Step into the Metaverse. Mark van Rijmenam

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Foreword

      Science-fiction stories such as Snow Crash or Ready Player One have described the metaverse as a virtual world of unlimited potential for entertainment and value extraction. In the metaverse depicted in these books, a centralized entity controls the metaverse, including all data, digital assets, and the people entering it. This is a dystopian future that by no means is impossible to happen in the real world, given that we have already built a centralized, closed, proprietary, and extractive internet. The current Web is governed by shareholder supremacy instead of user centricity, and we all have become addicted to “free” access to these platforms.

The downside of all these “free” services has been the degradation of privacy and the lack of control over our own data and identity. That is why I started Outlier Ventures in 2014, because I felt the need for a different story. It is a story where end users can regain control over their digital lives, driven by the convergence of technologies such as blockchain, crypto, artificial intelligence, and mixed reality, among others. Over the years, we have invested in dozens of companies that are building Web 3.0 technologies across all three key layers of Web 3.0 innovation: infrastructure, middleware, and applications.

      Web 3.0 technology will enable a decentralized, permissionless, open digital economy centered around the user and identity and data portability. It will allow us to create a fairer, more inclusive internet. It is vital that we embrace this paradigm shift toward decentralization, especially now that we are at the dawn of the metaverse, or the next iteration of the internet.

      If Web 2.0 and the social Web enabled data harvesting at a large scale, imagine what can happen in an immersive digital environment. The possibilities to collect and analyze our data will grow exponentially, enabling corporate or state surveillance at unprecedented levels. That is why we need an open metaverse, owned and controlled by users instead of a select group of tech elites.

      When I first heard about Step into the Metaverse, I appreciated the vision of Mark van Rijmenam to write a blueprint for an open metaverse. The metaverse will unlock an entirely new economy, where the lines begin to blur between the physical and digital worlds, or our virtual lives and physical lives. Looking at the metaverse from an economic perspective raises important questions about how inclusive it is and who can participate in the digital economy and who cannot. Van Rijmenam does an excellent job discussing how we can ensure an open metaverse economy, where interoperability of digital assets, a self-sovereign identity, and cryptocurrencies play a vital role.

      Web 3.0 technologies are vital for an open metaverse, and the companies we are supporting at Outlier Ventures are all contributing to this. In an open metaverse, everyone can finally contribute to and benefit from the first truly universal and permissionless economy humankind has ever known. In Step into the Metaverse, Mark van Rijmenam succinctly explains how we can build this immersive internet that can deliver magical digital experiences while incorporating a fully open economic system, enabling the interoperability of digital assets and changing our society from one of value extraction to one focused on value creation.

      —Jamie Burke

      Founder & CEO

      Outlier Ventures