So yah, then there’s this from the early pioneers of The Metaverse:

Creator of “Second Life” Issues Warnings for Those Building Metaverses

It was, in fact, Second Life and Sims that came to mind originally when Mark Zuckerberg was carrying on last month about the future of the internet and mankind and the inextricable bond between the two. It was Second Life in particular that caught my attention, probably more than a decade ago, when the geek sites were talking about acquiring property, building and furnishing homes and “clothing” retailers in the virtual realm.

It hadn’t yet occurred to me that we were all already living a meta existence in all our social media interactions. There was plenty of banter about the growing chasm between online and offline personae and how we all essentially created curated versions, or avatars of ourselves. We were creating a simulation inside our simulation, so to speak. The extent to which we were losing ourselves to this better, stronger, faster, smarter version of ourselves hadn’t quite managed to capture my attention. It’s all easy enough to see now, with the obvious blurring of facts and truth between the cyber-universe and the one in which we’re forced to live (much to the chagrin of many people, it seems). Which side is closer to the truth though? Did any of us believe , for example, that online raging would manifest physically and result in the January 6th attack on the Capitol?

Anyway, there’s going to be a lot to say about all this as time moves on. The CEO of Second Life does make very valid points, but what seems to be missing to me is that nobody in power really wants The Metaverse regulated until they’ve wrangled control, and then they’ll prop up a governing regulatory body to maintain the status quo of their control and monetization. Nobody is going to do anything until the Darwinian business models have established their footing and bulwark. The legal battles may end up being even more exciting and news-dominating than the development and release of the technology, which is sad. So… anyway.

Just some random thoughts here, but it’s not going out on a limb to say that all these warnings will fall on deaf ears until perhaps, similar to what happened in recent years on social media, the people who stand the most to lose financially see that they’ve created a monster beyond their ability to control.