Many have watched the Metaverse Promo from Connect 2021, and come away thoroughly creeped out. While I can relate to that reaction, what kept running through my head were not thoughts of a dystopian future ruled by tech conglomerates, or how Zuckerberg himself looks like he was generated in the Metaverse. Instead, I kept thinking about the complete lack of keyboards in the video.
Sure, there was the occasional keyboard in the background, but in all of the conceptualizations of how the Metaverse will operate, there wasn’t a keyboard to be found. As a fan of clicky, absurdly expensive mechanical keyboards, this is disappointing. If (or when) the Metaverse takes off and people start strapping screens to their faces, what role will our familiar friends play, if any? Will speech to text completely take over, or will typing linger on in the same way that handwriting has through the digital revolution? Surely there will be some niche community of programmers, writers, GNU enthusiasts, and old people who will find the speech to text functionality wanting. Perhaps mechanical keyboards will be the boutique fountain pens of the future, forced into an obscure corner of the metaverse.
I can’t say I have any definitive answers to these questions, but what I can say with certainty is that I’ll cling to my obnoxiously loud, absolute unit of a keyboard, until they strap a screen to my face and drag me into the metaverse kicking and screaming. With the rise in popularity of mechanical keyboards, I’m hoping that I wont be alone.