Ethereum Founder Critical Of Zuck's Metaverse

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What's Dropping ⚡️

• Input gets personal with creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Yuga Labs. Hear first hand how they dealt with being doxxed without their consent. (InputMag)

• Designer KEEZi.ETH (MAYC #1293 #2775) is creating remarkable animations based on Yuga Labs Otherside metaverse. His most recent features Koda #9915 bounding through a land of Mallows. (Twitter)

• Despite less than ideal market conditions, the first quarter report shows a massive amount of crypto moved and recorded more than one million unique wallets. (NansenAI)

• Premium cannabis company just announced their NFT membership cannabis consumption lounge, with the aid of DroppLabs. The Trufflez Lounge will open in New York this November. (Trufflez)

• Ethermail is reimagining email for Web3, placing user privacy and security at the forefront of their initiative. Their mailbox is still in beta. (Ethermail)

• Astrologer Susan Miller has been on the internet since launching her astrology website in 1995. The stars have aligned for her zodiac-themed NFTs released yesterday. (AstrologyZone)

• Vogue magazine's photography arm will be collaborating with NFT platform Voice to create beautiful photography collections. (Twitter)

NFT Textbooks? 📚

Before going to college, no one warns you about the burden of buying books for your classes, every semester, for 4 or more years. Some books are cost conscious, while others can run you hundreds of dollars due to their specificity. When most individuals are done with their books, they either keep them or sell them to someone else. Textbook publishers have come to the realization that they are left out of that equation. That’s why Pearson, one of the nation’s largest textbook producers, is looking into how to get into the sale of digital textbooks, in the form of NFTs.

Pearson’s CEO, Andy Bird, believes that NFTs could provide textbook providers a way to become a part of the resale process. As NFTs collect royalties, this would be a secondary form of revenue, contrary to their current single-sale model. Bird stated, “In the analog world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale… The move to digital helps diminish the secondary market, and technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life.”

Another day, another use case. But there are some questions that need to be asked. Is this just another way for corporations to get every little cent out of consumers? Is this healthy for the free market? Pearson has not released any concrete plans. But, the main idea is that trackable codes will be inserted into the books that they distribute. Is this what we, as a community, want for the future of NFTs? Or do we want a free market economy where we can sell as we please? That’s the real question when analyzing and positioning for the future of Web3. WAGMI.

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Ethereum Founder Critical Of Zuck's Metaverse

The tech-saturated NASDAQ index has dropped 20 percent since the start of the year and shares of Meta are down 54 percent. Mark Zuckerberg has enthusiastically shifted the entire direction of Facebook from a Web2-based social media conglomerate to a company that is trying to structure the metaverse. As he reaches for the future though, the advent of Tik-Tok has reduced the profitability of his current cash-generating machines Instagram and Facebook down to 29 percent from 43 percent over the year. Meanwhile, the Reality Labs division of Meta reported an operating loss of approximately three billion dollars. Granted, companies burn tons of money before they achieve profitability for their desired pursuit but Vitalik Buterin has a different opinion on the fate of Meta.

For a single entity to try and construct a standard foundation for Web3 is of course a commonplace monopolistic wet dream for the folks of Web2 and legacy institutions. The basic idea would be to leverage tons and tons of capital in order to get a vicious head start at offering usable Web3 interfaces. Zuck wants to have something as pervasive and powerful as Facebook but wants it to be even more fundamental, so he’s trying to be a front runner in uncharted terrains and be the first entry point for the metaverse’s mass adoption. Of course, one issue with Meta’s goal is that it’s antithetical to the core vision of a decentralized Web3 since it depends on a singular entity.

But Vitalik’s critique isn’t even just that Mark’s attempts will misfire because he is compromising decentralization. His main point is that the metaverse’s gradual and inevitable adoption will be born out of various real solutions that people are seeking out and depending on Web3 to address. The structure that Meta builds maybe its best idea of what the metaverse is supposed to look like and what it’s supposed to do but that will most likely miss the target for the needs that people are trying to have met. Zuck isn’t the type to respond in a debate as such, like other tech giants he likes to speak through actions, but it would be quite a treat to see Vitalik and Zuck have a debate on their ideas about Web3.

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