OVR: The case for Build-to-Earn
The OVR team recently decided to give 10% of land sales back to 10 random buyers each month.
Although that makes for a sexy headline, and might make some investors buy a couple more lands, my take is that is alienating the core community, that see random people being rewarded while they struggle trying to make a living out of OVR, and not the best possible usage of additional funds.
We need to remind ourselves that OVRLands are worthless without content on them. The whole OVR bet is that one day many use-cases for AR will flourish: art, live performances, retail, events, information, advertisement, gaming etc. However this is something new, and a lot of experimenting will be required. Enterprise-level AR might jump on board the OVR Metaverse, but they will be the last to do so, the same way big companies were the last on Facebook. So the OVR Metaverse need to thrive before them, because it will be built by the community.
I think the smarter way to use these funds is to support the people making content for the lands. Currently most of them are amateurs with a DIY mindset, a few freelance types and small companies considering making the move towards a complete Metaverse transition. This ecosystem is getting more professional and connected by the day, but this transition could be greatly accelerated with the proper help.
In the end, supporting the people making content for the lands is smarter, because this is what will make land prices go up. You don’t want the Metaverse to be barren, empty like the OVR and so many other currently are (hello Somnium Space).
There are several ways to do that and OVR already tried a few: treasure hunts, random money giveaways and content competitions. All of those are creating a gambling scene, not a work ecosystem.
Content competitions are better, but the problem is that they only profit a very few. They make good headlines, but are not helping building an ecosystem of Metaverse builders:
OVR needs to help the average content builder to make a living out of OVR. The 3D designer, avatar maker, animator, architect, world builder, musician, sound designer, and Unity developer should make a killing out of OVR, and talk to all his talented friends about it. That’s how you build a thriving Metaverse.
There are many ways to do this. For example, one solution would be to automatically give the ~60 000 excess OVR fairly to the OVRLands with the most views and interaction.
Give 100 OVR each months to 600 builders, not 6000 OVR to 10 random people.
In other words, we need a Build-to-Earn layer that will incentivize great talents to build the AR Metaverse OVR is envisioning.
The details of such a Build-to-Earn needs to be fleshed out of course, to be fair and efficient. NFTs will probably play a big role in that (making NFTs out of scenes and remunerating views).
I really believe in OVR’s vision and see it growing on a daily basis. OVR might one day become a DAO, it’s up to us to create together the conditions for our project to succeed!
Cheers from Thailand,
Lester paints the world, AR artist
