Metaverse became a buzzword after Facebook changed its parent company name to Meta. Everyone is eager to know and want to be part of the metaverse. But many of us want to know Who owns the metaverse?
Metaverse can be owned by corporate organization or by its users . The ownership and controlling power of the metaverse depends on the type of metaverse you use. There is no direct and valid answer as of now.
In this post, I describe two types of metaverse. The popularity of its own will decide the future of metaverse and who owns it. Stick to this blog post, to get to the answer.
Metaverse: Simplified
Everyone might be familiar with the term Metaverse. But, as of now it is somewhat difficult for the people to understand what the metaverse is. It is just like you are trying to explain to people about mobile phones in the 80’s and 90’s.
In simple words Metaverse is a group of technologies where every aspect of your physical lives will be digitally transformed into a virtual world. The diagram below will visually make it clear.
Types of Metaverse
There might be different types of Metaverse. But, I will list two types of Metaverse on the basis of ownership of the Metaverse.
- Closed Metaverse
- Open Metaverse
The metaverse application we can think of now is gaming. Social media is soon going to be the next metaverse. These two applications of metaverse are converging and creating a large virtual consumer economy.
Closed Metaverse
Closed Metaverse are the types of metaverse that are centrally owned and controlled by big tech companies. Closed Metaverse is also known as Closed Corporate Metaverse. It runs on Web 2.0 and is presently widely available. So, centralized company owns the metaverse here.
In a closed metaverse, you can play games and spend your money and hours building digital wealth. But, the closed metaverse corporation will prohibit you from monetizing your digital wealth to real world currency.
Open Metaverse
On other hand, Open Metaverse are the types of metaverse that are democratically owned and controlled by global users. Open Metaverse is also known as Open Crypto Metaverse. It runs on Web 3.0 and blockchain technology. All the users owns the metaverse here.
Open Metaverse is not widely available and is going to be the future of Metaverse. Open metaverse will eliminate the control imposed in closed metaverse. You can own your own digital assets like NFTs.
Who owns the Metaverse Now?
As of now, there are some metaverse projects like Decentraland, Axie Infinity, Sandbox, etc. These are owned by some non-profit organisations and others by some corporate organisations.
But there is a race to build Metaverse by big tech companies like Facebook (now Meta), Nvidia, Microsoft, etc. Their metaverse will be a closed corporate metaverse. It will be owned by them.
Facebook (now Meta) is not trusted by the users. Because there has been accusation that they are selling users private data. So, that can hold true for the Metaverse build by Facebook.
Tech Companies that owns Metaverse Now
At present there are 7 tech companies that are making metaverse and metaverse technologies into reality.
I will highlight some metaverse projects and products which are already there or in the development stage.
Facebook has changed its name to Meta. So, that they can transit from being a social media company to a metaverse company.
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| Horizon World | Explore Virtual World & connect with people |
| Facebook Workroom | Work together in same virtual room |
| Metaverse Community | Community in the Metaverse |
| Metaverse Hardware | Oculus VR Headset |
So, Meta(Facebook) owns the metaverse projects as mentioned above.
Epic Games
Epic Games has been in the frontline in building environments like metaverse. They provide an environment similar to metaverse and stepping stone of the metaverse.
Virtual Music concerts have already been hosted in the platform apart from real time games.
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| Fortnite | Survival Game close to metaverse |
| Robolox | Game creation platform and having features of metaverse |
| Fortnite Virtual Concert | Music Concert in Fortnite |
| Metahumans | Software to create life like avatars |
So, Epic Games owns the metaverse projects or product as mentioned above.
Microsoft
Microsoft has almost all the infrastructure to build a future metaverse. Some of them are listed below.
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| Microsoft Azure | Creating Digital Twins |
| Microsoft Mesh | AR and VR Meeting |
| Xbox Gaming | SAAS for Metaverse Components |
| Metaverse Hardware | Hololens |
Google has so much data and infrastructure that will make them transition to the metaverse. Some of the project or product that can provide the stepping stone of metaverse are listed below.
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| Google Maps & Street View | Google Maps & Street View to Metaverse land. |
| Google Earth VR | Google Earth + VR |
| Project Starline | Virtual Meeting |
| AR Core | Framework for developing AR Experiences |
Nvidia
Nvidia is building Ominivers- aversion of Nvidia Metaverse, Nvidia is a key player to provide necessary hardware to build a metaverse.
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| Omniverse | Bring digital asset to a single virtual environment |
| Nvidia Hardware | GPUs to enable bring metaverse to reality |
So, Nvidia owns the metaverse project-Omniverse. They will be the central authority unless the control is transferred to its users.
Apple
Apple is racing to its metaverse journey. It is believed they are building a decentralised meetaverse.
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| ARKit | Framework for developing AR Experiences |
| Reality Kit | Reality Composer and Reality Convertor |
| Apple AR/VR Headset | Not launched. Rumored to be in development. |
Amazon
| Metaverse Project/ Products | What can you do? |
| AWS | Hosting Metaverse Project and digital transaction |
| Alexa | Alexa would work with AR, VR, etc and other metaverse ecosystem |
Non-profit Organizations who owns the Metaverse Now
As of now there many metaverse projects which are own by non-profit organization. They are actually tech companies but I have categorized them as non-profit organization because the ownership and control of their metaverse project will be transferred to its users.
Some of Non-profit Organizations are listed below.
- Decentraland Foundation (Decentraland)
- Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity)
- Mean Labs (The Sandbox)
All these organization have passed are going to pass the ownership and control to its users. The controlling power of these metaverse project will in the hand of DAO(Decentralized Autonomous Orgnaization). The members of DAO are its users or token holder.
So, wherever there is DAO in metaverse, users owns the metaverse. At present, Decentraland Metaverse is fully owned by DAO or its users.
Who will own the Metaverse in Future?
Over the past decade, internet technology has evolved. Much has changed, the way we interact with the Web. Web 2.0 was owned by a big corporation and Web 3.0 will be owned by the users like me and you.
Metaverse is dubbed to be the next web version i.e 3.0. It will be democratically owned and controlled by the users like you and me and not big tech corporations.
But, it depends on which metaverse version we choose and make it popular. If Web 3.0 Crypto Metaverse becomes popular, the Virtual World Economy, or Crypto Word Economy will boom. In this case uses like me and you will own the metaverse
Ownership in Virtual Word Economy
In the open metaverse, the user will own the metaverse. Everything will be decentralized. There will be some decentralized protocol that will form the base of technical infrastructure to support Metaverse virtual economy.
Some of them are mentioned below.
- Decentralized Governance
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- NFT Sovereign Goods
- Decentralized Cloud Service
- Self Service Identity
Conclusion
As of now, a non-profit organization and some corporation owns the metaverse. But in the future it can be owned by big tech companies like Facebook (now Meta), Microsoft, etc. if use and make their metaverse popular.
On other hand if we make the Open Crypto Metaverse popular, the users of the metaverse will democratically own it. The users will own the metaverse. So, now the answer to the question -Who owns the Metaverse? has become more clear.
