You aren't the first. You aren't the only.

Wearables, Avatars, and traversal demand interoperability.

I have long dissuaded founders from believing that they are the “first,” or the “only” Metaverse company that does X. Being first is not a value proposition. Assuming you are the only person with your idea is ignorant. Trying to patent fundamental Metaverse requirements like inventory and avatars is disgusting. Misusing the term “open source” is even worse. Get it together Metaverse, we are supposed to be on the same team here.

For the record: An emergent type of founder understands the value proposition of interoperability and open source as it relates to the Metaverse. More specifically, how it relates to the open metaverse. “Open” is another term that keeps getting bastardized by wicked people, and again, I promise you I will write about that someday.

You see choosing to be open, means that more people can contribute to your code, and benefit from its utility. For founders who are ballin’ on a budget, external support can be a Godsend. When others outside of yourself feel a sense of ownership, or responsibility, for the success of your product: everybody wins. Especially, when you are building a platform depending on both builders and end-users.

This gets abused by wicked founders when they decide that they no longer want their code to be open source. They may feel protective of the work, threatened by outside contributors, or maybe they just forgot what they set out to do in the first place. Regardless, if you mark your code as open source, under the MIT license, it’s open source under the MIT license. You loved it when you were getting free help, but now that you see a profit opportunity you are welching on your promises: let’s not get cocky here, you can still fail spectacularly.

This brings me to the main point of this article. If your project is an “open source inventory system,” set out to stick it to the man (Facebook/Google) and you rally a bunch of indies to support you - you should be mindful of what you are building. Just because you were "first” in your mind to build that inventory system, that doesn’t mean you will be the only inventory system. Ego is a bitch, and people will always think they can do it better than you. If you betray your builders by flip-flopping on your open-source claims, you are really digging your own grave.

Furthermore, with Metaverse avatars, there will never be one company and just one company allowing you to create Metaverse avatars. We have been creating our own character at the start of adventure games for decades, and your idea for “yeah the same thing but this time it’s for the Metaverse,” is not novel. Your panic to be first distracted you from the real quest to be the best. While ReadyPlayerMe is busy building bridges with new partners, you are busy creating noise, panicking, and attacking others. Suck it up and keep building.

The claim that you are the first Metaverse Avatar system, will be usurped by a new group of devs claiming to be the first Metaverse Avatar system for devs by devs. This will inevitably bring the rise of the designer-founder who claims the first Human-Centered Metaverse Avatar system designed for real people. Naturally, the legacy behemoths will see all this noise about Avatar systems, and push out the first Metaverse Avatar system that will actually make you money on our marketplace and our massive user base. It doesn’t end. The same can be applied to file formats, platforms, and standards bodies (the open-open standards, the web3 standards body variant, the big-corp standards forum, the foundation with a lot of money in the bank standards body, the collective of companies based in Japan standards body, etc.). The more the merrier, if we work together. If we interoperate.

It is easier to put blinders on and assume that because your foundation has money, you should be the new standards body leading the charge. Or because you have a massive social network of users, you should be the standard for Metaverse traversal. Or because you built a new Layer 1 chain - you should be the default for the web3 side of the Metaverse.

The only way this works out for you, and your competitors is if you are interoperable, or compatible with other systems. If you are on-chain, are you integrating with off-chain? If you are building a new platform, do your files work in other platforms? The bottom line is if your avatars only work in your platform, they are not interoperable. If your wearables only work in Meta Horizons, because you were so enamored with their existing user base, you are really making Meta richer and delivering minimal user value. It’s actually relatively easy to become interoperable when you are building from scratch. This is why indies band together to collaborate on efforts like the Open Metaverse Interoperability Group since March of 2021.

Even if you succeed in launching a proprietary Avatar builder, nobody will use it if they don’t like you or trust you. If you launch something as open source, tweet about it as open source, attack big companies to get attention, but then ultimately welch on your open source promise: nobody will like you or trust you.

I met with a Founder a few weeks ago who is building a new “interoperable game engine.” This is not the first founder I have met who is building something like this. When asked, it really came down to a proprietary file format they created. Their entire business model was predicated on being able to lock people into a proprietary file format. As if others have never thought of that. As if the people building the open Metaverse with a focus on Interoperability wouldn’t notice that. Again, if your goal is to build an interoperable game engine, you should consult with those who are building in the interoperability space.

For the record, that founder left the call having learned a lesson and vowed to revisit their business model. If your goal is to convince people who don’t know better that you are the best solution for interoperability, then your goal is to trick, not actually be interoperable. Pay attention.

I grow weary of the people who think they can trick others. Claiming to be the first, misusing the term open, twisting the definition of interoperability - it’s all getting treated like diabolical warfare and that mindset is not what will make us successful. Furthermore, for as long as I live, I will shine a flashlight on your true intentions, because that is where I feel a sense of ownership, or responsibility, for the success of the Metaverse. This isn’t a passing fad for me, and I encourage you to think long term. Once again, the Metaverse is always watching, and the Metaverse never forgets.

Keep building, but be intentional.

Thank you for reading this far!

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notes: the artwork here is AI assisted. No written content was AI assisted.