Metaverse or

Metacurse?
19th February, 2022

Usman W. Chohan, MBA, PhD

Discussion Paper Series: Notes on the 21st Century

Abstract: The notion of a “metaverse” alludes to a network of 3D virtual realities, with an

emphasis on social engagement mediated through virtual space and augmented reality.
Powerful interests are advocating for the development of metaverse(s), but the relegation of
the human to a collective dematerialized ether has been met with severe criticisms. The aim
of this paper, then, is to examine the question of metaverse across a wider canvas.

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Metaverse or Metacurse?
The notion of a “metaverse” alludes to a network of three-dimensional virtual realities, with
an emphasis on social engagement mediated through virtual space and augmented reality
(Dionisio et al., 2013). As a portmanteau of “meta” and “universe,” it speaks to a totalizing
immersive experience in which agents can engage with one another through some form of
technologically-facilitated virtual arrangement beyond the real, material dimension
(Ondrejka, 2004), which Jaynes et al. once described as “inexpensive, self-configuring,
immersive environments” (2003) It also suggests a single, universal simulacrum rather than
a set of discrete compartments, and ascribes considerable weight to the creation of virtual
economies1 (see Bourlakis, M., Papagiannidis, 2009; Chohan, 2022a). The supposed
economic benefits from meta use might include work productivity improvements,
e-learning interactivity (education; see Duan et al., 2021), e-commerce applications, and
virtual real estate development as alternative asset class (van der Werve, 2021).

The original use of the term derives from Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992), which depicted a
virtual planetary simulacrum in which humans interact with one another and with bots
through avatars on The Street, a finite linear space with real estate owned by a single
corporate entity.2 The best-selling series of The Matrix has also left a significant (perhaps
indelible) mark on the popular imagination in terms of the challenge of distinguishing
between Baudrillad’s Simulation and Simulacra (1994), pinning anarchist-survivalists against
machines that have turned humans into batteries and captured their minds in a perpetual
simulation. The term has gained much greater popularity due to newer works such as Ready

1
Stephenson’s original depiction of the metaverse itself alludes to anarcho-capitalism or
cryptoanarchism as economic system (1992; Chohan, 2017)
2
Snow Crash uses the parable of immersive three dimensional virtual space as a successor to the
internet, wherein users can purchase and exchange real estate from the Global Multimedia Protocol
Group, and join into the metaverse after hooking themselves to personal terminals or booths with
goggles.

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Player One, and Facebook's transformation as of late 2021 into the Meta platform. However,
prototypes of metaverses may be seen in earlier efforts, particularly in the videogame
domain, beginning with Second Life (see Kemp and Livingstone, 2006) and continuing to
other MMORPGs over the past two decades.34

Virtual reality headsets have existed but suffer from technological limitations in mass
market delivery: higher-end devices require clunky wiring and heavy hardware, while
cheaper headsets do not deliver a stimulating enough virtual experience. There is, as such, a
sustained trade-off between cost and quality - between high graphics and mobility; and
prices of headsets are still in an expensive range (Angelov et al., 2020; Castelvecchi, 2016).
This also raises questions about economic access and inequality, what is sometimes
referred to as the “digital divide” (van Dijk and Hacker, 2003; Chohan, 2022a). Aside from
the hardware, there are problems of software interoperability among the many projects. At
the current stage, there is no wide-scale adoption of standardized technical specifications
for metaverse(s), given that each project relies on proprietary technology. The unwillingness
to share proprietary technologies, based on privacy and transparency considerations, is a
hindrance to wider development, and it is likely that something larger than corporate profit
will have to drive the harmonization of standards, which is why some countries are pursuing
the challenge independently.5

At the same time, the corporate nature of its popularization has led many to allege the
notion of “meta” as being a buzzword,6 one that:

1. draws upon technologies that are unready to be deployed at the level envisaged
(such as AI and next-gen blockchain, see Jeon et al., 2022), thus exaggerating the
development stages as a public relations effort;
2. represents reverberations of existing technologies and software (Ondrejka, 2004);
3. constitutes feeble efforts to modernize what are clunky but enormous monopolies of
the present system (Chohan, 2021a);

3
MMORPG: Massive multiplayer online role playing game; a genre of videogames, and one that is
highly popular and lucrative, although development of MMORPGs entail significant costs.
4
Other games which are described as prototypes include Minecraft, Roblox, Active Worlds, No Man’s
Sky, Fallout 76, The Palace, Decentraland, and Fortnite.
5
For example, South Korea is taking a leading initiative in harmonizing metaverse standards
6
This parody video depicting Zuckerberg as a frightening villain sets an interesting tone for public
wariness about Facebook’s Meta plans.

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4. serves as a new marketing ploy to downplay the amount of social, political and
psychological damage caused by social media usage, including social media
addiction, user safety and information privacy issues78 (see review in Chohan and
DeSouza, 2020).

The corporate boom followed Facebook renaming its overall platform to “Meta Platforms,”9
and vowed to spend a warchest to build up the metaverse, and advertised heavily to
persuade the public of its new ambitions.10 But Facebook is by no means the only entity
interested in such technologies.11 These were not received well by the investor community
or by the public, and Meta’s stock price has plunged since promotion efforts for the
metaverse seriously began.12 Not only do many of the technologies purported by Meta
Platforms still need to be developed, but criticism has come from numerous corners
regarding the culture that is emerging on the metaverse they desire, as for example in cases
of sexual harrassment in the meta (Basu, T, 2021; see also Garon, 2022). The nature of
racism, sexism, hate speech, propaganda, echo chambers, psychological violence,
demoralization, and other issues risks being magnified in the virtual realm (see also Franks,
2011; Shriram and Schwartz, 2017).

Given the ambition involved, not to mention the technical effort and money being thrown at
the project, the stakes are very high, and so are the risks to society - a point that has been
emphasized as “unknowable societal risks” (Oxford Analytica, 2021). The question of virtual
crimes, which is now a rich legal literature of three decades (Brenner, 2001, 2008; Howell,
2004), requires urgent reconsideration in light of greater user adoption, advancing
technologies, and strong corporate motives to implement projects of such scale. Without
this, given the aforementioned considerations, the notion of a metaverse may well turn into

7
For example, Meta has announced that it will use targeted advertising strategies in the metaverse,
which means that it will be actively gathering substantial amounts of information about the users,
thus raising renewed concerns about facebook’s privacy strategy.
8
The outstanding work by Franks (2011) on “unwilling avatars” speaks vividly to the conundrum faced
in the (de)socialization that the metaverse risks unraveling
9
Several years ago, Google had similarly changed its parent name to Alphabet
10
The question remains about the sorts of currencies that would be used in a metaverse, for example,
in whether NFTs or DeFi would be connected through to metaverse systems.
11
For example, Microsoft acquired the VR company AltspaceVR in 2017, and has already
implemented features of the metaverse such as virtual avatars and meetings held in virtual reality
into Microsoft Teams.
12
Between September 2021 and February 2022, the stock of Meta crashed by -45%, and
Zuckerberg’s holdings lost

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a metacurse. Unlike the previous disruptive iterations of internet-age projects, the

metaverse has been proactively grappled with by various types of scholars and writers. The
cautionary tales set by The Matrix, Ready Player One, and Snow Crash already paint a
dystopian picture in the popular imagination. The equity markets are also punishing
Facebook (meta) for several reasons including the overinvestment and poor reception of the
meta project (in addition to declining user base). The condition of virtual crimes being
magnified, of trade-offs in technology, of user privacy, and of anti-social elements
dominating the space; all augur poorly for metaverse/metacurse eventuality.

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References
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December 16.
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4. Bourlakis, M., Papagiannidis, S., & Li, F. (2009). Retail spatial evolution: paving the way from
traditional to metaverse retailing. Electronic Commerce Research, 9(1), 135-148.Chohan, U. W.
(2017). Cryptoanarchism and cryptocurrencies. Available at SSRN 3079241.
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18. Jeon, H. J., Youn, H. C., Ko, S. M., & Kim, T. H. (2022). Blockchain and AI Meet in the Metaverse.
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Also in this series available on SSRN

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4038770