The Metaverse is a Vitamin, not a Painkiller
Last week, and coincidentally just one day before the announcement of Meta (formerly Facebook), I had the pleasure of joining a group of colleagues from across Accenture to debate whether the Metaverse needs to solve a problem to exist or not. The purpose was to foster discussion around the potentials of the Metaverse, and to intrigue each others’ perspective so we are better prepared to consult our clients. A very interesting topic, at a very relevant time, in the presence of great visionaries.
There were many opinions and examples shared by the supporting side: the Metaverse is already bringing people together in more personal ways; the Metaverse is providing a place to meet and learn; it allows establishing social statue and self-expression; amongst other statements denoting the problems the Metaverse is here to solve.
Whilst all are valid and important points in favor of the argument, my colleague and I had a slightly different perspective.
We did not think that the Metaverse must solve a problem itself. Rather, we argued that the Metaverse will provide the foundation for other innovative applications to be built on top, and they in return will solve multitude of problems. In other words, the Metaverse will not be the cure but will facilitate finding it.
“The Metaverse will not be a cure for problems, but will facilitate finding it”
I know some may brand this as too philosophical or overengineering. But, in my opinion, it is fundamental to look at the Metaverse as a palette of different colors. It will enable us to design for many needs / problems by combining the most suitable building blocks, tools, formats, and platforms. Confining the Metaverse to single app for a specific problem would limit our color options from the start, at least that is how I see it.
If we look back at the early days of Mobile, we will find a great analogy to clarify our opposition side.
The Past Repeating Itself
During the late 2000’s, many businesses were questioning the need to have a mobile app or even a mobile friendly site. “We already have a website” many huffed with pride! The real value of mobile was not clear for them to jump in and invest. Then, innovations started flocking in from all directions to demise doubts.
Retailers leveraged location-based services to serve contextual recommendations to drive footfall and impulse purchases.
Engineering firms complimented desktop workflows with mobile, allowing employee to work whilst on the move or in the field and increase productivity.
Steps and physical movement were measured not only to report one’s healthy lifestyle, but also to subsidize the cost of health insurance.
The problems mobile was posed to solve were not decreed when it was born. However, its constant evolution and expanding pallet of features laid the foundation for an ecosystem of developers, platforms, and creators to identify real human pains that couldn’t be solved with anything but this unique and personal new medium. Suddenly, a new paradigm for value from mobile was uncovered, promising to increase business growth, competitiveness, and efficiency. Should mobile have been positioned as a solution for engineers’ communications only for instance, it wouldn’t have become top priority to most global business leaders’ digital strategies by 2010.
Whilst mobile has been offering a utility to address real problems since then, the Metaverse, I argue, will differ by not needing to solve real problem. It will focus on a different set of human needs.
Vitamins vs Painkillers
Several years ago, I read an article by Nit Eyal in which he claimed that our habitual behavior is the reason why many “stupid start-ups” as he described them managed to raise massive amounts of funding. His thesis slowly came back to me during the debate on the Metaverse, and this is where the thought hit me: the Metaverse is a Vitamin, not a Painkiller.
“The Metaverse is a Vitamin, not a Painkiller”
Eyal referred in his article to the categorization method many investors use when new products are presented to raise funds. They go through pitches and analyze the prospect value at offer. Then, they put the product in either bucket: Vitamin or Painkiller.
“Painkillers tackle important problems. They solve an obvious need, relieving a customer’s specific pain and address a quantifiable market”, Eyal writes. We cannot function without a painkiller and people will be happy to pay for the relief. Some investors challenge founders to prove their ideas are worth bringing to market and can solve real problems.
Vitamins, on the other hand, do not solve a defined pain-point. “Instead, they appeal to users’ emotional rather than functional needs.”, continued Eyal. We do not know if taking a vitamin will actually make us healthier, but we feel satisfied about it since we believe we are doing something good to our bodies. It is a psychological relief rather than a physical one. Unlike painkillers, going couple of days with no vitamin doses will not hurt us.
This is what Social Media was in its inception days: a Vitamin not a Painkiller. Eyal amusingly added that “no one ever woke up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘I need something to help me update my status!’”. There was no real pain-point, no clear business model, no guarantee people will come in droves. However, all has happened, and a whole ecosystem of services, products and purposes was created with billions of daily active users. What for? To seek social-proofing, perceived value, tribal belonging, and social validation.
I see the Metaverse following similar steps. By observing gaming platforms such as Fortnite, Minecraft, League of Legends, and Roblox, which make up a big portion of the current Metaverse, it is obvious they do not solve a real-life problem, yet they are densely populated. Players in these games seek connecting with virtual communities, forging legions to complete missions, building friendships in distant galaxies, impressing with fresh avatar looks, obtaining prestigious ranks, expressing individuality through rare collectables, etc.
Those are some of the psychological needs that make players feel good about themselves, and entice them to come back to these virtual worlds. And this is what the Metaverse will be about, until we find real problems that cannot be solved otherwise. It is the vitamin that will make us feel socially well and psychologically sound in extended, virtual communities.
As our global XR lead Dan Guenther puts it, “the Metaverse is more of the Growth Needs in Maslow’s Motivation Model [how we see ourselves and want others to perceive us], and less of the Deficiency Needs [our basic needs for survival like food, shelter, sex etc]”.
This is another fundamental fact about the Metaverse businesses need to keep as the lighthouse in their journey in. The Metaverse is about connecting with prospect customers and letting them experience the organization values first hand, not just browse them. It is about collaborating and co-creating a brand identity with its fans. It is about nurturing a decentralised community who could advocate a business to other afar communities.
Concluding Thoughts
The Metaverse is not about transacting only. It is not about selling. It is letting participants live a brand’s experience in the virtual or augmented spaces they are already inhabiting. And it is about making them feel good about themselves whilst living the brand, just like Vitamins do for us every morning.
Like everything that enters our body though, there are good and side effects. I cannot claim the Metaverse would be a complete cure and would not cause problems itself. However, like every new technology, there is the good and bad side. And it is up to the industry, ecosystems, partnerships and the involved communities in the case of a decentralised Metaverse to set the rules, define the regulations, write the book of conduct, and make it a health place for prosperity and social health.
Opinions are mine and not reflecting the views of my employer
