I've been a fan, listener and supporter of National Public Radio for years, but I never imagined I would actually be invited onto one of their news programs! In this radio piece and accompanying article, NPR reporters Miguel Macias, Audie Cornish, and Connor Donevan invited me to square off against Meta's vice president of metaverse, Vishal Shah over the incredibly important topic of metaverse ownership.
While Vishal says they are not trying to build the metaverse alone, anyone who has been paying attention to Meta's moves in this area is anxious that, in fact, that is exactly what they are attempting. By flooding billions into their own fledgling social VR platform Horizon Worlds, and billions more into hardware development, it doesn't take much imagination to picture a Facebook in VR type of business model. The kind where the user is the customer, and where all of our personal data is scraped, stored, and sold.
I advocate against this approach for all the obvious reasons. One of my quotes:
"I think it should be for everyone, and it should not be controlled by any one company. Certainly, it should not be controlled by a company that has demonstrated that they put profits over people at every step of the juncture."
Thank you to NPR for allowing be to speak on behalf of the metaverse citizens who believe in a free and open future.
Read the full article here: