Personally, i have seen both Virtual Reality & 3d walkthrough virtual worlds as an internet, being developed over the last 30 years - Virtual Reality was popularised, in hardware terms by Cyber punk writers like William Gibson & Jack Womack. As a precursor to these eminent writers it was perhaps Philp K Dick who presented the ultimate in virtual reality - books such a "The 3 stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" & "Lies Inc."... which examined futuristic mind altering synthetic realities through genetic time altering / reality creating mass dosing & drug prescription for economic political manipulation. These allegories, in turn were no doubt influenced by Aldous Huxleys twinset classics; Brave New World & The Doors of Perception. I would propose that Huxleys take on the new reality has a generic backtrace to the bending of time and space found in both HG Wells' Time Machine ( there is a Huxley / Wells family link to the UN & transhumanism, which i explore here; bottom of page) & Herman Hesses Steppenwolf & the Glass Bead Game. Many of these stories being hugely influenced by recreational hallucinagenic drug experimentation as a psychonautic tool for a discovery journey. These types of journeys are directly influenced by observations made of Shamanic leaders in tribes noted by empirical adventurers - anthropologists, at the turn of end of crumbling empirea - unpeeling a western version of reality from the original, untainted, indigineous aboriginal existence, only to see the influencer abused & derelict of their spacial & time awareness, forced to live in a new world. Subjegated. This, sadly... seems familiar in the context of this writing. Sci fi writers have pushed the notion of digital realms to maximum effect; The term "metaverse" has its origins in the Neal Stephenson 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash - whereas, Fearsumm Enjinn by Iain Banks - a fable of hyper futurism is set in totally digital reality. It remains one of my favourite of the genre. VR proper, became prominant in the 90s for gamers with enough disposable income...and Adobe Systems developed a Html plugin for it's platform development tool Adobe Atmosphere that was initiated way back in 2001. How much will it all cost? Metas oculus VR headset package = $299 USD It may be just a matter of bringing costs to the wider population down to affordable levels... but, why would they worry about that as we aren't supposed to own anything soon anyway, right? Are these, quite frankly- idiots; really going to make us sustainably hire their own mind control infrastucture? well, judging by all of us paying fees to ISP's & Mobile roaming services regularly, without question...yes. Note: I steal my internet; and you should try to too...Bounced off and shared net routers to groups, limiting individual ID to ISP and encouraging large group sharing of costs and increased security should be spread across living spaces to lessen the burden on communities of possible liability and increased protection - hack and crack - reverse engineer. Infranets can be set up in close knit living spaces from a central server in your buildings or blocks protected by anything you can get or design. Snowden may tell you there is no defense - it's up to you to be better than that - create new systems. (update- 25th Jan 2022 - Edward Snowden released his take on NFTs and the coming problems, which i'm proud to say echo some my own points on this page - which I hand write; coded on a text editor no less) Accidents will Happen (click on WSJ link to watch vid embedded into story) A few hours after Toby Robicelli first strapped on the $300 virtual-reality headset he got for Christmas, the Baltimore teenager, who was playing a shooter game called “Superhot VR,” lost his balance and fractured his kneecap. “We set it up around 2:00,” said Toby’s mother, Allison Robicelli, of the tech gadget, “and by 8:00 we were on our way to the ER.” She fainted when she saw his leg, she said, and Toby, 14, is now using crutches. Sales of VR headsets rose more than 70% last year from 2020, according to International Data Corp., to 7.9 million units. Demand is driven in part by rising hype around the metaverse, a term proponents use to describe a future 3-D version of the internet, comprising virtual worlds where people will get together to work, learn and play. With interest in the devices growing, so is their reputation for being a source of pain and embarrassment. When Nintendo Co. ’s Wii made its debut in the mid-2000s, people hurt themselves using its motion-sensitive controllers. With VR headsets, as initial users found, the risk of getting tripped up is greater, because the devices completely cut off the real world. Wall Street Journal Monopoly = social economic forcing Inclusion = fear of losing out and Having to Have It could be argued that facebooks monopoly over virtual space on web 2.0, saw the power of independence for many creatives on the internet an effectively marginalising experience. Many web page designers, artists, musicians & owners of interesting places online suffered as people flocked to the facebook platform. Even Myspace, it's hugely popular precursor has barely managed to survive. I would leap to assert even hugely successful music sites Bandcamp & Soundcloud, have seen the majority of its users have to have a facebook page as a bounce off point to drive awareness. Having a facebook account is the only way to generate interest in their independent web presence via pages created on the insipidly addictive & controlling platform. It has been apparent for many who do not even wish to sign up any EULA agreements, as i am wary to do...that this type of monopolising has been extremely damaging & dangerous for the future of a diverse & creatively stimulating culture on web 2.0 HTML.