Second Life is funny - I commented to a friend the other day that the place seemed to get overrun by genitals (not my exact wording.... ROFL) and casinos. I actually worked for a company that got a bit into Second Life back in the day (we made an official port of Tringo to a TV set-top-box games service).
I got the sense that Second Life couldn’t outgrow prims. They were great when bandwidth was low, but game graphics just overtook Second Life and kept going. Content creation was really fun though, especially the collaborative aspect.
I haven’t checked it out in a few years actually. Impressive to hear it’s still going, though it’s a shame they couldn’t really jump into VR when the Oculus Rift came out. I vaguely remember something about a VR client, but can’t even recall if it was officially supported. I always remember wondering where they were and why they didn’t seem more prominent. It seemed like VR was what something like Second Life was waiting for, yet they never came to the party. I got Linden’s other experimental thing on Steam (Patterns) and then it disappeared before I got around to really trying it.
I’d add AltspaceVR, Bigscreen, VRChat and Rec Room to your list of what’s currently happening in ‘metaverse-like’ things. As a user I find AltspaceVR frustrating as I’m never quite sure when events are on in my local time-zone. Stuff ends up being on at odd hours and I never seem to catch it. Or something seems promising but then you realise most of the people there are kids and it’s off-putting. As for Bigscreen, it’s great for hanging out with friends occasionally. Never really got into VRChat much, but it seems very much ‘Second Life’ in a lot of ways. I haven’t tried ‘Rec Room’ myself but have heard complaints that it’s been overrun by kids.
The hardest thing though is finding friends that have VR headsets and that are willing to install any of these apps and go to the trouble of setting up accounts. In this sense I think Facebook Horizon will have an advantage over the others when it does finally become available (it’s not the only one that lets you use an existing account; I remember being able to use my Oculus account for one of the others but can’t remember which one off the top of my head).
I also still find that I feel an inertia to entering VR, despite owning an Oculus Quest and being really enthusiastic about it. It’s just easier to pick up my phone and play something on a whim. VR still requires more effort and I think it’s just the isolation from everything that makes it feel like that. Especially when you’re in a place with other people. It feels weird isolating yourself around everyone else, at least for me.