Meta, Microsoft and Other Tech Giants Say They Want an Open Metaverse—Should We Believe Them?

On Tuesday, 35 technology companies—among them $Meta Platforms(META.US)$, $Microsoft(MSFT.US)$ , $Alibaba(BABA.US)$ , and $Sony(SONY.US)$ —announced their founding membership in an organization calling itself the Metaverse Standards Forum.
The Forum’s stated goal: to foster coordination and cooperation among the hundreds of companies currently jockeying to create (or depending who you ask, dominate) the still-nascent metaverse: an immersive collection of digital spaces and worlds navigated via 3D avatars that many see as the future of the internet.
These tech giants claim they have banded together to set standards toward creating an “open and inclusive metaverse.” But their counterparts in the world of Web3 blockchain.