Welcome to my weekly letter, where I share a few noteworthy articles and my own commentary. Without further ado…
Weekly Read
- What is Epic Games’ Metaverse, and Is It Worth Billions? (IGN) – Epic’s ambition to create a metaverse, similar to what’s on Roblox’s IPO paper, was revealed a while ago (we noted it in this March issue). My impression is that if we are calling anything metaverse, Roblox is probably closer than what Epic currently have with Fortnite, despite being a popular game (ok, platform, or whatever you want to call it, Epic 😉 ) One would predict that to create a widely adapted metaverse, the service will have to figure out how to simplified the control (not everyone would go with WASD keys or joysticks). On that front, Facebook’s AR effort or even Snap’s Spectacles may be closer.
- Video game industry wins first Oscar with documentary short Colette (The Verge) – see what happens when you try to mess with a video game by inserting a great documentary in it? You get a lousy game and… an Oscar!!? That’s… meta. 😀
- Humans Need to Create Interspecies Money to Save the Planet (Wired) – the author gone through a great length laying out the benefits and risks of a digital currency as a mean to protect and restore the biodiversity of earth. It also addressed the main risks of cryptocurrency that’s been at play for the past week: volatility (have you seen the crumbling value of Bitcoin and Etherum lately?). Despite well intention and a very cool idea, I can’t say I am persuaded the risk is worth the effort. Replacing the cryptocurrency with real currency then we would essentially get the existing carbon credit system, right?
- NFTs, Intellectual Property, and What It Really Means to Own a Digital Kitty (Morning Brew) – TL;DR: it’s still very murky, so getting a NFT item now most likely means you don’t get IP, nor copyright, nor the right to use/profit from the work. At least you would get the bragging right? 🙂
- How Chinese big tech (tried to) rethink health insurance (Protocol) – Mutual aid, while definitely profitable, is not as lucrative as other business such as microlending, therefore it’s being dropped by almost all major players. It’s an interesting decision that reflects the state of capitalism in the communist country. But may be something to revisit after the Chinese government proceeds with the next wave of regulations and punishment towards bad business practices.
Have a nice weekend!
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