I created our lab's first email, gopher, and web servers in the late 80s and early 90s on a PC that had been built off-the-books from parts. Often, we did so on computers we had put together from spare parts. Those of us who used it found these tools on our own time, installed them on our own time, built our own sites on our own time, etc. My organization provided no support for us to develop or utilize these tools beyond providing the connection. More importantly, there were many competing ideas at the time for standards to use in data sharing over the internet and most of us who were using and choosing between them were doing so on our own time. Much of the starting work was done just to try to get some funding support from the organization.
It was just a side thing to support other projects that were the purpose of the organizations. Though the people who came up with http and html (what most people think of, wrongly, when we say "internet") were in big organizations, it was not the purpose of those organizations to do it. They were making a bet that we wouldn't leave as soon as we were really ready to contribute. It was then up to the organization to give us the resources to do the real learning over the next few years. They knew that people came out of college with the tools to learn what they needed to know, not with what they needed to know. At the organization I was in during the late 80s, we could even raid the parts crib.
In those days, we (yes I was in one of those big organizations) had a lot of freedom to play using organizational resources during our free time. But there are concerns Facebook and a handful of other Silicon Valley giants would end up monopolizing the metaverse and use it to collect and profit from personal data, mirroring the situation now with the internet. There's only going to be one metaverse," said Tuong Nguyen, an analyst who tracks immersive technologies for research firm Gartner.
"There's not going to be specific metaverses to specific companies. Other players include Fortnite maker Epic Games, which has raised $1 billion from investors to help with its long-term plans for building the metaverse. The social network isn't the only one working on the metaverse, and Facebook acknowledged that no single company will own and operate it. The metaverse essentially is a massive virtual world that can be accessed in real time by millions of people using avatars, who can use it to hold virtual meetings or buy virtual land and clothing or other digital assets, often paying with cryptocurrencies. The company as of June reported having more than 63,000 employees worldwide, up 21% from the same time last year. Facebook's recruiters are targeting Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Ireland for the hiring drive. "As we begin the journey of bringing the metaverse to life, the need for highly specialized engineers is one of Facebook's most pressing priorities," according to the blog post from Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs, and Javier Olivan, vice president of central products. Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next big thing after the mobile internet, though their track record is spotty on predicting future trends. The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build "the metaverse," a futuristic notion for connecting online that uses augmented and virtual reality. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: Facebook said it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform that promises to connect people virtually but could raise concerns about privacy and the social platform gaining more control over people's online lives.