I think the Metaverse will fail because it's a creepy futurism project. Creepy futurism says the solution to climate change is to replace real experiences with virtual experiences that don't burn any carbon. The pièce de résistance of creepy futurism in the metaverse is intended to be the virtual child experience[1]. You satisfy the instinctual drives to destroy the climate with more children[2], but instead you do it in a sustainable simulated way. Kind of like instead of living forever, which is utterly unsustainable, we upload our brains to the metaverse and have your carbon body used for plant food or whatever and our friends and family get the simulated experience of still having us around! Like most creepy futurism projects, nobody really wants this except the people who spend their days trying to figure out how to save the planet by any means necessary and have come up with all sorts of fake climate friendly substitutes, like the vast array of vegan meat substitutes that nobody eats, but seem to be fully in stock in every grocery store and fast food chain.

Like all creepy futurism projects, there seems to be an unlimited amount of money and associated ESG and "The Current Thing" street credibility behind these projects that see them funded and cheerled in the press to absurd levels even as the public is absolutely luke warm about it all at best.

[1]https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/37980/20220601/virtual...

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...