Like any place in Reality, the Street is subject to development. Developers can
build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build
buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality, such as
vast hovering overhead light shows, special neighborhoods where the rules of
three-dimensional spacetime are ignored, and free-combat zones where people can
go to hunt and kill each other.
The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it's just
a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere -- none
of these things is being physically built. They are, rather, pieces of
software, made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network.
When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings
and electric signs stretching off into the darkness, disappearing over the curve
of the globe, he is actually staring at the graphic representations -- the user
interfaces -- of a myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered
by major corporations. In order to place these things on the Street, they have
had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group, have had to buy
frontage on the Street, get zoning approval, obtain permits, bribe inspectors,
the whole bit. The money these corporations pay to build things on the Street
all goes into a trust fund owned and operated by the GMPG, which pays for
developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist.
Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. it
is a very old neighborhood by Street standards. About ten years ago, when the
Street protocol was first written, Hiro and some of his buddies pooled their
money and bought one of the first development licenses, created a little
neighborhood of hackers. At the time, it was just a little patchwork of light
amid a vast blackness. Back then, the Street was just a necklace of
streetlights around a black ball in space.
Since then, the neighborhood hasn't changed much, but the Street has. By
getting in on it early, Hiro's buddies got a head start on the whole business.
Some of them even got very rich off of it.
That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-
30 in Reality. Real estate acumen does not always extend across universes.
build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build
buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality, such as
vast hovering overhead light shows, special neighborhoods where the rules of
three-dimensional spacetime are ignored, and free-combat zones where people can
go to hunt and kill each other.
The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it's just
a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere -- none
of these things is being physically built. They are, rather, pieces of
software, made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network.
When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings
and electric signs stretching off into the darkness, disappearing over the curve
of the globe, he is actually staring at the graphic representations -- the user
interfaces -- of a myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered
by major corporations. In order to place these things on the Street, they have
had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group, have had to buy
frontage on the Street, get zoning approval, obtain permits, bribe inspectors,
the whole bit. The money these corporations pay to build things on the Street
all goes into a trust fund owned and operated by the GMPG, which pays for
developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist.
Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. it
is a very old neighborhood by Street standards. About ten years ago, when the
Street protocol was first written, Hiro and some of his buddies pooled their
money and bought one of the first development licenses, created a little
neighborhood of hackers. At the time, it was just a little patchwork of light
amid a vast blackness. Back then, the Street was just a necklace of
streetlights around a black ball in space.
Since then, the neighborhood hasn't changed much, but the Street has. By
getting in on it early, Hiro's buddies got a head start on the whole business.
Some of them even got very rich off of it.
That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-
30 in Reality. Real estate acumen does not always extend across universes.
( Neal Stephenson )
[ Snow Crash ]
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