The concept itself is obviously valuable, not just for computing but for the future of the internet, but the key is in how well it meets the needs and wants of the people.

Facebook's rendition of the concept made it largely distasteful to nearly everyone it was claiming to build it for.

Making a hierarchical series of meta-spaces accessible to all on a platform is quite a common sight in 2D software, it is rather obvious the concept would be useful in 3D as well. And there's nothing inherently wrong with a digital marketplace and replicated shopping environment either. Nor are having social meeting places.

The problem was all that we had ever seen about the Metaverse looked like a single intern had to create a demo in 24 hours based on a crayon drawing made by board members who had spent the whole night drinking. It exercised absolutely no creative vision and looked like a Wii game.

I think seeing some creative vision about digital marketplaces, and visualizing how that could potentially actually improve one's shopping experience, would have been pretty compelling. For example, being able to generate an avatar that looks very similar to you by simply uploading a few pictures of yourself, then being able to try on clothes in a virtual clothing store, would have been so much cooler than showing a cartoon character walking around a nearly featureless park showing characters doing silly things with one another.

I have spent a lot of time dreaming about the potential applications of VR, I really wish I could make my visions reality but VR programming is not exactly the easiest thing to work on. And it really sucks to see companies fail to inspire people by showing them not even half-baked ideas on a technology that already has an above-average barrier to entry.