Crypto is amazing & I believe in BTC, stablecoins, NFTs, and DeFi, and I think they have a bright future. But when it comes to the metaverse, I’m skeptical.

After Apple’s WWDC23, I decided to visit Decentraland and see how they have been doing. What I found was a ghost town. According to the company's dashboard, there were less than 600 people online. Check the graph below.

But it’s not just the crypto-based metaverse that’s failing. It’s also the non-crypto ones, like Meta’s VR platform. Mark Zuckerberg spent billions on and rebranded his entire company. Well, guess what? It’s a flop. According to some reports, nobody wants to use it—not even Meta’s own employees. Even the ones who work on VR!

So what about Apple? Well, I was intrigued by their new Vision Pro headset and operating system. They have done a better job than Meta at creating a sleek and immersive metaverse experience. After all, Apple is the king of innovation and design. They have a history of making products people love and creating ecosystems that attract developers and users. They have an edge over Meta, which has always sucked at hardware and user experience.

But even Apple can’t make me excited about the metaverse. Why? Because it’s still too expensive, too complicated, and too dull. The Vision Pro headset costs $3,500—that’s more than a MacBook Pro! And it still requires a lot of setup and maintenance to work properly. And most importantly, it still doesn’t offer anything I can’t get in the real world—or even on my phone or laptop.

The truth is, I don’t want to live in a metaverse. I want to live in the real world. I want to travel, hike, eat, socialize, and enjoy life. I don’t want to isolate myself in a virtual reality that can never match the richness and diversity of reality. And I bet you don’t either.