For the next generation of the internet, i.e. Metaverse, Augmented Reality devices are primed to be our everyday device over Virtual Reality devices – here is why:

Virtual Reality is Fundamentally Limited

Replacing our environment and taking us to a new world is a hard problem. You must trick all human perceptions to create a fully immersive experience.

🧭 Out of Context

Virtual reality is designed to take you out of context, hence requires dedicated space and time. Much like an Opera show and less like a Podcast. This limits its applications to use cases where you want to be fully immersed in digital media. Whereas in AR, digital media is added to your world keeping you in the context.

🤪 Hard for Humans

Unfortunately or fortunately, two million years of human evolution doesn't make it easy to escape our real world. Unless all our five senses are intercepted, we are forced to maintain two mental models of the world: One of the physical world and other of the virtual world. Both models are competing in our head causing cognitive load. Whereas in AR, there is a single mental model of the world.

🤖 Hard for Machines

Virtual Reality takes up the challenge to replace all human perceptions. Not only do we need sophisticated hardware to render the environment, but the system needs to react within 10 milliseconds for a real-time experience. No wonder all "mini-verses" today look like they are right out of a cartoon. Whereas in AR, there are comparatively fewer high-fidelity expectations, and you could render partial overlays. AR is hard too, but in a different way.

Finally ask yourself, do you really want to live most of your life in a VR driven metaverse? If the answer is no for most of us, it won't happen.