What is the metaverse?

My understanding is that the term 'metaverse' is just VR or Virtual Reality rebranded.

They charged me extra for Dune at least. 20 euro ticket + 2 euro for the glasses which you keep in Berlin. Last time before that I had been in Bulgaria a few years ago and there it was just part of the original ticket price. So I guess it matters per location but I think the profit margins on the glasses are tiny compared to on anything else in the Cinema anyway.

The concept dates back to at least the novel Snow Crash, if not earlier. Not sure if the term was coined back then too, but just do a quick search. The tech press and a lot of the industry have really been pushing it hard lately.

Once upon a time, Second Life was that metaverse. Big companies had Second Life strategies and big media organizations breathlessly covered it as the next big thing changing our culture and experiences.

While I'm pretty sure Linden Labs still exists, it never did much more than get an initial buzz from people that could only see the possibilities disconnected from the what it actually means to be an organic, living entity in a very real world. It also gained attention from those that feared missing out on the promises made by that early buzz. But even Second Life couldn't avoid the reality of the physical world that preceded it. Second Life is still with us, but it's an unimportant niche player with little lasting impact on society, such that many articles touting the new metaverse don't even acknowledge its existence. Journalists don't recognize that they're simply jumping on that hype train which leads nowhere again.

Yes technology has come a long way since then, but probably not as far as we imagine either. And the companies best positioned to deliver a "metaverse" can barely get their own products working to a level where they can even be described a "useful" (try using a pixel phone, a chromecast, and youtube together and see how much just doesn't work reliably)... a sustained alternative existence will necessarily have a lower tolerance for poor quality delivery: I don't think any meaningful player out there has a culture of quality sufficient to get a compelling product out the door that can establish itself as such an alternative existence. Finally, as a physical being in a physical world: you won't sustain yourself with virtual food, doctors will not be able effectively to cure your physical ailments without examining your physical body, and other realities will almost certainly mean you're spending more time experiencing the real universe than the metaverse. The plumber, electrician, construction worker, farmer, fireman, policeman, garbageman, etc. won't do their work in the metaverse. Maybe a metaverse can consist of some office workers and those people with enough free time and money to spend their leisure time in a constructed fantasy world, but that doesn't strike me as game changing.

I think the best technologies that have potential to have an impact on our view of reality will be augmented reality technologies. Those products seeking to replace reality with something different will just be a fad to be gushed over by journalists and influencers.