The metaverse, an issue of sovereignty [2/2]

GAFAM in ambush

Obviously, in this new eternal economy of the metaverse, the most powerful actor is none other than the game master, that is to say the company that creates, manages and organizes the metaverse in which users will evolve. For the moment, there is not a metaverse, but many metaverses, in the plural, without link or coherence. And most of them are held by video game companies like Epic Games or by small studios like in the case of The Sandbox. Not to mention the GAFAMs who do not intend to miss the opportunity to extend their control over the lives of users, whose data is the convenience on which their business model is based. In the medium or long term, we can anticipate the fact that the web giants will make sure to centralize the metaverse as much as possible by creating their own version and buying out competitors.

And these digital empires have everything to succeed in this hostile takeover. Indeed, the very principle of the metaverse is to be a cyber society bringing together millions of people. This implies very important network infrastructures. In fact, small companies are automatically discriminated against in this market, while the largest start out one step ahead, already having the means and teams to manage such a volume of data. In other words, the power already acquired by the GAFAMs in the current version of the web gives them a considerable head start to impose themselves in the race for the metaverse.

This is exactly what Facebook, renamed META since the end of 2021, is aiming for: in his presentation of the shift taken by his company, Mark Zuckerberg very clearly states that he wants to create an alternative, parallel, perpetual world, in which users will be able to evolve, socialize, work, have fun. All this using avatars and virtual reality.

Note that Amazon is not left out, since since 2020 Jeff Bezos' company has launched its own metaverse, with its own integrated economy, for the moment through a video game simply called New World. Similarly, Apple has already announced its own metaverse project and the release of a virtual reality headset by 2022. Even more colossal, the South Korean government's Metaverse Seoul project aims to make the capital of the country the first city in the "metaverse": the residents of the virtual city will be able to visit the streets, attend festivals, go to shops and buy virtual objects, go to do their administrative procedures in the town halls of the capital, etc. ., all this in the "metaverse" and from 2022.

Faced with this avalanche of facts, ethical considerations of course immediately come to mind: are we still human if we live through screens? Privacy issues also arise. And even ecological questions: where to store the servers of such an alternative world, how to produce virtual devices to connect to this “metaverse”…

Some social questions also arise: if tomorrow part of human activity moves towards the digital sphere, what will happen to the inhabitants of the poorest countries and those who do not have access to Internet ? Is there not a risk of witnessing a form of giant ghettoization, where the real world would become the disreputable neighborhood of an idealized virtual world?

There are still very political issues: how to protect citizens against states likely to use metaverse technologies to exercise control over their population? At the time of Chinese social credit or the emergence of digital currencies, this question of the privacy of citizens should question all the actors of our democracies.

But all these questions, even if they deserve to be asked, are all very secondary in the face of another problem: that of the sovereignty of States vis-à-vis private companies. Because at the moment, it is the only question that really arises and the one that underlies all the others.

Today, the monopoly of GAFAM on economic and digital life already makes these companies quasi-states. In any case, they have the economic power, which is already beginning to extend to the political, financial and societal spheres. The emergence of the “metaverse” would then make it possible to link all these areas and give control to GAFAM over the professional, social, private and financial data of our lives. Let's give a very concrete example: what would happen if French citizens started using the euros they earn during the day to convert them into the currency of Facebook's metaverse in order to consume goods offered in this virtual world? De facto, a huge percentage of French GDP would evaporate into a virtual world, into virtual consumption and through virtual currency. Things over which the state has absolutely no control. If this "metaverse" has 500,000 users who buy virtual items at €10, the problem does not arise. If this represents 30% of the population, which buys virtual vacations and virtual apartments, paying virtual taxes, it becomes a vital issue.

Immigration, brain drain or money transfers abroad are hot and divisive political issues. But if the subject of tomorrow was rather that of these new emigrants, the “meta-emigrants”, these French people who abandon France without leaving it but by deciding to live, have fun, consume and trade in the private republics of the metaverse?

In such a situation, if all or part of human activity took place in the metaverse, the state would find itself dispossessed of most of its prerogatives: police, justice, issuing money, taxes, etc. It would almost completely disappear in the face of private companies. And for good reason: since a State is simply the form of organization taken by a society to orient and manage itself, it ceases to exist if the latter chooses to organize itself through the metaverse.

Act to avoid suffering

Of course, human societies still seem very far from such a situation. But in 2000, who could have imagined that 10 years later almost all human relationships would pass through social networks? The time scales on which societal change takes place have accelerated. In 2021, anyone wondering if the world is heading towards the "metaverse" is already 5 years behind. The question does not arise, or rather it no longer arises. This world is already there, it is under construction. Our only leeway lies in our ability to guide this model that is being built: standards, laws, incentives, protection of privacy, place left to GAFAM, centralization, emergence of new companies, regulation of these, etc.

However, the answer to be given to this transformation of the world begins now, by not reducing this subject to its technical and digital dimension alone, but by grasping the profound ramifications of the changes that this will bring about. Except black swan, our children will spend most of their time in virtual worlds, i.e. they will probably value their virtual life more than their physical life. This has already been done, even if we may regret it.

The only question that still arises today is therefore whether the virtual worlds where our children will live will still be under the control of the States... or under the control of a few companies which will issue their virtual currency, will choose their rates of virtual interest, the rents of your virtual apartments or offices, which will make their Terms of Service the new Civil Code of these virtual places, which will name a virtual police to exclude from this world (and therefore from the world) problematic users.

It's because states stay on their knees that private companies are great. This remained true until today, with the implicit hope of a state response to reclaim the digital sphere and regulate it. But this hope is diminishing as the idea of ​​the Metaverse gains ground: the delay of States on these subjects could quickly prove to be irreversible.

Without powerful action by political decision-makers, without immediate awareness of public opinion, States therefore risk being further engulfed by private interests which are already replacing certain functions (privatization of education and health or other social services). It is today that States must choose whether they will still be what they are in the world of tomorrow.

Matthias Hauser

Part 1: The metaverse, an issue of sovereignty [1/2]

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