As a big cyberpunk fan, I am constantly interested in the VR topic. The Metaverse is the latest real-world iteration on this topic and the Apple VR initiative will surely give it another spin and acceleration. So what will Meta's approach most likely look like in ten years?

Let's go back to a valid analogy first. The internet is so successful because it defines an open standard everyone can implement against. Very similar things are happening on social networks with the Activity Pub and other open protocols. And Meta is starting an initiative to go in that direction, too.

VR and AR are development- and design-heavy environments. It's web design with a third dimension and therefore, it demands a heavy investment to put useful, consumable information into that medium. I doubt that many players will throw their money into a closed environment like the metaverse.

So I see two possible outcomes:

• The idea will open up and allow decentralised multi-platform compatible solutions. In this scenario, I see many experiments running in ten years, probably a first consolidation phase towards a stable open system that could replace the classic internet experience.
• The system stays closed and is maintained by Facebook alone. Then we'll have a thriving space for some years and a gold rush of marketeers until the interest will be in decline. Competing platforms will follow up just to decline a bit later. In ten years, that new thing will not be dead yet, but you'd smell it already just like you do with Facebook at the moment.