In March 2021, some 30 years after the first website went live, we published our tech-driven macrotrend Alternet Economies. As the year went along and the world witnessed the dawn of the metaverse – an alternative universe of fledgling virtual spaces – this trend grew in prominence.
Even before Facebook's Meta announcement in autumn, we were exploring the intersection between digital and societal change, tracking how the established hierarchies of the internet were being subverted by novel economic systems. With data showing that, in the US, 85% of consumers believe that big tech had too much power, the answer for many lay in Web3, as well as the metaverse and user-owned platforms that comprise it (source: Accountable Tech).
To survive in this fluctuating landscape in 2022, brands and media must become open-source providers – offering the tools, assets and services needed to empower a new generation to prosper within this more equitable version of cyberspace. Rather than products, the modes of commerce in the future will trade on participation.