Platforms for People #2
Briefs on Social VR in the Metaverse
Social VR Platforms . . . . . . People . . . . . . Companies . . . . . . Society
Playing & Paying
October 17, 2021
App Stores aren’t stores. They’re advanced payment systems.
Store comes from the Medieval Latin, instaurum and since the 1300s it has referred to a place where good are kept for sale.
The idea that a Store has an on-going claim on revenues deriving from an initial purchase is a new one, but then Apple Inc, has had lots of new ideas.
When The App Store opened in July, 2008, it is hard to imagine Apple projected over a quarter of all their revenue coming from large commissions on other people’s products by 2020, just twelve years down the road.
It is even harder to imagine that anyone saw how much revenue would come not from purchasing apps from the App Store, but from purchasing digital stuff inside mobile games. It’s the easiest money Apple makes and of course they don’t want to give up a nickel of it. Nickels add up.
Neither does Google Play, also making a nice chunk of change for no risk and very little work from Android-based products. So Google piled on the year-old Apple vs Epic Games court case in early October, 2021, right after the initial judgment, now in Appeal.
This case is not about how manifestly ridiculous it is for a “Store” to keep a large piece of an App’s action forever — it’s about what the Developer Agreement says and thus what Epic Games agreed to. And, as a second claim, it’s about whether or not Apple and Google are acting as monopolies with an excessively high commission and other anti-competitive practices.
The exact point under intense legal scrutiny and debate is precisely how, if at all, Epic Games can notify users that there are alternatives to the App Stores (Apple’s and Google’s) for in-game purchases. No one can stop them from providing payment alternatives — how they are allowed to present those alternatives is the question. Can they make a public notification of payment options in the app, (their own app)?
The initial ruling did not settle the question. The Judge said Apple isn’t acting like a monopoly in this area but it’s really close to going over that cliff, (I’m not making this up). The Judge also said Apps can notify users of alternatives, but the devil is in the details and Apple immediately appealed that part anyway.
This issue matters to the development of Social VR much more than the price or the resolution of the next Oculus headset matters.
Right now, there are No Payment Systems in Social VR. Does that make it a Garden of Eden phase?
Not if you’re an artist performing in VR who’d like to make a living. Or a service provider of any sort emigrating professionally to VR.
There will have to be payment processing inside Social VR Apps, just like there’s payment processing in gaming apps now.
Will artists be able to connect directly with their audiences or will the platforms intervene and siphon off extortionate sums? Control of the box office is control over artistic expression. Platforms inevitably play favorites and offer sweetheart deals to some, as Apple Inc. has reportedly done with the App Store.
New Decentralized payment systems (DeFi) threaten to topple Empires of Skim that tax us for moving money and have been doing it for centuries, probably forever. The App Store battle is just one front in a global war among elites over who gets to tax us and how much.
There are options for which no one taxes anyone. These approaches will be resisted as Apple, Inc, the most valuable company in the world, is resisting now, doubling down on corporate dominance.
I see Freedom of Payment is the decisive battleground of the world redesign struggle which is now underway. Gates and the World Economic Foundation network of established wealth refers to the current transition as The Great Reset, structural adjustments to Capitalism that are needed to proceed with existing power relations more or less intact.
Banking and payment authorization is central because, among other driving factors, half the world was un-Banked back in the old days, (2019 and before) and it’s the half that’s growing fastest now.
Technically, we don’t need banks to help us pay people living on another continent who we just saw performing in VR. There are no technology barriers to sending money anywhere, directly to the artists we love, with no one collecting data or skim on our micro transactions.
I like the sound of that. It means people can organize to overcome the other kinds of barriers, the artificial ones monopolies make.
Mandatory Moment of Homage to Neil Stephenson
October 17, 2021
Something has been lost in the translation of a great thinker’s thoughts into corporate imperatives.
The original has a Hero, named Hiro. The current version doesn’t. It has a very rich person with a loud voice saying Metaverse a lot, which most of us intuitively understand as the dark path we shouldn’t be taking but probably will anyway because we don’t seem to know how not to.
The original is about recognizable people we can care about, living hour-to-hour in the gaps and opportunities left by gigantic forces. The current version doesn’t feature those gaps and opportunities because in real time we’re supposed to find them on our own.
Social VR is a great place to find them. The Platforms and People covered here are not The Metaverse. They represent a component of The Metaverse. But all components don’t get equal weight in Neil Stephenson’s many books. He understands the technology, revels in it sometimes, but his heart is always on the side of Humans acting Hiroically; ie, like trickster heroes.
Rattles: Guest Article
October 16, 2021
VR is making huge advancements, with smaller, untethered devices, better resolution, and the early stages of hand tracking and haptics. In-game worlds are more realistic as well. What appears to be lagging behind is the avatar — the in-world representation of the player. On most social VR platforms, avatars are still fairly primitive, with bland, pleasant facial expressions and limited mobility.
In time, the technology will catch up and we’ll be much more accurately rendered in VR. But is this what we really want? A lot of folks enter VR social platforms because they’re uncomfortable with some aspect of face-to-face socializing. Some are self-conscious about their physical appearance. Some are just socially awkward and struggle with reading social cues, which can make it difficult to make friends.
Right now, with the lack of facial expressions and the variability in network lag, no one in VR can read social cues easily, so everyone makes allowances. It levels the playing field for people like me. I have a minor disability that makes it difficult for me to track conversational turn-taking cues. I can manage a one-on-one conversation with enormous effort. In a group it’s hopeless. But in VR, I’m normal.
For the first time in my life, I have a group of close friends. We play cards and golf together. We hold group discussions about things that matter. If I don’t show up for a party, they notice. How ironic is that? I had to go to virtual reality to find real friends.
As avatars become more lifelike, able to accurately track facial expression and body movement, what will happen with those of us who have used the platforms as a sort of social prosthetic? Will we be left behind, as out of place in VR as we are in the outside world? Maybe there’s an argument to be made for keeping a little of the “virtual” in virtual reality.
-W.R. Shaw, on Medium
/Platforms for People #2 — PfP #1
If you enjoyed our second issue, please Follow us as we expand our coverage of the human and social side of VR and all spatial media.
The Social VR Platforms, Companies, People, and Society tabs at the top of the article are linked to our growing base of very brief, right-to-the-point pieces about social aspects of the Metaverse.
Platforms for People is currently produced by Tom Nickel. I welcome contributions and expect that a publishing collective will emerge.
