The digital Wild West: on social entrepreneurship in extended reality

Purpose Our central thesis is that the dynamic, immersive and agile nature of extended reality (XR) both provides an unusually fertile ground for the development of alternative forms of governance and essentially necessitates this development by contrast with relatively inagile institutions of public governance. Design/methodology/approach I take an epistemologically aware, systems-theoretic perspective in my analysis to properly tease out the relevant micro-, meso- and macro-structures; their direct interactions; and their entanglements. Findings The challenges presented by rapidly advancing XR may require much more agile forms of governance than are available from public institutions, even under widespread algorithmic governance. Social entrepreneurship in blockchain solutions may very well be able to meet some of these challenges, as we show. Originality/value There are very few systems-aware, epistemological analyses of social entrepreneurship utilizing algorithms versus public algorithmic governance and none that focus on how these two channels of social action interact with developments in XR.