Opt-in Interop

Creators rights in the age of open standards for interoperability.

Readers of my newsletter know that I am big on bringing your own Metaverse Avatar. I have dreamt of interoperable inventory for the metaverse for ten years. I spend my free time as a chair and facilitator at the Open Metaverse Interoperability Group, and regularly explore ways to make the Metaverse more interoperable.

Thing is, I believe open source should be the default, but I don’t believe open standards should be forced on anyone. Creators who refuse to allow you to bring your own avatars shouldn’t be shamed. It’s their desired artistic direction. If a designer is building a cel-shaded world and requires that you re-skin your avatar to enter, that is their right.

At OMI one of our core values relates to the freedom of choice and severability of the protocols we co-create. Essentially, we do not want to see OMI become the very thing we fought in the first place, forcing future implementers to adopt all of our protocols in order to leverage one of our protocols. The walled-garden methodology of locking you in under the guise of “convenience” isn’t our style.

I am an avid champion of Metaverse Interoperability. Maybe I should say I am a fiercely passionate advocate of Metaverse Interoperability through open standards. I loathe the startups working in “stealth,” who believe others will actually use their proprietary “standards” for interoperability. It simply won’t work, and it’s a waste of time, money, and a muddler of the intended value propositions of interoperability in the first place. Interoperability is not a moat, interoperability is a series of bridges.

Let’s say you’re building a virtual World

You are building a new Metaverse platform that will allow users to explore various virtual lands in a Medieval-themed Virtual World. You have chosen an art style resembling old comic books, and although there will be magic and dragons in your World, you really don’t want to see aliens, lasers, or anything “cyberpunk” inspired in your world. It simply wouldn’t fit with what you are going for.

Users in your world ask if they can bring their own VRM avatar. You do the research and decide it wouldn’t be too difficult to implement in your platform. Next, users ask if they can bring their own wearables and items. A new protocol has been theoretically released that helps standardize inventory across Metaverse platforms. Users are begging you to implement so they can bring their favorite swords, and robes with them to this Medieval World. Next, users want to bring their AI companions with them. They insist on you enabling pets in the world, which leverages something like this open standard for AI interoperability in Metaverse avatars.

Ok so you are allowing users to bring their own avatars, and their own items, and now they want to bring pets. You’ve decided that the neon-yellow bananas you see running around shooting each other with guns made of pringle cans, just aren’t what you had in mind for this Medieval virtual World. You regret your decision, and decide to impose some restrictions:

• you can bring your own avatar if it is a Wizard, a Knight, or a Fairy. You will also have to process your avatar through our theming tool which will convert your avatar to match the style of this World (old comic book cel-shading style).

• you can bring your own items, but no lasers, no spaceships, and no electricity.

• you can not bring AI companions.

I imagine users may come to like bringing their own pringle cannon. They may even get pissed off that you are saying they can’t bring their AI companion with them. The radical open-metaverser may even revolt, crying out from the metaverse mountain tops that you are “not open,” and therefore not worthwhile.

Interoperability is not a moat, interoperability is a series of bridges.

Imagine being this creator, and feeling shame for the thing you tried to build. Imagine feeling forced to ruin the story you wanted to tell, in the name of feeling “open”. This is why we need Metaverse protocols to be severable. If you could allow wearables only if you also enable AI pets, and Avatars you may decide against open standards entirely. Similarly, if you can only bring all items or no items, this may also complicate things. If you are an artist building a virtual world that is medieval-themed and you don’t want lasers ruining your intended experience, you should be able to toggle off lasers, but maybe toggle on all other medieval-related items.

This is the future I am advocating for. One where the value propositions of the creator, the user, and the business align. Shame the creator, and they will reject interoperability. Make it too limited for the user, and they will reject interoperability. Make it void of all business value, and they will reject the implementation of interoperability. The balance is delicate enough, and this is why we should work together.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far!

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