If there was any potential in a "metaverse", it would be picked up by people who know how to make something fun. In Silicon Valley or somewhere else.
That's not happening because the metaverse is pointless. Most people prefer having multiple tabs in a browser to do online shopping, chatting with friends, etc rather than moving a 3D avatar from a virtual supermarket to a virtual cafe.
If computer interaction benefited from being more 'like reality', then Microsoft Bob or any of the countless other attempts to create a reality- and/or 3D-based computer interface, would have caught on long ago.
This has been tried and tried again, and it never catches on. Computer interfaces that are completely detached from physical 3D space are just much more flexible and easy to use.
That’s not happening because the metaverse is pointless. Most people prefer having multiple tabs in a browser to do online shopping, chatting with friends, etc rather than moving a 3D avatar from a virtual supermarket to a virtual cafe.
Realistically, the only thing you'd actually want to do in the Metaverse is something you can't do in real life, utilising the features of a virtual reality computer generated environment to do things that are physically impossible. If only there was some way you could use a computer, with or without a VR headset, to fly a spaceship, use magic, and explore beautiful environments. There could even be these computer generated characters that could give you ideas about things you could do and places you could go, by giving you a reason to go there and do those things, and all of this could tie into a narrative element that turns it into a kind of interactive story, so you've got a reason to keep engaging with the computer-generated environment and characters. And maybe you'd get some of that cool computer-generated swag while you're there, which you could dress your avatar in...
Hmmm... there could be money in that idea. Someone should try making something like that.