Next Generation Internet: The Merging of Reality and Virtuality in the Metaverse

The development of the internet, particularly the World Wide Web, is currently hitting its limits—both technically and socio-culturally, as well as economically. A new internet is promised as a solution, one that aims to overcome the boundaries between the real and the virtual world, merging reality and digitality—the metaverse. Technical, semantic, and organizational details are closely intertwined in this context.

But what does this mean upon closer examination? What technical and technolo...