The other day I received an email to a “Metaverse Festival” hosted by Kraken, an exchange, happening in Decentraland (here’s the exact location) right now.

The previous day I had seen an article stating that Facebook plans to hire 10,000 in Europe to build ‘metaverse’.

This tells me that the so-called “Metaverse” Wars are under way and it’s not just about “which computing platform will win?” It’s bigger than that.

It’s about “which vision of the future will win?”

Unless Facebook has a massive change of heart and/or a massive change in business structure, their version of the ‘metaverse’ is going to end up looking a lot more like Ready Player One than anything else.

Honestly, that should terrify everyone and anyone who reads this.

Meanwhile, while Decentraland is far from perfect, it represents an alternative vision, one of openness, interoperability, individual ownership, collaboration, and individual rights.

It sounds almost ‘Star Wars’ like in its portrayal of Good vs. Evil, but frankly, I view it that way.

There’s no doubt that Facebook’s version is going to be faster and smoother, particularly in the earlier stages. Let’s just hope that the open version offers something so different that it can make up for a rougher experience in the earlier stages.

To say this is a battle for mindshare is not an overstatement. Facebook’s version of virtual reality (to me ‘metaverse’ implies open and available to all) is about mind control, or at least the risk of total mind control.

The Decentraland version is about mindshare, yes, but also about ‘free to exit.”

This is not just about business or tech. It’s two competing visions of the future.

Kudos to Kraken for being on the side of good in this one.