Balancing Against Unfair Practices of Centralized Platforms

Centralized platforms can harm user interests through asymmetric advantages in rules. In the internet era, we have observed that centralized platforms, leveraging their traffic dominance and asymmetric rule advantages, often exploit users to some extent. By relying on the opacity of rules in internet application services and making incremental adjustments to serve their own interests, they skew overall profits toward the platform side.

As a large platform hosting human virtual activities, the metaverse naturally tends toward monopolization in terms of traffic. A metaverse business model dominated by centralized platforms will inevitably lead to larger-scale monopolies and control—an outcome even harder to accept than internet monopolies and detrimental to the long-term development of the metaverse. From a technical perspective, centralized solutions for computing, storage, and communication are already mature, efficient, and secure. So, is a decentralized approach necessary? How can security and efficiency be ensured in a decentralized system? The key lies in finding a balance within the "decentralization, security, efficiency" trilemma.

The development of blockchain projects has revealed a trend: user assets and information no longer need to be recorded on content-providing platforms but can instead be encrypted and stored on the underlying blockchain. Under this model, content platforms cannot monopolize user data or claim interpretive authority over users' virtual rights; they simply provide platform services. Through smart contracts, decentralized operation of platform rules can be achieved. Just as Dapps use on-chain smart contracts to execute key logic in a decentralized manner, solving trust issues in certain scenarios.

Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games and father of the Unreal Engine, once said: "The metaverse will be more pervasive and powerful than anything else. If one central company gains control over this, they will become more powerful than any government and essentially a god on Earth." The metaverse is a massive platform, and blockchain technology can solve its decentralized value transfer and collaboration issues, addressing the monopoly problem of centralized platforms.

Although the vision of the metaverse is still some distance away, the trend is already underway. The metaverse may become the "culmination" of the next wave of technological innovation, serving as the next stage of the internet.