I played There(https://www.prod.there.com/). I hung out in Second Life, cultivated an area, setup live concerts... It was cool for a year at most. Am I just being old or is the whole idea played out and, even combined with better graphics and 3d goggles, just sort of tedious and boring?
I think VR goggles are like 3D TVs. Around 2019 I made that remark on the blog of some "influencer", and was threatened with a ban. VR headerger is fine if the world keeps you in a small area, like Beat Saber. Moving around in a big world with VR headgear is more of a niche market. Until someone figures out how to make VR a lot better than the current best systems, it will probably remain a niche.
The metaverse needs field of view. Visiting a 3D world through a phone is too cramped. Even laptops are cramped. Nobody wants big desktops any more, even though giant curved screens are now available. Sitting in front of an entertainment sized TV screen with a game controller is more common.
AR is something else. That will be a cross between Facebook, Marshall Brain's Manna, and the Hyperreality video, I suspect.
There is, interestingly, a market for tedious and boring virtual worlds. Second Life has a deal where, if you buy a premium membership for about $100 a year, you get a house in world. Two years ago, they upgraded that, with much nicer unfurnished houses in what looks like a nice American suburban neighborhood. This became quite popular, and they've rented about 60,000 of those houses, building out more and more nicely landscaped areas of suburbia. Users get one of these, furnish it, put up seasonal decorations, have parties and BBQs, and generally go through the motions of TV sitcom suburbia. This seems to appeal to people who can't afford real American suburbia.
Having experienced Oculus, Hololens, and Pokémon Go, I think it’s much more likely people want AR layers on the real world than to have a VR headset on. There’s plenty of evidence people enjoy owning and designing virtual property, but that can happen with AR or on screens (like it does today in FarmVille, Animal Crossing, and Eve Online). There’s evidence people value an avatar that can enter games on their behalf (Mii, Bitmoji, character builders). I don’t see evidence people want a single company to own a metaverse platform… one company just doesn’t have the skills to pull off enough genres of experience.
VR, AR, and the metaverse are separate things
Like in-game advertising in MMOs, it's possible, but not popular.
The proper way to experience it today is via VR.