The Coming Metaboom

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The first boom in metatechnologies occurred in 2020–2022, when the volume of venture investments in such projects  soared  by 425%, and the number of news items in major media outlets related to metaverses increased several-fold.

The boom quickly began to decline: already in early 2023, as  the Financial Times wrote  , the popularity of search queries on the topic collapsed by 80%, and tech giants switched from hiring to firing meta-specialists. Even the main apologist of the topic, Mark Zuckerberg,  said that his Meta (recognized in Russia as an extremist organization and banned) was concentrating on other projects.

This decline in media hype was predicted by experts, and StabilityAI founder Emad Mostaque even  stated that the metaverse bubble would burst worse than the dot-com bubble.

But the evolution of content writing service metaverses can be  compared  to the history of color television: at first it was so cumbersome that it required almost an engineering degree to operate, but today color screens are in every pocket.

METATECHNOLOGIES WILL FOLLOW A SIMILAR PATH: THE DECLINE WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A “METARENAISSANCE”

But how will it change the world, law, politics, ethics and business? Before answering, let's talk about how states use metaverses today.



The first state meta-experiment was  the opening of  an “embassy” in Second Life, a large online game with an open world and its own currency, by the Maldives in 2007.

The Maldives  were followed by  Estonia, Sweden and eight other countries –  a whole Diplomatic Island of embassies with information stands, flags and exhibitions was formed on the server  . Today, Second Life still has up to 200 thousand users per day, but its peak popularity is in the past.

Soon, the Second Life embassies  were joined by  a military recruitment office opened by the US Army, and the "virtual hajj"  caused  religious disputes. But these cases remained isolated PR stunts.

In 2022, Barbados announced an embassy in the VR metaverse of DecentraLand, a blockchain platform for NFT real estate that opened in 2020. This became a symbol of independence for the country, and in 2022, the news item  made  headlines in many global media.

In the 2010s, cases emerged that went beyond PR. And in 2023, the most high-profile case was that of Tuvalu, a small island in the Pacific Ocean east of Australia. It is believed that in the future, this country will be completely flooded, so the authorities decided to copy the island into the metaverse along with its material heritage. To do this, Tuvalu will be scanned and  transferred  as a double on the Unreal Engine, and later to the metaverse. The country even enshrined in the Constitution that it will continue to exist in the online space, and seven governments have already agreed to recognize it,  said  the head of the Tuvalu Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Virtual projects from South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have also gained popularity. In "meta-Seoul", for example, you can  sign up  for government services, send a complaint to officials or pay taxes, and in "meta-Sharjah" you can  stroll  through tourist spots.

THE SUCCESS OF THESE COUNTRIES IS BUILT ON DIGITALIZATION WITH SMALL SPACE AND SURPLUS BUDGETS

South Korea tops the charts for smartphone usage, and the influx of investors into the UAE means there is no need to skimp. After all, as scientists have stated, the success of the metaverse directly depends on the speed of the transition to its media.