It’s almost 20 years since the launch of Second Life, a first stab at an immersive multiplayer universe from Linden Labs, in which people began to live and work, as well as earn a lot of money along the way. Two decades later, the promise first hinted at in Second Life is edging closer to reality, as the persistent digital world of metaverse begins to make inroads into the mainstream.

The breathless coverage and endless hype of the metaverse would convince the average person that they’ll need to start planning for a life permanently connected to a VR headset.

One billion of us will enter the metaverse by the end of the decade, if Mark Zuckerberg has his way, while research bank Citi says the metaverse industry will underpin an economy that could be worth anything…