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In recent months, only the laziest internet user could fail to hear about the metaverses. After Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was working on creating his own metaverse, this tune was quickly picked up by other companies. In addition, the term itself has been repeatedly mentioned in the context of popular video games — Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox and others.
However, with all the popularity of the topic, not everyone understands what the metaverse is, how it works and what opportunities it provides. And even more so, they are not sure whether it is possible to build relationships in such a virtual space.
In fact, today we just want to talk about the metaverses, their features and the prospects offered by such a format of communication. We promise it will be interesting.
What is a metaverse and how does it work
Active conversation about the metaverses started in 2021. Firstly from Mark Zuckerberg and then representatives of Microsoft and Epic Games. And a little later, even the dating service Tinder joined. However, today there are no metaverses that could fully correspond to the ideas of the majority. Ordinary people often do not quite correctly understand what a metaverse is and what opportunities it opens up.
Many compare the metaverses to the internet and online games. But this, despite some similarities, is not entirely correct. Contemporary metaverse ideologue Matthew Ball cites several key unique features of the metaverse:
- The metaverse exists indefinitely. It does not have any completion, it cannot be paused or reset.
- The Metaverse operates in realtime mode and does not depend on external factors.
- There is no limit on the number of users. A person can connect to the metaverse at any moment, spend time here, and exit at any moment in the same way.
- The metaverse must have its own functioning economy and its own analogue of money. Currently, the most likely option seems to be the use of cryptocurrencies, but this may change in the future.
- Items, assets, and content in the metaverses must be easily transferable between digital universes. Imagine being able to transfer a car from Grand Theft Auto to Need For Speed in a few clicks. This is the way the metaverses should work.
Besides that, according to Matthew Bell, the metaverses should be filled with all sorts of content and experiences that are generated by users themselves — individuals, groups or entire enterprises in the virtual space.
In other words, according to an idealized view, the metaverse is a whole world that lives its own life according to its own rules. It has no traditional boundaries. So, it opens up completely new possibilities for communication. And perhaps we will soon come to a time when millions of people will meet and start relationships in the metaverses.
Virtual dating today: advantages and disadvantages
Perhaps the main advantage of VR dating is novelty. This new format of dating is of great interest to the internet community today. However, like the soulmate drawing trend, and everything new, there are several other important advantages of metaverses:
- A convenient format for online communication, which at the same time strongly resembles offline communication.
- The widest opportunities not just for dating and entertainment, but also for earning money.
- Constant development of the metaverse format and a significant expansion of functionality in the foreseeable future.
Metaverses could significantly change the very principles of human communication. However, let’s be frank — we cannot say when the metaverses will begin to operate at full capacity. So far, they are in their infancy and have not become particularly popular. And it’s very unlikely that in the next few years the situation will change dramatically.
But let’s imagine that the metaverses are working at full capacity right now. And we will immediately see that this format has a lot of disadvantages:
- Metaverses can be highly addictive. Perhaps even more powerfully so than video games or social networks.
- You’ll never know who is behind the avatar in the metaverse.
- Communication here will still not be able to replace meeting in person.
At the moment, the development of metaverses is hampered primarily by the high cost of technology. And we are talking not just about development technologies, but also about user equipment — VR helmets. A high-quality virtual reality helmet costs more than a thousand dollars, and not everyone is ready to spend that kind of money on such a niche device. There are cheaper models, but they are much less technologically advanced, and the image quality in them is significantly lower.
All this means that even when the metaverses are launched at full force, not everyone will be able to afford to use them. Until these technologies become as accessible as, for example, mobile internet, there’s no need to talk about some kind of mass adoption. At least the next five years for sure.
Why classic online dating will remain popular for a very long time
In addition to all of the above, it is worth adding something else important — the difficulty of predicting the popularity of a particular online service. Remember the Clubhouse app, which suddenly became super popular all over the world, and after just a couple of months everyone forgot about it. Do you remember the last time you heard something about it? Exactly, it’s hard to remember right now.
The point is that the same could happen with the metaverses. At first, everyone will come to virtual spaces en masse, but after some time, they will simply get bored with this format and everyone will return to more familiar online platforms — dating sites and applications, and chat roulettes.
By the way, today video chat roulette remains one of the main dating formats on the web. And among the most popular platforms we can identify the following:
- Chatroulette — the first video chat roulette in history, which has been operating since 2009. Although not the most popular site today, it still has a large audience.
- CooMeet — a chat roulette with girls. The system can connect men only with girls, which saves just a lot of time. Plus, there is a built-in message translator for greater convenience.
- Ome.TV — a minimalist and simple video chat roulette with basic functionality. A gender filter and a message translator are also present. However, the gender filter here does not work as well as on CooMeet.
- Bazoocam — a fairly popular chat roulette that, among other things, has online mini-games for spending time with other users.
- Azar — a combination of a random video chat roulette and a usable messenger for those who want to communicate more comfortably with new people. However, for some users, this functionality may seem redundant.
Of course, such video chat roulettes, as well as dating applications, cannot be compared with the metaverses. This is a different format — more classic and familiar to contemporaries. And this is its main advantage. It is much easier and more convenient for the average internet user to launch a regular chat roulette or a dating app than to understand all the intricacies of the metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrencies and everything else that is somehow related to this topic.
So we can say with confidence that classic online dating will definitely not go anywhere in the near future. And that the metaverses need to work hard to supplant the usual dating formats.
Metaverses are not the future of dating (yet)
Undoubtedly, in the foreseeable future metaverses may change the very principles of human communication. And, most likely, this will happen. But this takes time and improvement of existing technologies. Because at the current stage of development they still require improvements, and the high cost of VR devices also won’t contribute to the rapid development of this communication format.
Therefore, if you’re looking for new acquaintances right now and are not ready to wait for the appearance of full-fledged metaverses, we recommend using classic dating formats — dating applications and video chat roulette. These are at least much cheaper and more accessible in every sense. And the chances of a successful match here are still very high. Enjoy!