Jordan Yallen is the CEO of MetaTope, a blockchain technology company.

Despite what pop culture and chronically online people might have told you, the metaverse was never going to be a “place.” Sure, some digital environments do and will exist, but even Meta has shifted from “virtual worlds” to real-world connected glasses.

The metaverse, in my opinion as a Web3 entrepreneur, isn’t a digital world or central hub within a connected universe.

It’s actually a representation of a social layer connecting users from one environment to the next, allowing you to be yourself and represent yourself however you wish, wherever you go, in this new evolution of the internet.

What The Metaverse Actually Is

Think of the movie franchise Avatar.

When the Na’vi “plug” their braids into Pandora’s native plants and animals, they become connected to everything on the planet, instantly becoming able to experience the shared memories, visions and electrical signals that compose their interconnected world.

The Na’vi call the bond they create “tsaheylu,” which serves as the basis of Pandora’s neural network.

To me, that’s what the metaverse actually is: the ability to “plug” into a social layer that eliminates walled gardens and allows users to represent themselves across the new internet however they choose, doing whatever activity they choose to do, whenever they choose to do it.

So in that sense, the metaverse isn’t a “place” you go to; it’s a social mesh that connects various digital environments, lowering barriers between those spaces and enhancing connectivity across the internet.

Think Email, Not Avatars

The idea that you’ll have one login, one place to go, one digital avatar, etc., to represent yourself, somewhat misplaces how the metaverse will work.

It’ll actually operate more like email addresses. You’ll have one (or multiple) and that one is you. Then you can take that address and use it in various places to do various things, like receive messages, buy items, view the digital assets you own or have collected and log in to environments.

Yes, the address or identifier will be “you,” but you won’t only use it in one place; you’ll use it in a variety of places for various things.

Think Mice And Keyboards—Not Headsets And Walking Pads

In any case, what you won’t be doing is wearing a headset all day. You also won’t be walking on an omnidirectional pad while tethered to your ceiling for 12+ hours, and your daily outfit won’t be a haptic suit simulating the sensation of touch.

What you will be doing, however, is browsing metaverses much like you browse the internet today: through web pages. It’ll feel more intuitive than you might think, and you won’t need any specialized hardware or skills to try it out.

Yes, there will be instances where a headset or connected glasses are helpful or necessary, and you may indeed find yourself using AR/VR features in conjunction with wearables. But that will likely be limited to instances where it’s actually helpful or useful, like gaming or collaborating with coworkers around the world.

I do not believe you’ll head home and throw another headset on for the rest of the night, even if that headset allows you to travel to faraway places or experience previously unexperienceable things.

I simply do not believe most humans will ever want to spend long hours with a headset and haptic suit on while they do whatever they want to do when interacting with metaverse technology. I believe it’s far more likely we’ll use the metaverse for specific things, not as the “place” we’ll spend the majority of our time.

Meta’s new Orion glasses are a great example of what I mean. The glasses aren’t meant to bring users into a digital metaverse-like environment all day; they’re meant to help with daily tasks and make people’s lives easier and better. It’s the enhanced connectivity and unwalled gardens that most people will come to the metaverse for, not the ability to hang out in a digital world.

Designing For What Humans Need

Not only do I not believe that people will be willing to wear headsets or haptic suits all day, but I also, in any case, don’t believe that would be a good thing. Let’s take a look at what developers can do to provide the best experience for their users in Web3.

Humans crave touch, love and social well-being. Yes, some of that can be simulated or recreated online, but the truest, best forms of it cannot. And wearing a headset all day while never interacting with the real world will never meet all human needs.

It won’t be a good thing if, in 50 years, people simply wake up, strap a headset on and spend the next 15+ waking hours in a virtual world. That’s bad for individuals and society alike.

Us Web3 builders shouldn’t even want that type of world. Sure, we might make more money if people spend most of their time in a virtual world, but that doesn’t mean that’s good for society.

If building in Web3 is truly about making people’s lives better and easier, like I believe it is, then that should be the ultimate goal, not the hijacking of attention and forced obedience of headsets or other wearables.

As the builders in this space, I’d argue that we shouldn’t allow digital interactions to replace all human interaction. Things like touch, love, shared experience, etc., can’t be digitally replicated without losing at least some of the feelings and emotions inherent to the human experience.

The metaverse and Web3 technologies should help bring people closer together, not drive us apart. And the tech should make people’s lives better and easier, not lonelier and more transactional.

To paraphrase Dr. Grace Augustine (played by Sigourney Weaver) in Avatar, the wealth of our world isn’t in the resources we extract through new technology, it’s all around us.

We can’t let ourselves lose sight of that; we can’t lose our tsaheylu.

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