Evan Spiegel, founder and chief executive of Snap, is not too thrilled about the idea of the metaverse.
Instead, he claims the future lies in augmented reality or AR.
According to Spiegel, AR is more immersive and holds greater potential than virtual worlds with little to no meaning. Suffice it to say that Spiegel is not a fan of the whole metaverse prospect.
During the Wall Street Journal conference on Tuesday, Spiegel denounced VR, the centerpiece of the futuristic metaverse, and revealed he has no intentions of spending any amount of time in virtual reality.
“The last thing I want to do when I get home from work [after] a long day is live inside of a computer,” Spiegel said.
Snap, the parent company to Snapchat, is investing heavily in AR, a technology that allows the superposition of virtual elements into the real world.
Augmented reality holds incredible potential and lists numerous applications in business, education, and entertainment. Last year, Snap released Spectacles, the company’s first AR glasses.
VR, on the other hand, is frequently seen as yet another gaming venue, although that is far from the truth. As opposed to Snap, Meta has been diverting resources into VR for quite a long time now, first as Facebook, and now as a metaverse-first business.
However, Snap is far from being the only company at the forefront of technology that doubts VR and its long-term potential.
Earlier this month, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, in an interview with the Dutch publication Bright said that he doubts the average person understands the meaning of the metaverse or its ramifications.
“It's something you can really immerse yourself in. And that can be used in a good way. But I don't think you want to live your whole life that way.” Cook said. “VR is for set periods, but not a way to communicate well. So, I'm not against it, but that's how I look at it.”
Spiegel also called the metaverse “pretty ambiguous and hypothetical” in a conversation with The Guardian, cementing his stance on the topic.
Snap CEO’s rejection of the metaverse is only one in a series of dismissals of the VR-based concept.
There’s a great divide between how businesses perceive VR, and only time will tell who was right and who was wrong.
Or perhaps, both technologies hold large enough promise for all of these businesses to succeed.
