The metaverse image problem began in October 2021, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would henceforth be called Meta.

The rebranding marked a focus on “the metaverse,” a virtual world Zuckerberg couldn’t explain in a way that would excite most people. Maybe people were still upset that this was the company a British court found responsible for enabling the illegal collection of data from 87 million people by another company that interfered in the 2016 US election. Many Americans want nothing to do with Facebook/Meta, and the drop in sales of Quest VR headsets after Meta acquired Oculus reflects that, anecdotally at least.

But no matter how much people want the metaverse to fail so they can watch Zuckerberg crash and burn, it’s…