In Governing the Metaverse and tomorrow’s internet, Renaissance Numérique intentionally avoids an exhaustive exploration of the Metaverse’s applications. The lack of consensus around a universally agreed-upon definition for this concept opens up a vast number of potential uses, making it difficult to encompass all of them within the scope of this report, unless it were specifically dedicated to that purpose. This report does not set out to do that, as this has already been addressed by other sources.

There are, however, a number of learnings that can be shared about the use of metaverses for the wider public (or Business to Consumer – BtoC [[[Refers to commercial relationships between companies and consumers (or individuals).]]] ):

• Although statistics do exist, it is often complicated to ensure that they are reliable, since their sources and calculation methods may differ.
• There are not many actual applications of metaverses, as described in this report. Consequently, the applications are more often presented on the supply side than on the demand side; and although a few studies on the representations of the Metaverse do exist (in particular those carried out by the CNC and by Renaissance Numérique in 2023), we have little insight into the actual practices that users adopt within these universes. As a result, the mentioned uses are often theoretical possibilities rather than real-world implementations, and discussions about the (potential) applications of the Metaverse often serve as prescribers.

• The potential uses of the Metaverse often relate to the fields of entertainment (video games, viewing immersive 360° videos), culture (virtual tours, virtual or live stream concerts, artistic productions, etc.), education (training) and socialisation (meeting people, communicating, playing together, etc.).
• Many of the applications presented as innovative have already been tested or experimented with in the past. All too often, the promoters of the Metaverse ignore the past in terms of uses and user experiences. For example, if artists in 2023 are still boasting about being the first to offer immersive, interactive, and 3D musical events in the Metaverse, we should remember the exploratory and innovative experiments that the city of Rennes and the Rencontres Trans Musicales festival have been offering with mixed reality concerts since 2007.

• However, in contrast to previous years, the user experience can now be influenced by a range of factors, including the advances of immersive devices such as virtual or mixed reality headsets, of user interfaces, and the massification of online experiences, which is changing both collective and social interactions.