The DEI challenges that Metaverse platforms faced
In this article, we cover the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues and the related challenges that Metaverse platforms faced
In the recent Davos 2022, World Economic Forum announced a new initiative to build an equitable, interoperable and safe Metaverse. Echoing this initiative, we published this article to address the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) challenges that different Metaverse platforms faced.
Summary:
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are crucial to the Metaverse technologies, for they deeply define the user experience
The design of Metaverse platforms shapes their unique user communities and DEI challenges
The Metaverse platforms may help mitigate DEI issues in the future. However, the premise is that the Metaverse should be built correctly and responsibly
(Photo credit: Tim Mossholder from Unsplash)
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) define user experience
DEI are crucial for the Metaverse platforms because these values are the foundation of a good user experience, the key to making the technology mainstream. A Metaverse platform that lacks inclusivity may give new users a bad first impression. For example, if the first thing that female users encounter is sexual harassment or unpleasant comments about their gender, they may lose the passion to come back to the platform in the future.
The failure to engage certain user groups will hinder the Metaverse platform from building the Network Effect needed to continuously attract mainstream users. From the history of the Internet, we can see how Network Effect plays a vital role to increase the value for people to use the Internet – the increased numbers of users significantly intensify people to keep using it. The same logic applies to the Metaverse, the more people use this technology, the more value that people can perceive from it. People can get a sense of belonging easily as there are more diversified groups. And, the content creators will be more incentify to create as there are more users using the platform.
User communities vary due to Metaverse platforms’ product design
Different Metaverse platforms have different user bases and DEI challenges due to numerous factors: the platforms’ features and functionality, the style, the historical context, the culture among early adopters, and so on. For instance, Rec Room and VRChat have quite different cultures and user groups. VRChat’s flexibility of avatar customization attracts more tech-savvy users who are older, more eager to express themselves, and more interested in social. Unlike VRChat, the style and activities on Rec Room attract more users who are younger and more into gameplay such as paintball and laser tag. Somnium, a Web 3 Metaverse platform, attracts people who are old enough to be interested in investments and collections because of its decentralized finance and NFT functionalities.
DEI challenges for centralized and decentralized Metaverse platforms
Whether a Metaverse platform is centralized or decentralized deeply influences the composition of the user communities, the platform’s culture, and the DEI issues it faces. The table below summarizes the centralized and decentralized Metaverse platforms’ strengths and challenges regarding DEI:
For centralized platforms, the composition of the user community is consciously managed by the cooperates’ holistic business strategies and long-term product roadmap. Roblox’s advertisement is an intriguing combination of different gaming video clips, trying to get gamers who are looking for adventurous and diverse gaming experiences. On the other hand, looking into the advertisement of Meta’s Horizon Worlds, we can see Meta covered different social activities and used avatars of different genders and races to build an image that its platform is for everyone, especially for content creators. As a relatively new Metaverse platform, Meta shows its ambition to embrace mainstream users and determination to catch up with other platforms by explicitly inviting creators to join.
However, centralized Metaverse platforms arouse many users’ concerns as the business model defines the platform’s overall algorithms and functionalities. People are afraid to see the Metaverse platforms act like certain social media applications – in order to maximize the advertising revenue, social media platforms provide provoking but addictive content to increase users’ average time spent on the platforms. Those algorithms are a hotbed for fake news, hate speech, and racism. According to Jaron Lanier, the founder of the field of virtual reality, tech firms should explore new monetization models other than advertisements to remake the Internet. "We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them," he says.
Decentralized platforms seem to be the solution to the problematic Internet culture that we have now – the user community can define how the decentralized platforms grow while the token system gives platform developers and users new ways to make a profit. For platforms like Decentraland, Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), which are formed by users, are in charge of making decisions such as charging fees, token allocation to development efforts, and replacing members who are responsible for tasks such as contract security.
Yet, the decentralized platforms are more likely to attract people who share the same value as the DAO members and existing users. From DEI’s standpoint, the crowdsourced process is hard to plan and execute a holistic and long-term DEI strategy to reach users from various backgrounds. Moreover, the process to fix issues is relatively slow. When things go wrong, it will take a longer time for decentralized platforms to work around. Take Luna’s meltdown as an example, the proposal to save the Terra network from the issues took around 7 days to get alignment from the community. Compared to Web 2 companies’ decision-making speed, this process was not efficient enough for a crisis of this magnitude.
Empathy and freedom: what Metaverse platforms can offer
A well-design Metaverse platform will help people experience lives beyond their own lives and be more empathetic about different people. Users can switch their avatars to learn how it feels like to be another race, gender, and even species. They can interact with people who are normally not in their communities. With all the experiences mentioned above, we can foresee that our future generations will be more empathetic about different groups – it is easier for them to feel the pain and joy of other groups.
Moreover, a good Metaverse platform will give our future generations more freedom to be themselves. For people who are tired of how people treat them because of their identities, they can have a vacation on the Metaverse platforms.
However, the premise of all the above merits is: the Metaverse platforms should be well-designed. The consideration of DEI issues should be embedded from day one.