Jaron Lanier made an incisive point many years ago. Someone asked him what virtual reality was. "Virtual reality is where you are when you're on the telephone."
I'd extend that to, "Virtual reality is where you are when you're not present in the here-and-now." That encompasses all forms of media, entertainment, and communication with people who aren't in the room with you. The idea that it has anything to do with goggles, 3D graphics, avatars, or Facebook is something some people made up.
I can see the point in Lanier argument, however there is a much bigger problem for VR: There is no VR analog to Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube and Co. VR is still very much an activity in which you have to actively engage, you have to find a game that is interesting, load it up and play. You can't just casually doom-scroll in VR and have the algorithm find interesting content for you. There is no app for that. And the retention rates of VR aren't great either, as once you are done with a game, it's quite difficult to find whatever you'll do next.
For all the hype around Metaverse and Zuckerberg wanting 1 billion people in VR, there has been surprisingly little effort in finding out what those people would actual do when they have the headset on.
