In this episode, the metaverse wins Christmas, we look at the metaverse in the context of the technology adoption curve, Ready Player Me raises $13 million in a recent funding round, Decentraland and UNXD are planning to host the metaverse's fashion week, and so much more!

Episode 6 Keywords: Metaverse Christmas, Technology Adoption Curve, Ready Player Me Funding, Metaverse Fashion Week

Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The Metaverse and web three are bringing about the

biggest revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the prophet Dawalibi And Jeff the

juice Cohen. We will be bringing you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into what it

all means. The meta business podcast starts now.

From the boardroom to the metaverse. This is the meta business podcast. I am

Paul the Prophet Dawalibi. I'm joined today by my friend and co host, Jeff the juice Cohen. For

those of you who are new to the meta business podcast welcome. What we do here is we cover all

the big Metaverse news and stories of the week. We look at all of it through a business and C suite

lens, we dissect, we analyze the business implications of everything happening in the

metaverse. For those of you who are new to the podcast, welcome. If you've come here from the

business of esports also welcome. We encourage you guys to subscribe to the metal business podcast,

leave a review. If you love the content we put out every week, we really would appreciate a five star

review. Wherever you get this podcast on Apple podcast, Google Play Spotify, wherever. Jeff, how

are you doing this week?

I'm doing well. We are we're recording this. It's the week between Christmas and New

Year's. It's always the weirdest week of the year. You know, everyone's sort of off from work, but

not really. You know, basically sitting on the couch watching Netflix or doing whatever they do

spending time with family. But the news never stops and the metaverse never stops. So here we

are excited to get going.

It doesn't and I can tell you I said this on the business of esports podcast.

Everyone thinks this is the slowest week of the year, we are crushing it literally all of our

content is hitting like record highs, whether it's met a business or business of esports or met a

woman or literally everything this is the best week ever for all of our content. So I don't know

if there's a business lesson in there but

everyone will everyone's just telling you what people are doing listening to podcasts. I

would say you know I listen to most of my podcasts when I work out which is why I don't get around to

listening to many of the episodes that were recorded because you know I don't work out enough

but after the new year you know that's going to be a big a big push in the Cohen household. So the

juice of the count off on all things podcast

that's not totally fair for our listeners they should know that the juice himself

is a is a record holding like all star lacrosse player so like, it's not totally fair to say you

don't work out so Alright, let's let's I don't want to waste any time here. Let's jump into some

news because believe it or not, even though this is the week between Christmas and New Year there

actually was a ton of Metaverse news. I mean, the hype has not stopped, the activity has not

stopped. And let's start here with an article. You know, you found this one Jeff and and I think the

headline was very catchy here. The headline said, how the metaverse one Christmas, this may end up

being the title of this podcast. But But fundamentally, it has three key points in this

article from CNBC. And here they're talking about Mehta, which is Facebook's parent company. They

have the most popular app in Apple's App Store on Christmas. And that is the Oculus VR app. That's

like the companion app if you own an Oculus VR headset. And the second point here says it's a

sign metas VR headset was one of the most popular technology gifts over the holidays. This This

gives Mehta more opportunity to show customers the possibilities of its vision for the metaverse. So

Oculus having huge success, right. The article basically says Oculus one Christmas, and you know

they've generalized to the metaverse, but let's call it like it is Oculus, that one Christmas

here. What do you make of this, Jeff? Is it you know, is this a turning point is this? Are we not

there yet? Like the metaverse hardware.

It's interesting. I mean, it's, it's too early to call this necessarily an inflection

point, because I feel like we've had too many stops and starts in terms of VR, to really know if

this is the true kind of, we're coming up the adoption curve we sort of saw, I remember, during

the pandemic, like the very early stages of the pandemic, when HalfLife Alex came out from Valve,

and everyone was like, Well, this is it. Finally, there's a killer app. There's a game on VR that

everyone wants to play, it's exclusive to VR, this is it, there's going to be mass adoption boom. And

and that sort of never really happened. And I'm not sure the exact postmortem to that maybe it was

the game just wasn't good or the platform wasn't ready things were too expensive. You know, that's

kind of a different subject that we don't necessarily want to get get into. But we've seen

this before. So I do think it's a little bit too early to say, you know, the VR market. It's a

classic, you know, platform problem where you have, you know, it's a two sided platform, you

need users, and then you need developers, and you don't really get developers in till there's a big

enough user base for it to be worthwhile to develop games for. And you don't get people to buy

the Oculus until there's good games or kind of a killer app, if you will. So, it is good right now

that you're starting to see this user base, consumer electronics are always a popular gift on

Christmas. So this year, you know that that was the case with Oculus. The question I have is, is

there really a killer app yet? Have we seen enough developers adopting this? And I guess the question

moving forward will be what is usage look like? Because it could be very easily be, hey, everyone

got this. This, you know, the Oculus for Christmas from grandma, and they're going to use it for a

week realize, hey, there's really just not that many games on here now, and then it's going to get

put in the closet. So I think it'll be interesting to kind of monitor how usage tracks and stuff like

that. So I would pose that question to you. And then I think the bigger question that, you know,

you're probably leading me towards that I didn't really cover is sort of how, how do we tie this to

the metaverse like, is this? What if this is the you know, the kind of the coming? Coming out party

for VR? Is that sort of important for the metaverse? I'll pose that I guess to you?

I'm going to get to the answering that question. I just I want to put this up on the

screen. And for those listening, I'll try and describe it. But this is like your standard

technology adoption curve. Okay. And at the bottom, sort of It's a it looks like a bit like a

bell curve, right? It's a it's a, what is this an inverted parabola. And then at the bottom, you've

got enthusiast. And there the statement is I have to be the first to try this. Then you have

visionaries further up the curve. I want to show you this helpful tool I found, then you have

pragmatists further up the curve. Why should I start using this technology? That's what they ask

themselves. And then conservatives on the other end, right. This is after his peak adoption is

piqued. I was skeptical, but I should have tried this earlier. And then finally, skeptics are the

toughest right to get on board. And they'll they'll tell themselves, I guess I can give it a

try. But I need help. Where do you think with Oculus and VR? We are on this adoption curve in

your mind?

I think we're probably maybe in the second second quadrant. So visionaries. Yeah, I

think we're probably their mid pragmatist. I don't like the name like I don't. I'm not sure. Let's

see, why should I start using this technology? Hmm. Maybe between somewhere between two and

three? I think we have moved past the I have to be the first to try this. Because those were the

people that were buying Oculus 3456 years ago. Yeah, I think we're kind of in quadrant two

quadrant three.

I don't know. Do you agree with that? I do agree with that. I think you know, the

the question you asked those a good one, Jeff, which is, what is the impact on the metaverse

here. And, and I'll just also mention, you know, the guests we had on the business of esports

podcast this week, is a software developer. And his feeling was I asked him sort of something

around this. And he had this sort of interesting perspective where it's a pendulum between software

and hardware. And we've been in this software mode, right where you have Roblox and you have

epic and fortnight and unreal, and you have you know, Minecraft and there's a whole bunch of

software being built for the metaverse and if T's and blockchain and blockchain based games and

right everyone's writing code, but there's this feeling like the pendulum is gonna swing back

towards hardware. And there's going to be sort of this era of hardware innovation, where software

might be relatively stagnant, but where you're gonna see a ton of innovation on the hardware

side. And, and and I don't know if Oculus is the one that's going to lead that. But I think what

Oculus has done from a price point and marketing perspective is they've made VR truly accessible to

anyone, right? So anyone who wants to experience the early days of the metaverse, if you want to

call it that can write there's really no barrier anymore. That it's not complicated, right? You

don't need stay like base stations in your room, the setups easy, it's totally portable, you

recharge it like a phone, right? Like there's literally nothing that that my own grandmother

couldn't figure out, right. And so I think that's a major accomplishment that we have to ascribe to

Oculus, which is why it's sold like hot like hotcakes during Christmas. And it's also probably

the only console if you want to consider it a console that was in stock, right? Like people

couldn't get an Xbox or a PS five, I think you could still get an Oculus. Even if people put it

away, like try it and put it away, like you said might be that sort of worst case scenario. The

fact of the matter is there's going to be this massive install base of VR headsets. And from a

coming of the metaverse perspective, I think that's a requirement. Right? Like even if people

aren't actively using it day to day That's fair. But install base.

I guess I would pose 100% Having the install, but it's a chicken and egg problem.

Having install base is a massive prerequisite. But I'm almost thinking to myself, is it better for

people to not have tried it yet and have just this idea of what the metaverse is? Or try it and have

it not be what they think it is? Because it's not the technology's not there yet. And I think you're

the guest on the pot like the the hardware software kind of pendulum. I actually love that.

Like, I think that that makes a ton of sense. But yeah, I'm wondering if maybe it's worse if people

try it and are like, Well, that just wasn't that good. And then you sort of set you set yourself

back, because now it's even harder to get those people because they're like, I already tried that.

It's just not that interesting.

I mean, I see your point, right, like they, they fire beat Sabre, and they're like,

this is this is like it I mean, I see your point, I think I probably disagree in the sense that and

I know you're making the point to create discussion here. But like, I feel like better

expose people to it, even if it's not the end game. Because this creates more discussion. I

think they're more likely to buy next gen Oculus or whatever the next thing is, right. Like, I feel

like if you expose people to it, even if there's somewhat, and I don't know if anyone has in their

mind, sort of this grand vision of the metaverse like I don't think anyone buys an Oculus thinking.

This is going to be Ready Player One. Do you think yeah, like that's what?

No, probably not. I guess from a more fundamental level. I don't know if we've ever

discussed this yet on the podcast, like, do you think the metaverse? Is VR a requisite of the

metaverse? Or is it just immersion? Is it something you know? Could you could argue playing

a game of Grand Theft Auto you can be immersed in that game? You're not in VR, but you can be you

know, by definition, immersed where it's like, you feel like you're in the world or do you need that

presence? Where you're, you know, you're in VR.

This is tricky, because it's a it's a word definition problem, right? Like, if we

define VR as a headset I'm wearing with screens built into the headset. That's to me, that's not

the end game, right. Like if we're thinking 2030 years from now. No way. That's the endgame. I

think I've always been I've always described it as is Star Trek's holodeck. Like even Ready Player

One to me is not the end game for humanity when it comes to meta versus Star Trek's holodeck truly

is, in my mind, basically the end game where

and for the people who never saw it? It's I mean, I'm just saying there might be some

of our listeners. It's true. It's

a room.

Not me. Definitely. And the room

can create any reality you ask of it. Right? And, and it's totally indistinguishable

from reality. So it's

a requirement from Harry Potter, I get it.

Which, which is a reference item get but Star Trek's holodeck makes sense to me.

But know that like where it's where you you're, there's no hardware other than the space you're

occupying? To me, that's the end game right? And where space sort of loses all meaning also right?

You could be you could you the reality you're in could occupy a vast space. Now, I don't know if

you saw the Elon Musk interview with the Babylon be, you know, he sort of made fun of, of, you

know, I don't he didn't cease. He basically said, I don't think there's a future where we're going

to where TV's on are like on our faces. So he I think also doesn't believe that there's this sort

of VR headset long term future. But I think where he's putting his bets from, from the interview, at

least from where I think he thinks it's heading is more just like electrical, like where we plug in,

right? Where we can feed electrical signals to your brain to create the reality. You don't even

need a room at that point, right, we can create the reality in your own mind. If we can control

those electrical impulses, you know, precisely enough, you can create smell and sight and sound

and the whole bit so you know, those brain computer interfaces maybe are where we end up.

The challenges are connecting your brain to because I could understand you or you can

connect something to someone's brain and it's like, you can control what they see. But it might

be hard, it'd be really hard to take it the next step where you're controlling everyone is, you

know, controlling everwell brain if

everyone's plugged into the same system, you could see how that works. Right? Yeah,

it's an interface fundamentally. But anyway, so I think good on Oculus good on meta to me that

Oculus is metas greatest strength, right? Like, I think it's where they have clear leadership from a

Metaverse perspective because I think their metaphor strategy otherwise is basically so far

all just talk right like there's nothing really there that gives them a Some serious competitive

advantage other than Oculus 100% Agree. All right, we talked we mentioned Ready Player One. I think

it's worth talking about this next story because just because of the thing it's got a clever title

here in the company's called Ready Player me, blatant knockoff, obviously of the movie or the

book. And and here, the headline is ready player me a Metaverse avatar platform raises 13 million

in funding. This is a company called Wolf 3d. They have created or they're they're creating a

Metaverse avatar platform called Ready Player me. And their goal is to offer a customized avatar

that supposedly will carry over across the entire metaverse. So players build their avatar from

pictures or from scratch. And according to this, they can use them across. I don't know where they

got this number 900 Plus apps and games. And they're going to use the funding to establish

their place as the default avatar system for the metaverse. According to them, 2021 they grew their

adoption grew from 25 to 900 partner companies, where essentially they're partnering to be able to

use those avatars in those games. I mean, Jeff, are you are you excited by this? So you know,

we've talked a little bit, we've alluded to standards and things like that being important for

the metaverse, right capital M. Is this one of those essential building blocks? Do you think this

is a, you know, $50 billion company because they're there first, I'm curious how you're

thinking about this.

It's hard to kind of pass judgment on the the like the specific company without kind of

seeing their tech and whatnot. But I am very bullish on kind of digital fashion and sort of

direct to Avatar commerce, just because if you think about it, people's appearances in real life

are so important and kind of what we buy what we wear. If we take that to the logical extreme,

where we're going to be spending more and more of our time in the metaverse and caring more and more

about what our digital presence is, you're going to have digital fashion. So to me like that, that

is 100% happening. The bigger question is, what is the tech look like? And how does the

interoperability work? Because it's easy to say, hey, we're going to create a fashion company or,

you know, a tech platform that allows you to, essentially, hey, you're wearing a skin and Call

of Duty, all of a sudden you want to go play Battlefield, you go take the skin to Battlefield

like that. In theory, I think we all agree like that is a world that makes a ton of sense and

should exist. But there are a lot of logistical challenge like not even just like real world

development challenges, things are built on different engines. There are different companies,

if I buy a skin and Call of Duty that goes into Activision Blizzard's bank account. How does that

work? When I bring it the battlefield, which is owned by Electronic Arts, which is a separate

legal entity like that, there are very, I guess I'll use the word legit. Maybe logistical is the

right word for it like that is a that is a challenge that is a big hurdle to overcome. And

maybe the answer is it will it will. This kind of interoperability will only work in blockchain

games and quote unquote, these Metaverse games, because that's just the DNA of these companies and

everything won't be owned by the company, it'll be in the blockchain. And maybe there'll be when you,

it's entirely conceivable when you transfer an item from one game to the other, you either pay a

small fee, or maybe the developer from the first game pays the second developer or vice versa.

Because it's like, Hey, maybe I can see the developer in the second game, paying the developer

in the first game, because theoretically, you'll probably, once you're playing the second game,

you'll be very likely to buy a second skin, which then they'll make money from. So it's a little bit

of customer acquisition kind of thing. There's a lot of different rabbit holes, we can go down and

discuss. But at the highest level, I think this kind of organization will exist, it's just a

matter of how it how it will logistically shake out in terms of the value chain.

Well, let me let me ask you one question before I sort of give my thoughts on this

because I, I think this will help frame my own thought. Do you think Ready Player me can be

successful? If they only have some of the companies like like fast forward five years or 10

years, right? Like, if only 10% of the games and companies call it operating in meta versus are

signed up with Ready Player me? Is this a success? You think like, is this good for the industry? Or

do you think they have to have everything like is this an all or nothing? Kind of? No, I

don't think I don't. I don't think they have to have everything. I do think once they

hit a threshold, it be once they become big enough where certain portion of games have this. I think

you're going what you're going to see is other games are going to want to get onto the platform

because their users are going to want to get onto the platform. So imagine if you Have 10 games

where you could, you know, bring your digital gun or your shirt or whatever your shoes from game to

game to game. And then there's 11th game where you can't. So anything you buy in the first 10 games

you can use in all those 10 games, but the 11th game, you have to buy something separate and you

can't bring it into your other 10 games, I think that 11th game is going to be in theory, they're

going to be try to be paying to get into that network, because it's going to be a barrier like,

it will be a friction point for their users, where they you could see a world where they could lose

users, because it's like, hey, well, I already bought this really expensive pair of shoes that I

could wear in these 10 metal verses, but I can't wear it in that 11th. One, why would I go to the

11th? One? So I do think there's a you know, to use the classic chart, but it's network effects,

right, like at a certain scale you you do get those network effects.

Yeah, I just, I mean, the other question I sort of asked myself is, is this good

for the industry? Right? Is it good to have essentially a monopoly, potentially controlling

avatars? And, you know, if you look at, call it the web two equivalent or internet equivalent,

right, like, identity, basically is like an email address, right? For the most part, how you log in

how you get into different sites, and what sort of represents you on those sites. I'm trying to think

of another better analogy for identity in the web to universe but like, the way

I'm understanding it, and just kids it's not, you know, it's sort of this whole web

three ethos is that it's not they're going to have a monopoly, they will be providing tools, or they

will be providing, essentially, the the rails where the things will transfer over. It's not

like, like, I don't see them becoming a monopoly.

That's sort of what it sounds like, right? Because you go and you create your avatar

in their system, right? And then that avatar is portable to these up 900 apps and games. Okay,

like, to me, that's definitely a barrier. It's a it's a, it's a monopoly of sort on a, on a digital

avatar, how they interoperate between all the apps and games, I don't know whether you know, goods

and things, or they make them portable, I don't know, fundamentally, it still feels like, they're

gonna own a critical piece of the infrastructure. That to me should be more of a standard, rather

than an owned walled garden. Even if their goal is to write like, I, their, their playbook is going

to be obvious, right? They're gonna go to every developer under the sun, they're gonna say, hey,

instead of letting use the building code writing code to allow users to make their own avatars in

your game or your app, right, you just integrate our code, our system, all the functionality is

there, you don't need to worry about it. And users love it because they can bring their avatar from

the other things they're already signed up for. Right? Yeah, that's an easy argument to make. Long

term though. I don't know if that's good for the industry, right? Like, I think I've continued to

espouse the benefits of open standards. If we want to see a true Metaverse, right. In other words,

some kind of definition of what an avatar is, right? A structure a framework that companies like

Ready Player me can implement. But 10 Other companies can also implement if they want as well.

And the the, the nature, the nature of the standard makes it Emperor interoperable, not the

whim of a single Corporation,

I see what you're saying you want them to be like a digital fashion company where it's

like, anyone can technically anyone can make a pair of shoes. But Nike can make Nike shoes like

Adidas, makes Adidas shoes. Yeah, Reebok three bucks. I think I agree with that. I think, you

know, some sort of open source standard, and then you have all these different call them digital

retailers, or digital fashion companies where it's like, yeah, you know, we're, we're creating this.

Yeah, I mean, that's possible. And it's just, you know, people generally, people end up gravitating

towards economic incentives, like who's going to create that open platform? And if they create it,

why are they not going to want to make money off it?

It will be here. This is why I worry about this investment for the investors

because I think the natural urge of humans and what we saw if we look at the web two world and

how it evolved again, and I come back to this, right, there were some key players who are all for

profit commercial entities, right? That decided on a set of standards because it benefited all of

them, right, as opposed to benefiting one. And I think we will see something similar, where at some

point the for profit entities get together, and it's probably the meta versus right, the the plat

Metaverse, platforms themselves, they get together and say, Hey, let's agree on some kind of Avatar

framework. And everyone wins in the end, right? And, and instead of competing on all these things,

and hurting each other, we can all win, right? And so I think companies like this over time, get

marginalized a bit gets squeezed out if they if they're not on that same standard and I think

suspect the 900 apps and games that they're partnered with are kind of like nothing burgers,

right? That they're like, yeah, they're inconsequential. It's a big number. That sounds

nice, but fundamentally, there's not much there. So I worry a little bit from an investment

perspective, I probably would not have invested. Just, you know, given that I think the end game is

more open has to be for this vision to happen. It's fair, but I see short term how potentially

they benefit from this. Alright, let's let's move on. You mentioned you're a big proponent of

fashion in the metaverse Jeff so we have to do I think, a Metaverse fashion story here. And the

headline here is decentraland luxury marketplace. You NXT to host Metaverse Fashion Week

decentraland And you NXT are calling on fashion he says fashionistas to have their virtual

collections ready to show in the metaverse the fashion program, which is decentraland. First is

going to take place March 24 to 27th. It's essentially a Metaverse Fashion Week, they're

going to have catwalk shows, pop up shops, and after parties. They're calling on designers brands

to get collections ready. And this environment is going to be you know, what they say is this. The

Metaverse may represent a trillion dollars in annual revenue. According to this report. I

thought that was an interesting statistic. But this is the first we've heard I think of a

Metaverse Fashion Week, like the equivalent of a London Fashion Week or Paris Fashion Week or New

York Fashion Week. They also mentioned that you NXT here worked with Dolce and Gabbana to launch

their NF T collection. And I don't know, you know, we've talked a little bit about fashion, and the

metaverse colliding. Will we see? Maybe this is a stupid question. But you know what? I've been to a

few fashion weeks here and there around the world. Will we see Vogue covering decentraland Metaverse

Fashion Week?

I think we I think we definitely will. Just because it's so novel. So you know, like

anything else. It's the first of its kind will generally get covered. And, you know, I think we

saw that with with fortnight and some of the concerts they did. It was like the first couple,

it was covered by like the New York Times. And now it's sort of just occurrence that happens in the

game decently frequently. And it's not as big of a public news story. But I do think the first

fashion week in the metaverse is is absolutely going to get coverage because it's just for people

who aren't as ingrained in this world as we are and listeners of this podcast are it it sounds

crazy like it that is a headline that is going to catch people's attention. So I do think it will be

it will be covered. I like this move for decentraland I mean, we I think in prior episodes

we've given dissenter or at least I know I have given decentraland A little bit of hard time and

it hasn't been clear to me what sort of drives people to that platform versus like a Roblox per

se. And I think carving out a niche of fashion is an interesting you know, an interesting one I

think we've seen other Roblox is sort of The Everything Store everything's there. You know,

maybe fortnight has done a good job carving out the music scene a little bit. Obviously, there's a

ton of other things that fortnight they've obviously been forward leading with with new

movies and music, and maybe decentraland can kind of carve out a little bit of a niche of early

adopters here with fashion. So I you know, in terms of risk reward and a business strategy for

decentraland I think this is a very good one, you know, in

a world with $1,000, Balenciaga fortnight hoodies, right, I'll just, I'm hard to

disagree with you on this that, you know, especially going after luxury brands, this may be

by far the most profitable strategy of any sort of Metaverse kind of activation, right? If you can go

and get big designers, big fashion houses, all these luxury brands, I think you're going to

attract an audience who only care to collect Right? Like it doesn't even matter if it has

little utility. And an in like something that was first on the runway for Gucci and decentraland.

Will have buyers like guaranteed because there are people who will buy anything Gucci, right,

anything new, limited novel, whatever. And so your points a good one. I just I'm surprised. No one

else has courted the luxury brands in the same way earlier, right. Because the luxury brands have

shown an affinity to new technologies, right. They've shown that they have budget to try things

the Louie Vitanza the world have done lots of things in gaming, for example, right? Why

can I give it so is it possible? Sorry. Is it possible that it's just about the

demographics of the platform? No, I don't I don't know the specific demographics of decentraland.

But given it's an early adopter kind of crypto gaming blockchain gaming marketplace, I'm guessing

it's a bit of an older, more affluent crowd. Like, I think some of the collabs one of the criticisms

we've had of sort of fortnight and robots when they've done collaborations with luxury brands is

sort of like, is that really the demographic? I know the novelty and you got some press, but is

putting a Gucci collaboration in a game where the average kid is a nine year old boy, like, what

does that really do for you besides saying, Hey, we have a metaphor strategy? Like, is that really

going to sell handbags? And shoes? I'm not convinced. And I'm not sure if the data is out

there yet that that's convincing the CMOS, that, that that's good ROI on that spend. But if you

have something like Central and which may be skews a bit of a different demographic, I could see that

maybe being a reason why you're bringing it in here rather than

there. It's a it's a worthy argument. You know, I think the more and more I

see of this, the more and more I'm starting to believe, though, that I think we underestimate.

And you've I know you exaggerated to make a point, but so I'll exaggerate to make this similar point.

We've underestimated like the nine year old audience in the sense that like, they've grown up

in this, you know, fashion drops supreme Hypebeast kind of culture, right? The latest, their Jordans

or Yeezys or whatever. And, and so, you know, I think the Gucci's of the world, the Dolce and

Gabbana is the, you know, these old fashion houses that are burnt been around for 100 years. Right,

but they want a part of this. I think, in some ways, maybe they want that audience, right. So it

could be that you're absolutely right. It's a question of demographics. And they don't the nine

year olds aren't the buyers. That's the you know, this older more, but it could also just be that

we've completely underestimated those nine year olds.

That is, I mean, that is entirely possible.

I do think, though, that the I guess here's my question is, does decentraland

cornered the market on luxury brands? Right from a Metaverse perspective?

No. And I think I think it may be in the best interest of these luxury brands to only

go to one platform. So I think if this is successful, you'll probably see this in other

platforms. You know, same way we've seen it with music and other platforms as well after fortnight

kind of popularized it. So I don't think they'll be able to this was kind of the question I was

gonna pose to you like, even if this is successful, which we sort of both, it sounds like

think it probably will be in terms of impressions, hype, whatever, news articles, coverage. What what

then happens, a bunch of people go to the central end for these three days or whatever, probably

most of them check out check in the first day, and don't go back. What happens after that, like, does

this grow the user base? Do people do they build like a sort of like a really high end fashion mall

in decentraland? Like, what's, what's the end game? Or what is decentraland? Getting out of

this?

All of the above, but like, if the if the, if the analogy is Paris Fashion Week,

right? Then you're going to do it twice a year, not once a year, right? All the big houses will

have collections twice a year, maybe three times a year, if you throw in a you know, a cruise

collection or something like that. And, and, and, and retail, essentially Metaverse retail to go

along with it. Like, to me, that's it. And this is where I actually kind of think that if

decentraland is first and best with this, it becomes hard to displace a little bit in the same

way. Like, I can't go and create. It's hard to go and create a competitor to New York Fashion Week.

Right? Like, I just can't start that up. And there's a respect among the designers. It's the

biggest show. It's right. Like, no one wants to show at Paul Dawalibi Fashion Week, right? Like,

it's just

you don't know that. I don't know.

But I suspect New York Fashion Week will still be the more the more popular

destination. So in some ways, like, I think one of the criticisms I've had of some of these Metaverse

platforms if you want to call them that is they're not that sticky. Right like I can go create an

account on Roblox and in fortnight and in decentraland and and wherever else and everything

under the sun we want to call even vaguely a Metaverse and move between them use them all

right, there's nothing that really ties me to one Yeah, some network effects because my friends are

here or there but friends easily move to right there's nothing really blocking. This to me is the

start of starting to see some real stickiness right if you can get all the fashion brands there

and this is the only place you can get their goods, their virtual goods and this is the only

place you can see the latest and greatest. Maybe there's the start of something, you know

relatively sticky there.

I see your argument but i don't i don't know that sort of thing. I believe it could

I just think the fashion houses would be incentivized to put their goods in any of these

meta verses, particularly whichever one had the most user. So I'm not, I'm not as convinced that

you would get that customer lock in the question I would have for you. So I agree that there isn't a

ton of stickiness in these meta verses currently. I guess the question I have, obviously that's bad

for them as businesses. But isn't that sort of what we want as the future we see as the metaverse

is probably this multi Metaverse type future where it's Hey, I jumped into Roblox, then I jumped into

decentraland. And I just have this presence that can you know, it kind of comes with me to each

one. Isn't that sort of exactly what we want, or what we

think is going to happen? Yeah, you're in an ideal world. You're right. Actually,

it's a great it's a great counterpoint, right. And then ideal world, you don't want them to be that

sticky. But, but them being interconnected. And interoperable is not at odds with them being

sticky, right? It's like the world has different shopping malls, connected by roads. But I may go

to this one mall, because it has an Apple Store and the other mall doesn't right like that you

could still have stickiness within a specific platform, even if it's totally interconnected with

other platforms. So I see the business benefit of trying to create some stickiness, not just sort of

throwing your hands in the air and saying, hey, you know, we could we'll never be sticky because

this is all going to be one big Metaverse so like,

right? Of course, as businesses they have you know, they're they're obviously trying to

keep people in their metaverse.

Jeff, I can't think of a better way to wrap up the surface of that it was just I feel

like the these episodes fly by. And I hope they're always enjoyable for the people who listen for you

guys who are listening. Just if you love the show, do us a favor. Go leave a review, five star review

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