Which to be clear is not to say that the concept of the metaverse is somehow recent - it's exactly as old as it's made out to be, but the obsession - particularly from SV elites/VCs - seems to have manifested very recently.
One thing that also rubs me the wrong way is that it's nearly always accompanied with cryptocurrency boosterism - even though I see absolutely no reason why NFTs or Bitcoin or Ether or Tether would be a critical part of the metaverse at all. At worst it seems like a transparent attempt to shoehorn something that has proven to have few applications outside of raw speculation, into a concept that might actually be interesting.
The total failure to also acknowledge that depictions of the metaverse are overwhelmingly dystopian is also alarming. I have some willingness to believe that a virtual universe could be a benefit to people - but "let's recreate Snow Crash!" is... not that.