The term “metaverse” has entered the pop culture lexicon in recent years, largely due to Facebook, but the idea itself isn’t new. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, many in the technology community have envisioned a future state of the Internet called a “metaverse.”

In his 1992 cyberpunk novel “Snow Crash,” science fiction author Neal Stephenson used the term “metaverse” to describe a 3D virtual world in which people, represented as avatars, could interact with each other and with artificially intelligent agents. .

Although the full vision of the metaverse remains elusive, seemingly fantastical and decades away, certain pieces have begun to feel very real. With this kind of change, his arc is as long and unpredictable as his final state…