Who will win the Metaverse? Not Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook

Did you hear? Facebook Inc. is going to become a metaverse company. At least that’s the story its management wants everyone to believe after a flurry of interviews and announcements over the past couple of weeks. It’s a narrative that seeks to put the social-media giant at the leading edge of one of the most audacious concepts in tech. I’m skeptical.

But first, what exactly is the metaverse? The term was created by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 dystopian novel “Snow Crash” to describe a virtual space where people interact with one another through user-controlled avatars. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball has also written extensively on what he believes are the main attributes of a metaverse, including a full-functioning economy,