Would you ever join the Metaverse? I know I wouldn’t. If I wanted to immerse myself in an “alternate world” I’d go read a book. But if I really had some burning desire to live out my “meta” life, I’d download the SIMS or go play on my Animal Crossing’s Island for a while (which I have been known to do from time to time). I would never create an alternate version of myself and use valuable energy trying to create a new life in a fake world. Why would I do that, when I could put all that energy toward a real, and tangible life here on real earth?
I get it that there are people out there who are introverts and want to explore having more social freedom and they find that easier by role-playing. But I would encourage those people to get some therapy to try and conquer their fears, so they can try out the real world. Tt’s not as bad as they might think. Well, it is really bad if you live in a liberal-run city, other than that, it’s okay.
Besides, according to some new data, things in the Metaverse aren’t going so well, and it’s a very lonely place. It looks like there’s some controversy over their active users, with some data showing as little as 38 “active users” a day.
Yikes.
But of course, the platform disagrees with these horrifying numbers, as I’d imagine they would.
Coin Desk is wondering what the heck is going on in the metaverse these days? Looking at two of the biggest companies with over $1 billion valuations, one data point suggests that users may not be returning every day. According to data aggregator DappRadar, the Ethereum-based virtual world Decentraland had 38 “active users” in the past 24 hours, while competitor The Sandbox had 522 “active users” in that same time.
It’s important to note that an active user, according to DappRadar, is defined as a unique wallet address’ interaction with the platform’s smart contract. For example, logging onto The Sandbox or Decentraland to make a purchase with SAND or MANA, each platform’s respective native utility token, is counted as an “active use.”
This means that DappRadar’s compilation of daily “active users” doesn’t count people who simply log in and interact with other users on a metaverse platform or drop in briefly for an event, such as a virtual fashion week. It also may mean that fewer transactions, like buying or selling a non-fungible token (NFT), take place on these platforms than the number of people that visit.
The largest number of daily “active users” ever on Decentraland was 675, according to DappRadar. For The Sandbox, that number was larger at about 4,503.
Sam Hamilton, Creative Director at Decentraland, disputed the way DappRadar tracks daily “active users” on the platform. “DappRadar doesn’t track our users, only people interacting with our contracts,” he told CoinDesk, adding that the platform had 8,000 users on average per day, though he did not specify what makes an “active use” versus a more passive interaction. He noted that while Decentraland saw peak attendees in March, the number of “tourists and spectators” has since cooled down. “We are finding the core community of people returning every day is growing.”
According to Hamilton, the number of users on Decentraland can be more accurately observed by looking at a dashboard built by the platform’s community. The data measures “unique visitors per day” and looks at different periods of time between 7, 14, 30 and 90 days. From Oct. 3-9, the platform averaged 6,999 “unique visitors per day.” The same data tool measures the number of “parcels visited per day” and “marathon users,” which it defines as users with the most online time.
Following the publication of this article, Decentraland tweeted that it saw “1,074 users interacting with smart contracts” in September. It also logged 56,697 “monthly active users,” noting that the Decentraland Foundation’s definition of an “active user” is “people who login and then move out of a parcel.” It added that “there might be discrepancies between DCL Metrics and Foundation data.”
So, the bottom line is that there’s a big discrepancy about what an “active user” is, okay, fine.
But the fact that we’re even having THIS particular conversation about “active users” and how the platform is doing, proves that the Metaverse is a huge big flop thus far and I personally think it will continue to be a massive failure. I really don’t see how this will catch on and be a big thing. Maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?
This post originally appeared on WayneDupree.com.