  Motivated by the recently proposed de Sitter swampland conjecture, a formally
same condition imposed instead on the convex and real exact effective potential
is contemplated. Compared to the original conjecture, the modified condition
admits a broader class of low-energy effective theories such as those with
local maxima and/or false de Sitter vacua with some restrictions, as long as
there is an anti-de Sitter vacuum. The observed accelerating expansion of the
universe might therefore be attributed to a quintessence or a metastable
vacuum. The former solution can be simplified and thus better compatible with
phenomenological constraints thanks to the convexity of the effective
potential. Among the latter class of solutions is found the enthralling
possibility that the modified condition is in fact behind the experimentally
favoured metastability of the Higgs potential with an instability scale below
or around the Planck scale.
