I agree, it is not so different from second life, and this is what makes it scary.
You may think second life was a failure because it never caught on mainstream, but in many ways second life was a huge success. Many many people spent an insane amount of time in second life. Major companies, political parties, art museums, and other “real life” institutions setup shop in second life. You could get a job there building stuff, selling land or being a journalist publishing in second life. I read somewhere that a second life real estate agent became a usd millionaire from buying selling virtual land.
Some people just got totally sucked in. I met a woman who told me she would spend so many hours on it that she didn’t take proper care of her kids. She seemed like someone who was having a hard time in real life, and she found a great escape on SL. It was so easy to make friends, and the exploration of the world was endless.
Immersion was definitely a key to its success. It was good enough to make the player feel stuff. Sit around a fire on a beach at sunset would be soothing. Walking around a Western town would kind of stress you out. It worked.
It’s not for everyone for sure. But what’s scary is that the metaverse is going to pray on the weak, on people with insecurities, on the lonely and the elderly. People who can’t walk in real life are going to fly over cities with birds and meet similarly lonely people. What’s going to happen when they unplug?
Healthy individuals already experience some withdrawal from VR, saying things like “real life is dull compared to what I can do in VR”.
Now, of all companies, the one doing it has a history of optimizing for “time spent in the app”. Disregarding all kind of predatory behavior in the name of profit.
My prediction is that the metaverse is going to turn into “brainwashing as a service”.
The only hope is that VR headsets are too expensive to become widespread.
This is going to be difficult to fight. When you have a “join meeting in metaverse” button in whats app, who’s going to not click it?