take one more quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I'll talk a bit about what edge computing is and
Speaker 1: why it's important. Okay, let's let's do a quick overview
Speaker 1: of what edge computing is. Uh, it's related to cloud computing. Right.
Speaker 1: With cloud computing, you have these networks that are doing computations,
Speaker 1: maybe they're doing data storage, maybe they're hosting apps, maybe
Speaker 1: they are running processes. With edge computing, you locate computation
Speaker 1: and data storage systems as close to the end users
Speaker 1: as you can to cut down on latency and transfer speeds.
Speaker 1: So with edge computing, companies like Meta could use the
Speaker 1: computer systems that are at the edge near the end
Speaker 1: users to handle the bulk of computational work that would
Speaker 1: otherwise have to fall to the user's own hardware or
Speaker 1: it would be in the cloud. If it's just in
Speaker 1: the cloud, then there's going to be a delay because
Speaker 1: of the distance between user and cloud, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to delay. If it's at the user, well, then
Speaker 1: that means that you have just put the burden on
Speaker 1: the user to have a computer powerful enough to process
Speaker 1: whatever it is you're trying to do. So this is
Speaker 1: why a lot of earlier virtual reality systems were these
Speaker 1: tethered systems that required people to have a screaming fast
Speaker 1: gaming PC if they wanted to use the VR system,
Speaker 1: because all the hard work had to be done by
Speaker 1: the local system. Edge computing a very strong edge computing
Speaker 1: network paired with very fast wireless data transfers would allow
Speaker 1: you to do the heavy lifting at the edge and
Speaker 1: then beam that to the user with very low latency,
Speaker 1: so that you don't have to have a massively powerful
Speaker 1: VR system locally. You can have a lightweight v OUR
Speaker 1: system that depends upon these edge computing networks. That's one
Speaker 1: of the key components that will be necessary to make
Speaker 1: a metaverse of this type a reality. And we definitely
Speaker 1: have lots of examples of edge computing networks already. These
Speaker 1: are not, you know, hypothetical or futuristic things. They exist now.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna need a lot more of them. Now.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of other components that we will
Speaker 1: need to evolve for the metaverse to become a reality.
Speaker 1: Intels Rajah Kaduri famously posted that he believed we are
Speaker 1: going to need one thousand times the computing power we
Speaker 1: currently have at our disposal in order to support a
Speaker 1: truly robust, persistent metaverse in the way that people are
Speaker 1: envisioning today. So we are talking about a future here,
Speaker 1: and because it's a future, it is uncertain. We don't
Speaker 1: really know how it will manifest or how many different
Speaker 1: kinds we're going to get. While Meta is absolutely determined
Speaker 1: to try and make it stamp the the one and
Speaker 1: only Metaverse. We're likely to see a lot of different
Speaker 1: versions of this, some of which will be much more modest. Right.
Speaker 1: Many of them will probably be in the form of
Speaker 1: the games that we've been talking about, like Minecraft and
Speaker 1: Roadblocks and Fortnite. That we are going to see more
Speaker 1: metaverse style concepts and features make their way into online games. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we might not immediately call those online games a
Speaker 1: metaverse in their own right, but rather say, these are
Speaker 1: games that incorporate philosophies that are things we associate with
Speaker 1: a metaverse. But you know, it may very well be
Speaker 1: that the meta one that gets offered ends up being
Speaker 1: the largely the one and only now that it really
Speaker 1: is one and only, but that because of Meta's footprint,
Speaker 1: because it has access to so many users, assuming that
Speaker 1: it finds a way to make the hardware affordable, and
Speaker 1: it may very well be that Meta's plan is to
Speaker 1: make the hardware affordable by selling it below cost and
Speaker 1: then making up the money the long run once it's
Speaker 1: able to um to generate revenue off the metaverse. Something
Speaker 1: that Mark Zuckerberg himself has said is years down the line.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's how it all involds. We just don't know yet.
Speaker 1: So will the metaverse really become how people interact online?
Speaker 1: Will Web three replace the system we have now where
Speaker 1: massive companies own most of the experience and determine what
Speaker 1: we see and what we don't see. I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: It's certainly possible. Uh. There are people working very hard
Speaker 1: to make that become a reality. But there are also
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are very skeptical of it
Speaker 1: and critical of it and concerned about it, who, while
Speaker 1: not necessarily actively working against this possibility, or at least
Speaker 1: raising questions that they're demanding answers to. Before we just
Speaker 1: embrace this as the future, I'm sure we're gonna see
Speaker 1: a lot more controversy and missteps along the way. You know,
Speaker 1: reality is messy, and companies will often make terrible mistakes
Speaker 1: because they'll they'll have a vision of what they want
Speaker 1: to achieve and not have a full concept of what
Speaker 1: the consequences are of achieving that vision. But this is
Speaker 1: how technological revolutions happen. When you're in the middle of
Speaker 1: a technological revolution, you can't see the end of it.
Speaker 1: You can't see how it will work out, how it
Speaker 1: will all settle down, or even if it will work out,
Speaker 1: or if it will just be a failed experiment. You
Speaker 1: can't tell when you're in it. It's only in hindsight
Speaker 1: that we recognize what works. When we talk about Web
Speaker 1: one and Web two. The reason we're even able to
Speaker 1: talk about that is because we were able to stick
Speaker 1: around long enough to see how the web changed from
Speaker 1: the early days to post two thousand four or so.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that the process of getting to this
Speaker 1: future is going to be very grad will so there
Speaker 1: will be milestones that we will pass that we won't
Speaker 1: recognize that we passed. It will only be in hindsight
Speaker 1: when we look back and say, oh, yes, when this
Speaker 1: product came out, that was the foundation for this critical
Speaker 1: component of the metaverse. But we won't be able to
Speaker 1: say that what it's happening, at least not in every case.
Speaker 1: So if I had messages for all of you out
Speaker 1: there when it comes to things like Web three, the metaverse,
Speaker 1: and f t S all of that, it is all
Speaker 1: right to be enthusiastic. It's okay to be enthusiastic, It's
Speaker 1: okay to be excited, use critical thinking, ask questions. Learn
Speaker 1: as much as you can before you start jumping into things,
Speaker 1: because if it's anything where it's going to require an investment,
Speaker 1: whether that's an investment of your money, of your resources,
Speaker 1: of your time, of your efforts, you should satisfy as
Speaker 1: much of your curiosity as you can that that investment
Speaker 1: will be worthwhile. It may not work out, but you
Speaker 1: should definitely be comfortable with the investment before you you
Speaker 1: commit it. Uh. I think a lot of people fell
Speaker 1: into a trap where they were making investments without fully
Speaker 1: appreciating what they were investing in, and some of those
Speaker 1: people got burned for that, and that's what has led
Speaker 1: to this very critical view of these these basic concepts.
Speaker 1: And plus we can't get around the fact that we've
Speaker 1: got some big companies that have a shaky reputation that
Speaker 1: um at least publicly, that also lead to that. So
Speaker 1: this future, I'm not as down on it as I
Speaker 1: used to be. I used to be really super critical
Speaker 1: of it, but I actually see how if deployed properly,
Speaker 1: it could be really really beneficial. But that's an if
Speaker 1: we have to push for the proper implementation in order
Speaker 1: for that reality to come to pass, that's it. For
Speaker 1: this episode. Hope you enjoyed learning about these topics and
Speaker 1: their implications. A lot of people say this is definitely
Speaker 1: where we're headed, So it's good to educate ourselves as
Speaker 1: best we can so that we can make sure that
Speaker 1: the future we do create is the best one we
Speaker 1: can possibly make, and the only way to do that
Speaker 1: is by educating ourselves. If you have suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover on future episodes of tech Stuff, I
Speaker 1: welcome you to reach out and let me know. The
Speaker 1: best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is text stuff H s W. Thank
Speaker 1: you again to Nissan for sponsoring this episode and giving
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to really dive in to this future concept.
Speaker 1: It is exciting. It is exciting both in the sense
Speaker 1: that there is incredible potential and that we have to
Speaker 1: be aware of possible drawbacks. To me, all of that
Speaker 1: is exciting. I hope it is to YouTube and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Y. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.