With all the talk of this so called “metaverse”, I thought I’d take a stab as what it means.
This stall for those of us who live in Toronto, is in the beloved St-Lawrence Market. It was interesting to read that a merchant is selling their stall, and the underlying business and assets (kitchen, equipment, inventory, etc). The total footprint is approximately 650 square feet, and the owners are listing if for $899,000:
Whether it’s a fair price or not, is really up to the potential buyer to decide, based on normal business fundamentals: what are the sales in the bakery, profit margins, potential for growth, what did similar stalls in St-Lawrence Market sell for, etc. Fairly simple to understand.
As for the Metaverse: its essentially taking all these traditional venues, and putting them into the so-called “Virtual Reality World”. Facebook has famously just announced a name change of it’s parent company to “Meta”. The rebranding to Meta reflects the company’s heightened focus on virtual reality products and services.
Perhaps one day, we will look back at social media as a quaint early 20th century way to engage. Is this “metaverse” the next step if we think back to the evolution from printed press, to radio to television, board games to game consoles to online gaming, Satellite Radio, Podcasting and on and on. The internet allowed Netflix, Amazon Prime, Instagram and all sorts of new ways for individuals (and companies) to engage with each other, and sell products and services.
This metaverse, while on the internet, only exists in the digital world. If there is one take-away that I think everyone needs to understand is that unlike the internet (where we buy real stuff, and interact with real people), this metaverse is “Digital only”.
So someone can pay $900K for a stall in St-Lawrence market, and sell a bunch of perogies, or they can pay the equivalent amount using digital currencies, and be the proud owner of this NFT. Interestingly this was sold by on-line auction from the decidedly old-world Sotheby’s Auction house last month (these are the limited edition “Bored Apes”, if you need to know!)
So this is a simple, brief overview, but I can’t ignore the trend, and find it fascinating. The vast amount of investment and participation in this sector will one day become normalized. Does that mean that we are going to be sitting around all day wearing Virtual Reality Glasses, living in an alternate metaverse, transacting in a parallel digital currency existence?
I certainly am not comfortable with the idea of spending money on these type of things as investments, but there is a whole eco-system that legitimate industries are focusing on. In some ways, its no different than spending thousands on collectible baseball or hockey cards (thanks Mom for throwing out my Wayne Gretzky rookie card, and my collection!)
Back to the real world to conclude. Bell Canada inadvertently altered time for those plugged into their “network” , as smartphones and internet users experienced a change in their time, a week for daylight savings time was set to take effect: (LINK). One day, when we are all in the “Metverse”, Daylight savings time won’t matter, but I predict that many us wil wake up sleepy and in the dark on Sunday.