Second Life is probably the most successful metaverse to date. Probably in large part because people could do things like create flocks of flying dicks.
Flying dicks or no, it was a soul-destroyingly tedious hellscape of people acting out shallow lifestyle compulsions and grifting for lindens.
Fun was very much not part of the deal.
Or hosting entire conventions (furry conventions are non-profit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKd1ZL4K5Q
https://www.youtube.com/@Furality
Second Life does have some oddball worlds, but they're mostly abandoned art projects that vanish when the owner's card finally declines.
It results in very particular looks because prim counts are limited and the parameters are not flexible enough. So you get things that look like this:
https://www.s-config.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Rio...
The point of prims is that they're mathematically generated. You have something that says "Sphere of radius 5, colored green and squished by 20%". Then the client generates the geometry for that, and so it's very easy to vary the level of detail as needed.
If it doesn't conform to your ideas about what a metaverse is, or something that Vannevar Bush or Neal Stephenson pictured, that's a reflection on how your own prejudices don't match reality.
I watched a talk by a guy who seemed genuinely enthusiastic about reading existing code and rewriting it for scalability. I guess my point is if Facebook could give second life money and not exert control / strangle second life people it might work but knowing facebook, that’s not possible.
I literally bought my first Cryptocoins with linden dollars I earned trough reselling in second life. Great times :D
Unlike Second Life, everyone doesn't play in one single instance. But there are multiple different notions of replication and simultaneity between players. For example, there are lots of different servers, some with persistent universes, but many with unlimited replicable throwaway universes. Some shared universes are highly coordinated for specific purposes. People play using each other random seeds thereby using parallel universes with identical starting configurations.
Arguably this is simply how artificial experiences in information space should happen, and the notions of things like monolithic instances or scarcity of 'land' are simply carry-overs from physical space.
Humanity has spent so long scrabbling for scarce resources that we have a hard time even conceiving of systems that are built around abundance. See also DRM and NFTs, which are shamefully evil attempts to re-impose scarcity on post-scarce resources.