The Metaverse promised to be the next internet. Instead, it became the next punchline.
Back in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg walked on stage, renamed Facebook as Meta, and declared that the Metaverse would be the “next chapter of the internet.” Slick videos followed, showing friends hanging out as holograms, legless cartoon avatars working in futuristic offices, and people attending concerts from their living rooms.
It looked like the dawn of a new digital era — immersive, social, and boundless. For a brief moment, the world believed. Investors poured in, celebrities bought land, and brands rushed to open virtual stores. The Metaverse was pitched as the ultimate internet upgrade.
But just a couple of years later, the party ended before the music even started. Today, the once-hyped Metaverse is mostly remembered as an overpromised dream. Still, the story is more complex than just a fad that fizzled out — because while most of us never showed up to its “global rave,” parts of it survived quietly in classrooms, training centers, and niche industries.
The Dream: Life Inside the Internet
Shopping wasn’t supposed to be clicks. It was supposed to be an event.
To understand the hype, you need to see the dream as it was sold. The Metaverse wasn’t pitched as just another app or platform. It was marketed as the embodied internet — a place where you wouldn’t just browse content, you would literally step into it.
Think of how you shop today. You open Amazon, scroll through a list of products, zoom in on some pixelated photos, maybe send a screenshot to a friend on WhatsApp, and eventually hit Buy Now. Functional, sure, but not exactly thrilling.
Now imagine the Metaverse version. You and your friends walk into a massive Amazon showroom as avatars. You “pick up” sneakers, rotate them in your hand in 3D, watch your buddy’s avatar try on a jacket, laugh together, and then click once to have the real product shipped to your door. Shopping becomes an event, not a transaction.
It wasn’t just about retail. The vision touched every corner of daily life:
Concerts: Instead of watching a livestream on YouTube, you’d stand front row at a Justin Bieber concert in a virtual stadium. Your avatar would be dancing next to friends from around the world, while digital fireworks exploded overhead.
Work: Forget awkward Zoom calls where everyone keeps their camera off. In Horizon Worlds, you’d gather around a futuristic conference table as avatars, pass floating charts around, and whisper to a colleague just like you would in a real boardroom.
Education: Kids wouldn’t just read about triangles in a textbook. They’d walk inside one in VR, stretch its sides, tilt its angles, and grasp geometry in minutes. Field trips wouldn’t need buses — entire classes could teleport to the pyramids of Giza or Chichen Itza to study math, history, and astronomy all at once.
Fitness: No more boring home workouts with YouTube instructors. You’d spar with an AI trainer in a glowing VR dojo, sweat dripping in the real world while your avatar kicked and punched with precision.
On paper, it sounded revolutionary: an internet where you didn’t scroll, but lived.
The Reality: A Patchwork of Ghost Towns
Logging in often felt like walking into a mall where every store was closed.
Here’s the catch. There was never one unified Metaverse. Instead, what we got was a messy patchwork of half-baked worlds.
Decentraland focused on buying and selling NFT-linked land.
Sandbox built blocky, Lego-like landscapes with celebrity mansions and branded billboards.
Horizon Worlds was Meta’s flagship, featuring legless cartoon avatars floating around awkward meeting spaces.
Roblox and Fortnite Creative were gaming-first ecosystems that got roped into the Metaverse narrative.
The problem? None of them connected. There was no “one Metaverse.” Just a bunch of apps fighting for attention, each emptier than the last. Logging in often felt like walking into a mall where every store was closed and the lights were flickering.
The Gold Rush: Celebs, Brands, and Cartoon Landlords
I’m entering the #metaverse with @TheSandboxGame !! #TSBxSnoopDogg #NFT https://t.co/DZvSV4NNSc pic.twitter.com/zoa87iDhRl
— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) September 23, 2021
Yes, someone really paid nearly half a million dollars for digital land next to Snoop Dogg’s avatar mansion.
Despite the cracks, hype took over. Celebrities and brands couldn’t resist the promise of being early to “the next internet.”
Snoop Dogg famously bought land in Sandbox and launched the “Snoopverse,” while Paris Hilton DJ’d a VR New Year’s Eve party. Justin Bieber even staged a virtual concert where his avatar sang and danced in front of a crowd of glowing stick figures.
Luxury brands jumped in too. Gucci sold digital handbags in Roblox, Nike launched virtual sneakers, and Coca-Cola offered NFT collectibles. Everyone wanted a slice of the action, even if nobody was entirely sure who was going to show up.
The craziest moment? A plot of digital land near Snoop Dogg’s virtual mansion sold for $450,000. Yes, nearly half a million dollars — for pixelated dirt in a cartoon world.
Why the Graphics Looked So Bad
Meta promised Pixar. What we got looked like a PowerPoint presentation with floating torsos.
For anyone who actually put on a headset, the disappointment was immediate. The promotional videos showed futuristic visuals, but the real thing looked like Wii Sports from 2008. Why?
Hardware limitations: VR needs to render scenes twice (once for each eye) at 90+ frames per second to prevent motion sickness. That left little room for realism.
Design choices: Developers went cartoony to avoid the creepy “uncanny valley” of almost-human avatars.
Bandwidth issues: Hyper-detailed worlds would lag and crash, especially for multiplayer spaces.
Cross-platform constraints: Worlds had to work on phones, desktops, and headsets — which meant graphics were downgraded to the lowest denominator.
Budget priorities: Billions went into marketing, headsets, and land speculation — not into building high-quality game engines.
The result? People expected Ready Player One and got something closer to a PowerPoint presentation with floating torsos.
The Critics Saw Through It
The brutal truth was clear: nobody had a compelling reason to log in.
Journalists and early adopters quickly realized the emperor had no clothes. Reports of empty “worlds” circulated widely: Decentraland sometimes had fewer than 1,000 daily active users, while Horizon Worlds struggled to hit 200,000 monthly users despite Meta’s billions.
Critics mocked it as “Second Life 2.0” with a crypto twist. Others suggested the whole Metaverse push was a convenient distraction for Meta, which was facing heat over privacy scandals.
The brutal truth was clear: nobody had a compelling reason to log in.
The AI Bomb That Stole the Spotlight
AI stole the mic after the headliner bombed. AI didn’t need a headset. It needed a browser tab. And that was enough.
Then came late 2022, when ChatGPT landed. Overnight, AI became the shiny new toy.
Unlike the Metaverse, AI didn’t require an expensive headset or hours of onboarding. It ran in your browser, worked instantly, and actually did things. Write essays, generate images, draft emails, debug code — all within seconds.
For investors and businesses, the comparison was night and day:
AI had no barrier to entry.AI delivered immediate utility.AI’s innovation cycle was lightning fast, with new tools dropping every week.
The Metaverse, already wobbling, was instantly overshadowed. Venture capital, media attention, and even Meta’s own focus shifted to artificial intelligence. The Metaverse didn’t just stumble — it got ghosted.
The Surviving Positive Use-Case: Education
Metaverse might help teach kids fractions.
And yet, the story isn’t all doom. While the consumer-facing Metaverse fizzled, VR quietly found a home in education.
In Georgia’s Cobb County, teachers use PrismsVR to immerse students in 3D math environments. Instead of staring blankly at equations, kids walk through problems, manipulate shapes, and learn in weeks what used to take months. One teacher said, “It’s like the concepts finally clicked.”
At Morehouse College, integrating VR into lessons bumped test scores from 78 to 85 and boosted attendance. Students reported higher engagement — they weren’t just sitting in class; they were inside the material.
Meanwhile, platforms like Kai XR are turning VR into field trips. Imagine exploring ancient temples at Chichen Itza to study geometry, astronomy, and history in context. Suddenly math isn’t abstract scribbles on paper — it’s woven into the world around you.
A Brookings Institute report even argued that Metaverse-style education could break down barriers between subjects, blending math, literacy, science, and critical thinking into unified, hands-on experiences.
So while virtual shopping malls failed, VR classrooms quietly thrived.
Dormant Dream or Digital Dead-End?
Maybe the Metaverse isn’t gone. Maybe it’s just waiting to rebrand itself… again.
So, is the Metaverse dead? Not entirely.
Optimists argue it’s a long game. The internet looked clunky in the 90s, and smartphones took a decade to mature. With better AR glasses and devices, the dream of an immersive internet might return in future.