The metaverse, explained

polygon.com:

What is the metaverse?

Good question. “Metaverse” is currently a major buzzword in the worlds of tech, business, and finance, and like all buzzwords its definition is fuzzy, contested, and shaped by the ambitions of the people using it.

Here’s one thing we can say for sure: The term was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash to describe a virtual world in wide use in his imagined future, a 21st-century dystopia. In Snow Crash, the metaverse is a virtual-reality world depicted as a planet-encircling market where virtual real estate can be bought and sold, and where VR goggle-wearing users inhabit 3D avatars whose form they have freedom to choose.

These three elements — a VR interface, digital ownership, and avatars — still feature prominently in current conceptions of the metaverse. But none of them is actually essential to the idea. In the broadest terms, the metaverse is understood as a graphically rich virtual space, with some degree of verisimilitude, where people can work, play, shop, socialize — in short, do the things humans like to do together in real life (or, perhaps more to the point, on the internet). Metaverse proponents often focus on the concept of “presence” as a defining factor: feeling like you’re really there, and feeling like other people are really there with you, too.

This version of the metaverse arguably already exists in the form of video games. But there’s another definition of the metaverse that goes beyond the virtual worlds we know. This definition doesn’t actually describe the metaverse at all, but does explain why everyone thinks it’s so important. This definition isn’t about a vision for the future or a new technology. Rather, it looks to the past and to the now commonplace