Metaverse for the People: An international comparison of user preferences

When talking about the future of the internet, there is not getting around the metaverse. Many big digital players have been working on it and Facebook even adjusted its company name accordingly. However, the technological realization and functional features are still vague. Recently performed research on customer preferences yielded different results for the same population questioned in a similar period of time. Thus, there is much uncertainty both on the end-user side and the developer side. This paper gives insights into the demands and requirements of the people from Germany, the USA und China for the metaverse in a comparative way based on a representative survey. This helps developers to configure the metaverse appropriately. This paper also comprehensively highlights possible social, economic and ecological effects of a significant diffusion of the metaverse from the user perspective and thus builds the foundation for the future discourse