Meta Horizon Worlds and Second Life - two names that stand for virtual spaces in which users meet in digital form. However, anyone who experienced the hype surrounding Second Life in the early 2000s will inevitably ask themselves today: isn't Meta tackling exactly the same topics with Horizon - only with VR glasses?
In fact, almost 20 years later, Meta seems to be relaunching a vision that we have seen before in a similar form: Social interaction, user-generated content, a separate economy and digital identities in an immersive environment. Despite great initial enthusiasm, Second Life never really reached the mainstream. It developed into a stable niche platform, but not the digital revolution that many had hoped for at the time.
This is precisely why it is worth taking a closer look: Where exactly do Meta Horizon Worlds and Second Life overlap? And where do they take different paths technologically, economically or conceptually? Anyone who wants to understand why Meta's new metaverse pitch looks so familiar - and yet does not have the same effect - will find interesting answers in this comparison.
Both Meta and Linden Lab, the developers of Second Life, pursue a common goal: to connect people in virtual worlds. Avatars are at the center of these digital interactions, whether for sharing, playing together, creative building or for commercial purposes. The platforms enable users to communicate and spend time together in individually designed environments.
This idea is not new - Second Life gave it shape early on. Users could (and still can) create their own objects, buildings and landscapes and share them with others. The idea of a world co-designed by users was central - and still is today with Horizon Worlds. Here, as there, it is about a Creator Economyin which virtual goods and experiences have a value - both ideally and financially.
A key difference between the two platforms lies in the type of access. Second Life is a classic desktop application: You move through the world using a mouse and keyboard, see avatars from a third-person perspective and communicate via text or voice. The technical hurdle is low - a laptop is all you need to get started.
Meta Horizon Worlds, on the other hand, focuses on immersion through virtual reality. If you want to take part here, you need a VR headset such as the Meta Quest 2 or 3. Hand tracking or controller, the environment is perceived in 360 degrees. This not only changes the user experience, but also the expectations: Horizon Worlds should not just be used, but experienced - physically, visually and audibly.
However, this is also a hurdle. While Second Life is potentially open to millions of people worldwide, Horizon Worlds is limited to the user base of meta headsets. The barrier to entry is higher - and this affects the reach.
commercial purposes. The platforms enable users to communicate and spend time together in individually designed environments.
This idea is not new - Second Life gave it shape early on. Users could (and still can) create their own objects, buildings and landscapes and share them with others. The idea of a world co-designed by users was central - and still is today with Horizon Worlds. Here, as there, it is about a Creator Economyin which virtual goods and experiences have a value - both ideally and financially.
Second Life is based on its own client, which has been under development for years. Users can import 3D models, write their own scripts using the Linden Scripting Language (LSL) and implement complex interactions. The world is persistent, which means that once content has been created, it remains permanent - a kind of digital memory.
Horizon Worlds, on the other hand, is based on the Unity engine and works primarily as a closed platform. Content is created within the app, import options are limited. There are currently no plans to integrate external 3D assets. Meta retains control over all content, moderation and infrastructure. This is understandable from the platform operator's point of view, but has an impact on the creative freedom of the community.
While Second Life is conceived as a sandbox in which anything is possible, Horizon Worlds functions more like a theme park with a modular system - with clearly defined rules and predefined tools.
Second Life was one of the first platforms to establish a functioning virtual currency: the Linden dollar. This can be exchanged directly for US dollars. To this day, many users earn real money by selling virtual products - from fashion and architecture to animations and scripts. There is a flourishing economy with stores, marketplaces and services. It should be emphasized that this economy was organized decentrally from the outset and that the platform largely left trading to the users themselves.
The situation is very different at Meta Horizon Worlds. Although Meta promised a flourishing creator economy in the initial phase of the Metaverse hype, in which millions of people could earn a living from digital content, this vision has largely failed to materialize. Funding programs and in-app purchases do exist, but a genuine, user-driven economic system has not been established.
It is also striking that Meta itself now hardly communicates the economic aspect. The idea of creating sustainable sources of income through the sale of virtual objects - in the form of NFTs, for example - was heavily influenced by the events surrounding the NFT crash. In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to make NFT-type collectibles and digital property rights an integral part of Horizon. The NFT market is now considered to have collapsed and the topic no longer plays a significant role in Meta's communication strategy.
Another aspect that stands out in Horizon Worlds is the lack of virtual "land ownership" - i.e. digital real estate, which was a central element in platforms such as Decentraland or The Sandbox. In many of these metaverse concepts, users were able to buy and trade digital properties and speculate on the increase in value. Meta deliberately decided against this commercialization of virtual land - presumably also because at the time of Horizon's launch, the hype surrounding virtual real estate had already passed its zenith and the sustainability of this model was increasingly in doubt.
This means that the central promise - that the metaverse is a new marketplace for digital work and creativity - is also on shaky ground. Those who use Horizon Worlds today do so primarily out of social or gaming interest. The idea of generating a significant income through digital goods or experiences within this platform has hardly become realistic for most users.
Second Life allows users to retain the copyright to their own content. Anyone who creates virtual clothing, objects or complete environments can license, sell or give them away - and determine the conditions under which this happens. Over the years, this very liberal approach has created a vibrant, diverse ecosystem that is largely driven by free trade between users.
With Meta Horizon Worlds, on the other hand, users generally do not retain complete control over their content. Although they can create their own worlds and objects, all rights are clearly regulated in Meta's terms of use. Meta acts as the central gatekeeper and reserves extensive rights to use, reproduce and remove content. Real ownership - as is often discussed in connection with Web3 or decentralized platforms - does not exist in Horizon Worlds.
The topic of governance, i.e. who exercises control over content, interactions and moderation within virtual worlds, is particularly controversial in the context of the metaverse. For a long time, Second Life pursued an extremely liberal approach here: content was supposed to regulate itself. This led to a largely unmoderated space in which almost anything was possible - including problematic and sometimes illegal content.
This approach became particularly critical when it became public that pedocriminals were using Second Life to move around in childish-looking avatars or to specifically recruit other avatars with a childish appearance. According to research, this problem was even known within the company - without any consistent action being taken against it. The case is still considered one of the most serious examples of a lack of curation in virtual environments.
Meta is well aware of this risk - and takes a much more controlled approach with Horizon Worlds. Users can report problematic content or behavior, and there are moderation tools and defined community guidelines. Nevertheless, the challenge remains enormous: the virtual spaces are large, often difficult to keep track of, and toxic behavior is not uncommon in Horizon Worlds either. This is particularly problematic for younger users - many parents would rightly not allow their children unsupervised access to this type of platform.
The original idea of a decentralized metaverse - with community self-administration, as was envisaged in OpenSim instances or in parts of Second Life - is not to be found in Horizon Worlds. Here, Meta has sole control over rules, content and access rights. Anyone who associates the term "metaverse" with decentralization will have to realize this: Horizon Worlds is more of a closed ecosystem with strict platform governance. Meta decides what remains visible - and what does not.
If you look at Second Life's original pitch and Horizon Worlds' current appearance, it is striking how similar the promises are: a new way of social interaction, personal virtual identities, shared spaces for creativity and a digital economy. The words may have changed, but the core idea behind them has remained the same.
In fact, there are still people today who see this virtual way of living together as the way forward - whether out of philosophical interest, because of physical limitations or simply because they enjoy digital living spaces. But we must remain realistic: For the overwhelming majority of people, a real, physical social life is still more attractive and fulfilling. The idea of living permanently in a virtual world remains a rather alien concept for many.
In addition, there is one aspect that caused disillusionment in both Second Life back then and Horizon Worlds today: the graphical implementation. Second Life already fell far short of what would have been technically possible in terms of 3D visualization in the early 2000s. Even today, two decades later, the graphical quality of Horizon Worlds is astonishingly simple - especially in comparison to modern video games or the cinematic ideal that many people have come to expect from films such as Ready Player One have in mind. The difference between this vision and the reality on the Meta Quest is not just years, but worlds.
Looking back, one gets the impression that Mark Zuckerberg was primarily selling a utopia with Horizon Worlds - a vision that was born less out of genuine user interest and more out of a desire to impress investors, analysts and the public. In this respect, the strategy was certainly successful: the buzzword "metaverse" was on everyone's lips and meta dominated the digital debate for a while. But today, in the year 2025, it is clear that the use of Horizon Worlds is rather subdued. The platform was unable to deliver what it promised.
From a personal perspective, Horizon Worlds is one of the least interesting applications you can find on a Meta Quest. The content is often banal, the interactions superficial and there is hardly any real added value. As with Second Life, it has been shown that a virtual world alone is not a convincing offer. The decisive factor is the use cases - i.e. the meaningful, useful or entertaining applications that bring users back again and again. Neither Second Life nor Horizon Worlds have yet been able to convincingly deliver this added value.
At the same time, we are currently observing a clear strategic realignment at Meta. The company is increasingly shifting its focus away from the Metaverse concept and towards lighter wearables with AR functionality that are more suitable for everyday use - such as the new Ray-Ban glasses with camera and AI integration. Significantly more innovation energy is being invested here than in Horizon Worlds, which now barely features in external communications. The signs are clearly pointing to "Smart Glasses instead of Metaverse".
At the same time, Mark Zuckerberg remains rhetorically true to the metaverse - probably also because a public admission of failure would be difficult to communicate politically and economically. But if we are honest, the idea of the metaverse as it was conceived at Meta has proven to be unrealistic. And this is explicitly not about virtual reality as a technology: VR is exciting, innovative and offers real added value in many areas. However, the concept of an all-encompassing digital parallel universe - a Horizon-style metaverse - has so far remained more of a pipe dream than a practicable reality.
Meta Horizon Worlds and Second Life pursue similar goals, but use different means. Second Life is open, has grown over many years, has a real economy and a loyal community. Horizon Worlds is more immersive, more modern, but also more regulated and technically exclusive.
Whether Meta has learned from the experience of Second Life or is just repeating the old pitch with new technology remains to be seen. One thing is certain: The fascination of virtual worlds is alive and well - but implementation requires more than just technology. It needs social relevance, creative freedom and genuine participation.
Perhaps the real problem is something else: the idea of the metaver itself is simply an extremely ambitious vision. It goes far beyond a single app or platform. A true metaverse would have to offer interoperability between different virtual worlds - the ability to seamlessly transfer content, identities and experiences from one system to the next. It would have to behave like a second, spatial internet. However, this idea is not only technically highly complex, but also requires an unprecedented form of collaboration between companies, platforms and technologies.
In this respect, today's "metaverse" seems more like a marketing label for individual, isolated projects - and less like what science fiction works like Ready Player One or Neuromancer have shown us. At the moment, the vision of the metaverse seems as unrealistic as the flying car from Blade Runner: a fascinating concept, but not (yet) feasible. Perhaps in ten years' time another company will take up the idea again - with better technology, more user interest and a more sustainable model.
But until then, the "metaverse" will probably remain more of a metaphor than a tangible reality. And even if Meta gave the impression for a while that it could build this future on its own - without the broad support of other major players, this endeavor was doomed to failure from the outset.
Horizon Worlds is VR-centric and closed, while Second Life is open, desktop-based and scriptable.
Currently, there is no real user economy like the Linden Dollar; Meta only offers limited support programs.
Both platforms enable users to interact with others in virtual worlds in real time, create content and build communities. Both Horizon Worlds and Second Life pursue concepts such as user-generated content, social interaction and digital economies - albeit in different forms.
Are you interested in developing a virtual reality or 360° application? You may still have questions about budget and implementation. Feel free to contact me.
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Clarence Dadson CEO Design4real
