What's going on with "Metaverse" is a textbook Kansas city shuffle.
Big Social recognized that there was a con.
They believed they were too smart to fall for the con -- thus invested in it.
But while they were looking right, something else happened to the left -- outside their field of vision.
Specifically, their so-called "users" aren't joining the Metaverse. They're going somewhere else.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kansas%20city%20shuffle
Big Social has some very smart people working for it.
They've combed through the metrics of the Metaverse. They've charted growth. They've looked through all the data and validated how it's trending.
All the while, they've dismissed the Fediverse because it's not amenable to metrics and is therefore *not* validated.
This is the con: metrics.
Big Social ignored the Fediverse because they've conned the world with metrics for so long -- they now believe in it religiously.