The Metaverse is a technology (or, some would argue, a marketing scheme) that will be autopsied by future technologists as one of the greatest failures of adoption in history. First, it’s important to recognize the ambiguity of the subject in the first place. Spearheading the conversation is, of course, Facebook’s reorganization and rebranding to Meta in a bold move to supposedly champion a revolutionary emerging technology. However, by their own admission, Meta claims itself and its Metaverse to be only one key developer in an emergent ecosystem of other metaverse (small M) players and technologies. The metaverse in principle is supposed to be a digital ecology constructed from different components from different sources.

So, first, what is the metaverse? It’s a good question and one that’s surprisingly difficult to answer. Meta only partially claims it’s their thing, and that their Metaverse is only one component of a larger metaverse. It’s purported to be something like the internet, where different entities and technologies (in theory, powered by some community spirit and development as well) come together to form a diverse and eclectic network of content. Only instead of this content being pure information – that which can be created or consumed – the metaverse’s content is information organized into virtual space. If the internet is a repository of information, the metaverse gives that information place and shape: turning it into an environment that can be explored. All of this is underpinned by a kind of techno-utopianism. Pro-metaverse marketing material borders on describing this new digital realm as an artificial nirvana, a reality that is not only different from ours but better than ours, because it liberates us from worldly constraints and concerns. Importantly, this new better-than-reality-reality is accessed via Virtual Reality (VR) technology.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, the fascinating thing about the metaverse is how few people think so. Despite multi-billion-dollar investments from companies that specialize in the business of convincing people of things – companies like Facebook, who’s entire business model is to use state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to modify behavior and belief at scale – people just didn’t want to put the headset on. So, what gives? Why was one of the most expensive marketing campaigns, backed by the most sophisticated behavioral modification technologies the world has ever seen, a flop?

If we use Everett M. Rogers’ model of innovation adoption (above) as a guide, we can see that the first step – Knowledge – was definitely achieved. Facebook’s bold decision to rebrand as Meta made sure of that. The tech world had a seizure as FAANG became MAANG, but even beyond that, Facebook was a household name so everybody on some level had to pay attention. Couple that with all the marketing promotions, the newsroom field day, and the social media firestorm, and soon everyone was talking about the Metaverse.

But people weren’t convinced, or should I say, “Persuaded.” One of the reasons was quite obvious: the tech was terrible. Meta’s Metaverse, at the very least, was little more than a bug-ridden low-quality video game. VR technology, in general, was (and is) still in its infancy, so even if things worked great in the lab room or limited focus groups, the hardware was still very much in the “toys for nerds” phase. (Or, “Early Adoption” phase if we’re going with Rogers’ terminology) 

Bad tech comes and goes (does anyone remember the Google Glass?) though that isn’t enough to explain the sheer vitriol the metaverse inspired from consumers. The VR tech, metaverse software, and especially Meta’s Metaverse software didn’t get very far at all beyond Early Adopters. But interestingly, the metaverse as a concept spread far and wide. The idea of the metaverse ballooned beyond tech bros and became a mainstream talking point overnight. The people talking about the metaverse hadn’t (and wouldn’t) touched the tech with a ten-foot pole, proving that bad tech was only a relatively small part of the story of the metaverse’s abject failure.

The metaverse failed to diffuse as an innovation, but the fascinating thing is that the converse – anti-metaverse sentiment – was widely adopted. The same mechanisms that we talk about for the adoption of a product happened to the anti-concept of that product. Diffusion Networks were definitely at play in the metaverse’s adoption process, but they worked against it. People started talking about how much they hated the metaverse, and that idea diffused rapidly through social networks both online and offline. Opinion Leaders latched on to the idea as well. Several influencers tried the metaverse products themselves and reported to the already disinterested masses how “garbage” and “cringe” they were. But even more importantly, most Opinion Leaders who never cared to try the products themselves derided it as a mere concept. The question is, why?

 To call it an Adoption Problem would be an understatement – it’s the Adoption Problem. It’s as if all of the Western internet seized up over this concept, banding together to reject it wholesale. Everybody knew about the metaverse, but anti-metaverse sentiment was adopted far more effectively than the metaverse itself. Perhaps we might call it “Anti Adoption,” where the inverse of a product or idea is adopted over the thing itself. It’s a condition that requires a large degree of criterion #1 – Knowledge, but none of criterion #2 – persuasion.

But why? The metaverse isn’t (just) a technology: it’s a vision of the future. After all, the metaverse purports itself to be an entire new world, right? First, people of any political affiliation don’t like the politics of this world: it imagines a faux utopia based on constant consumption from corporations. What do you do in the Metaverse? Buy things, and then buy more things. (None of these things are real!) Even further, it imagines a world where individuals are entirely entrenched and reliant on tech megacorps – an idea that is becoming less and less popular in the mainstream every day. It imagines a total resignment of agency in one’s own life, a life spent plugged in and pacified by a delightful fiction spoonfed to us. To be a citizen of the metaverse is to be the ultimate bootlicker to our techno-oligarchs. Something about this supposed utopia rubbed consumers as quite dystopian.

But even beyond the politics, I do believe there’s something essentially human behind the rejection of the metaverse. Something innate encoded into our biological instincts, an instinct to breathe real air, an instinct to live and thrive. There is something a-human about the metaverse, and there is something about this rebellion that reminds us of our humanity. 

The metaverse also failed to convince people of having any kind of Relative Advantage. Sure, it gets us closer to the internet – it puts us within the internet – but it was never clear why that’s a good thing. If you want to find information, buy something, or connect with friends you already can. If you want to play a videogame you already can. What does the metaverse add other than a new and more invasive medium under which to do things you can already do? The metaverse feels like the next step in a long tradition of increased social technologization that we are starting to be skeptical of the benefits of. Social media might be cool, but it’s become blatantly obvious in both research and common sense that there are harmful and addictive aspects to it. The metaverse is the next step in that direction: does that mean poorer mental health, weaker social connection, a lonelier society, and a new-and-improved informatic crack pipe to keep us hooked?

Also, we have a lot of counter-visions of the future. Our media has warned us about the metaverse for decades, and we’ve listened. We’ve all seen The Matrix, we’ve all seen Ready Player One, we’ve all seen Black Mirror. So we all know – and are beginning to actively feel – the consequences of resigning ourselves to increasingly technologized environments. As digital technology continues to advance, technological optimism is on the down-swing which makes adoption of any of this sort of thing more difficult. But especially with the metaverse, it’s something science fiction has been worried about… and the resonance of that artwork in people’s minds is more than any marketing campaign.

I’m sure all the marketing goblins scheming in the basements at Meta dream of the holy grail that is Critical Mass. The tipping point, when all their efforts culminate and the ball starts rolling downhill. But Critical Mass didn’t work in their favor; on the contrary, as more and more people passionately derided the metaverse, it became weird to like it. And from there, the metaverse’s fate was sealed… a win for the humanist.

All of this leaves me cautiously optimistic, though it’s important to remember that we’ve won a battle, not a war. As metaverse technology continues to improve, and conditions in the real world continue to worsen, might we one day reconsider taking refuge in a fairytale? The adoption process is not just one tactic that might succeed or fail, it describes a much larger trend of human behavior, and in some way, the process feels inevitable. We might kick and scream and make a fuss over that which we find distasteful, but is our society only in the throws of some slow digestion as those benefitting – those in control – force it down our throats? “Here comes the airplane.”

(Above) Character in Ready Player One takes off his VR goggles, exiting the metaverse and recognizing the dystopia of the world around him.

I am far from a Luddite, technological pessimist, or even simply a late adopter. I love technology with a fervor and a passion. But technology needs to remember its place. Technology, by definition, is the tools we create to make our lives easier. It is something to uplift us, not subsume us. The man uses the screwdriver to screw the screw, the screwdriver doesn’t screw over the man. Undeniably, technology has crept closer and closer to us. First, it was the faraway mainframe in university basements. Then, the personal computer empowered us to imagine and create things like never before. But then, it latched itself onto our thighs as the phones in our pockets, like some kind of alien life form. Then, it wrapped itself around our wrists as smartwatches. It invaded our homes as Alexa and Google Home, listening to us and learning about our every move. Now, it threatens to creep onto our faces and pull its flesh over our eyes. It threatens to blind us. Soon, it wants to infect and infest us, crawling beneath our skin as neural chips. At some point, we as consumers, we as Americans, and most importantly, we as humans have to take a stand against adoption and say “No thank you, that’s far enough.”