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The fact that there still isn& #39;t a good VR analogue of the web is baffling to me. I don& #39;t mean a browser in 3d space, but a standardized, decentralized protocol and runtime for VR experiences. It& #39;s kind of unfathomable that it hasn& #39;t happened. [1/n]
Back in 2006 or 2007, I started work on my first attempt to solve it. It was XMPP-based, designed all around multiplayer interactions. Frankly, it was a terrible Second Life clone, but Decentralized 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="™️" title="Registered-Trade-Mark-Symbol" aria-label="Emoji: Registered-Trade-Mark-Symbol">. I& #39;ve done a couple iterations since then, but never got anywhere. [2/n]
I love working on @GrinningSoulEmu and I think it& #39;s going to help a lot of people, but more than that, I hope it lets me bootstrap a company. One that lets me play around with emulation research (my hobby) and eventually build this VR analogue. [3/n]
The fundamental structure of my idea hasn& #39;t changed in the ~15 years and neither has the codename: Microcosm. Much as you use a browser and it talks HTTP to a web server and gets back code and resources and renders that, you use a browser/viewer to talk to a Cosm. [4/n]
Unlike a web browser, though, your browser would have its own Cosm server providing your Home. There, you could customize your avatars, decorate, host friends, install apps, etc. All in a standard form with strong security constraints. This is, in effect, building a new OS. [5/n]
But because it& #39;s just another Cosm, you could decouple the two. You could write your own viewer/browser but borrow someone else& #39;s Home server, or vice versa. Users could mix and match too, but I don& #39;t think the average user would. [6/n]
The thing is, designing this system isn& #39;t *that* hard. Neither is building any one component. It& #39;s the fact that you need a whole ecosystem for it to be useful; much like a new OS. Embedding a browser is a cheap hack that would help, but at that point there& #39;s not much new. [7/n]
This is what I see as necessary for a real MVP of this idea. Maybe some can be very primitive or scrapped entirely, but I& #39;m pretty sure most of these are hard requirements to even get a 1% market share among internet users. [8/n]
Protocol + standard for code (CIL?), a browser, a Home, a single-user Cosm (no "multiplayer"), a multiuser Cosm, a 3d editor/texture editor, useful frameworks for building apps, a search engine, an ad market (sigh...), a game engine and editor, a payment system, [9/n]
A web browser, libraries for automatic level of detail adjustment (the same Cosm should work on phones up, typically), a marketplace for objects/apps/tools/avatars, avatar builders, and so much more. Jesus. This is the first time I& #39;ve enumerated them. [10/n]
Now, not all of this has to be built by one team or even one company. Hell, it *shouldn& #39;t* be. But how do you even get enough people to invest their time and resources into building this? I feel like there are only two reasonable options: [11/n]
Option 1: Be CEO of Google/Facebook. Choose this as your direction, build the core and then spin up teams to build the most valuable pieces. This is exactly the approach I don& #39;t want to dominate this kind of platform, but well... It& #39;s an effective one. [12/n]
Option 2, the Linus approach: In your naivete, drop a semi-working codebase on a mailing list for fun, and get lucky when more people than just you care about it. This can& #39;t be built by one person, but it could be started by one. The ecosystem can evolve itself. [13/n]
I genuinely think that something *very* much like this is the future many of us have been waiting for. But it feels like no one is building that future. I know people are building VR worlds, but that just feels like building Second Life 2020. [14/n]
