What exactly is the Metaverse – and was it just hype? This question can be answered much more objectively in 2026 than during the great metaverse wave that began in 2021.
The most important misunderstanding at the time was the idea that, „The “metaverse” is already a concrete digital place, This was often discussed: companies would have to „enter the Metaverse“, brands would open stores there, and users would in the future enter a large shared virtual space.
This representation was misleading. There was no single application called „the Metaverse“. There were platforms like Horizon Worlds, Roblox, Fortnite, Second Life, or Decentraland that embraced individual features of a Metaverse vision. However, they were and are independent systems with their own accounts, rules, business models, and technical limitations.
What did Metaverse originally mean?
The term does not describe a single technology, but a Vision of interconnected digital spaces. In the idealized variant, a user should be able to move between different virtual worlds using a digital identity, take content and property with them, and work, communicate, play, or shop there.
Common features associated with this vision include persistence, social presence, avatars, interoperability, digital goods, and, in some cases, decentralization. However, it is important to note: These characteristics were part of a vision of the future – not a description of an already existing system.
It was precisely here that a large part of the confusion arose. A single social VR application, a multiplayer game, or a blockchain world may indeed be „metaverse-like,“ but they were not automatically that Metaverse.
Why was the term suddenly used everywhere from 2021 onwards?
The decisive moment was October 28, 2021. Facebook consolidated its apps and technologies under the new corporate name. Meta. Mark Zuckerberg explained at the time that the company wanted to become „metaverse-first“ and build the Metaverse as the next stage of social technology development.
This gave an hitherto rather futuristic concept enormous attention. Within a short time, „metaverse“ became a catch-all term for very different topics: virtual reality, augmented reality, social VR, avatars, virtual real estate, NFTs, blockchain, digital twins, virtual events, and even classic online games.
This created the impression that all these technologies were components of a single emerging system. In reality, however, they were very different technical approaches and business models.
Myth 1: „I have to get into the Metaverse“
This phrase was particularly common during the hype – and technically, it was actually quite vague.
A company could not simply „enter the Metaverse“ because there was no uniform place. For example, it could:
- develop an experience in Horizon Worlds,
- organizing an event on a social VR platform,
- building a virtual world in Roblox or Fortnite,
- develop an AR application for smartphone or headset,
- one VR Training to implement,
- or create a digital twin for industry and planning.
These are concrete applications. The statement „We’re going into the Metaverse“ said little about what problem it was intended to solve or what technology should actually be used.
Myth 2: A Metaverse platform is the Metaverse
Horizon Worlds, Roblox, Fortnite, Second Life, and similar platforms are often referred to as „metaverses“. It is more meaningful to consider them as virtual worlds or platforms with metaverse-like features to be considered.
They are not connected to each other openly. An identity, an avatar, or a digital object cannot usually be transferred freely from one platform to the next without a platform. This very lack of connection is what makes the internet so powerful. Interoperability shows why the grand vision of a shared metaverse has not yet become a reality.
Anyone who wants to get an overview of such platforms can find it in our article on the topic. The most famous Metaverse platforms.
Myth 3: Metaverse and virtual reality are the same thing
That was probably one of the most problematic misunderstandings of the hype at the time.
Virtual Reality is a technology. It can be used for very different applications: training, simulation, gaming, product presentation, medicine, research, architecture, planning, or virtual collaboration.
The Metaverse, by contrast, was a possible vision of how part of digital interaction could be organized in the future. VR could be an access medium for this – but it didn’t have to be.
That was already wrong back then to make the success of VR dependent on whether Zuckerberg's Metaverse vision would take hold. This very separation is also addressed in the article. Does Virtual Reality need the Metaverse?.
Myth 4: Blockchain, NFTs, and virtual land are essential components
During the peak phase, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and virtual real estate were often presented as if they were mandatory technical components of the Metaverse.
That was never universally valid. Such technologies can support digital ownership or decentralized business models, but an immersive XR application does not require either blockchain or NFTs. Many successful VR, AR, and mixed-reality applications function entirely without them.
Decentralization was also more of a component of certain metaverse ideologies than a technical prerequisite for spatial computing systems.
How the media amplified the Metaverse hype
The hype was fueled not only by the communication of major technology corporations; parts of the business and technology press also adopted terms such as „Metaverse real estate“, „virtual land“ or „digital luxury goods“ partly surprisingly uncritical.
A good example is a CNN article from 2022 titled „Pixel pushers: How the metaverse became real estate’s new frontier“. It reported on millions of dollars being spent on virtual properties and a digital yacht. The underlying transactions were real – but the designation of „the real estate market in the Metaverse“ conveyed a much larger and more general market than actually existed.
The so-called Metaflower Super Mega Yacht. It was sold in 2021 for around 650,000 US dollars, or 149 Ether. Technically, however, it was not a yacht in an open, universal metaverse, but rather a NFT or 3D asset for the platform The Sandbox. Similarly, the much-cited purchase of virtual land for around 4.3 million US dollars referred to 792 plots within The Sandbox – that is, artificially scarce digital areas within a single proprietary system.
This was precisely the problem with the reporting at the time: Real individual transactions in highly speculative crypto and NFT projects were often presented as a narrative about an emerging general „metaverse market“. The figures were sometimes correct, However, the classification and the resulting expectations were highly speculative..
In retrospect, many of these events are more reminiscent of the NFT and crypto speculation wave than of the development of VR or AR. After all, the fact that digital assets can be traded does not automatically mean that a sustainable market or a new technological infrastructure will emerge from it.
What happened to the hyped metaverse platforms?
A particularly revealing look back is the question of what has become of the platforms that were marketed between 2020 and 2022 as future workspaces, social spaces or economic hubs of the Metaverse.
The result is sobering: Some were completely shut down, others withdrew from the VR or Metaverse business, others were sold or heavily restructured. And even providers that had technically solid products often could not develop a viable business model solely from virtual co-presence.
| Platform | Back then | As of 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Meta Horizon Worlds | Meta's central social VR/Metaverse platform | VR version on Quest discontinued since June 15, 2026; Horizon Worlds will continue as a mobile platform. |
| AltspaceVR | One of the most famous early social VR platforms, later acquired by Microsoft | Fully discontinued on March 10, 2023. |
| Microsoft Mesh | Positioned as the immersive future of meetings and collaboration | Mesh Web, the PC/Quest app, and the 3D view in Teams were discontinued on December 1, 2025; Microsoft continues to implement the concept as „Immersive Events“ in Teams. |
| Mozilla Hubs | Browser-based open social VR and meeting platform | Mozilla ended the service on May 31, 2024. The open source code continues to exist outside of Mozilla. |
| MeetinVR | Professional VR meeting and collaboration platform | Following a takeover in 2023, the services were fully discontinued on April 30, 2026. |
| Glue | Enterprise Social XR platform for meetings and collaboration | The parent company filed for insolvency in April 2024. The service was subsequently taken over by a new owner. |
| Spatial | Initially AR/VR collaboration, later positioned as a Metaverse/Creator platform | The open creator platform and hosting of 3D worlds were discontinued in July 2026. Spatial focuses on enterprise customers and its own games/IP. |
| The Sandbox | Blockchain metaverse with virtual land, NFTs, and SAND tokens | The platform continues to exist, but Animoca is now describing a strategic pivot of its own: away from the pure „metaverse game“ towards the SANDchain and on-chain financial infrastructure for creators. |
| ENGAGE XR | One of the longer-lived Enterprise/Education VR platforms, active even before the big Metaverse hype | ENGAGE XR Holdings and ENGAGE XR Limited have been in temporary liquidation since September 2026. |
| VRChat | Social VR platform popular long before the Metaverse buzzword | Very active still. Alone on Steam, the average concurrent user count was often around 45,000 people in 2026 – not counting Quest and other users. |
The pattern is interesting: Many of the longer-lasting platforms were already before They existed in the metaverse hype and had a clear core use case or a real community. VRChat, for example, wasn’t invented just because investors started talking about the metaverse in 2021. The community already existed because people actually wanted to do something there.
Other platforms, on the other hand, were heavily funded during the pandemic and the metaverse wave on the assumption that virtual offices, virtual meetings, or shared 3D spaces would automatically become a mass market. Exactly this assumption has not been confirmed.
„Together in VR“ is not yet a use case
John Carmack, then Consulting CTO at Meta and one of the most influential technical minds in modern VR development, already expressed remarkably clear doubts about this logic at Connect 2021. He fundamentally supported the long-term idea of a metaverse, but at the same time argued internally against many concrete metaverse initiatives.
His criticism of the idea that social co-presence automatically provides added value was particularly relevant. Carmack pointed out that many real luxury goods consist precisely in this:, not to be constantly surrounded by other people. His concise summary was roughly as follows: „Just add people“ is not automatically positive.
This quite aptly addresses a central flaw in the Metaverse hype. An application is not made better simply by having multiple avatars simultaneously present in it. Virtual coffee drinking together, watching a movie, or standing around in a nice 3D lobby can be interesting for certain communities – but that does not yet translate into mass-scale benefits.
A true use case only arises when the shared virtual presence enables something that would otherwise be worse, more expensive, or simply not possible: for example, spatial training, collaborative construction, simulations, joint exploration, multiplayer gaming, or events where spatial presence actually creates added value.
The underestimated problem: moderation and harassment in social VR
Another aspect was often overlooked during the euphoric metaverse debate: the more social and physical a virtual space becomes, the more important moderation, safety, and personal boundaries become.
Early social VR platforms already reported insults, harassment, and unwanted close-contact interactions between avatars. Therefore, Meta introduced a so-called Personnel Boundary One should keep the other avatars at a distance. Meta itself explicitly justified this function by reducing unwanted interactions and „hand harassment“.
The problem is more intense in VR than in a traditional chat window: an avatar is physically located directly in front of the user, movements appear physical, and the experience is immersive. This creates moderation problems for open social VR platforms that go far beyond traditional comment sections.
Here too, it becomes clear why the then idea of a huge open social metaverse was too simplistic. A world with millions of people present simultaneously requires not only servers and 3D graphics, but also identity, security, moderation, and governance systems on an entirely new scale.
What has become of the Metaverse hype in 2026?
The term hasn't disappeared, but its role has changed significantly. The grand narrative of the Metaverse as the immediate successor to the Internet has become much quieter.
The development at Meta itself is particularly symbolic: The company announced in 2026 that it would, VR and Horizon should be separated more clearly from each other. Horizon Worlds was transformed into a mobile-first or mobile-only platform; the VR version on Quest was discontinued. At the same time, Meta continues to invest in new VR, AR, and AI glass hardware.
At Meta Connect 2026, for example, new AI glasses and the announced Meta VR glasses were at the center of attention. Today, these products are positioned much more concretely through features such as Workspace, Entertainment, Spatial Computing, and AI – no longer solely through the grand promise of a single metaverse.
This development very clearly shows what has changed: The technologies have remained; the all-encompassing buzzword has faded into the background.
What has actually remained of the Metaverse
What has remained are mainly the applications that, regardless of the hype, have concrete benefits.
- Virtual Reality: Simulations, training, product visualization, gaming and immersive communication.
- Augmented Reality: Digital content in its real context: maintenance, marketing, product presentation and information. More about this on our page on Augmented Reality development and consulting.
- Mixed Reality: spatial applications in which real and virtual content interact with each other.
- Spatial Computing: spatial user interfaces and applications where digital content is no longer presented on traditional 2D screens only. See also our article on Spatial Computing.
- Digital twins and industrial XR applications: Planning, simulation and visualization of complex systems. The term Industrial Metaverse while it is still used in part for this purpose, it describes a much more specific scope of application.
These technologies do not need a common Metaverse narrative to be meaningful. What matters is the respective use case.
Was the Metaverse just marketing?
Not completely. Behind the term lie real technical developments: better XR hardware, spatial interfaces, real-time 3D, network platforms, avatars, digital identities, and new forms of virtual collaboration.
The marketing hype was more about bringing these different developments together into a seemingly uniform, imminent future. This created expectations that could not be met technically or economically.
That does not mean that virtual social worlds or interoperable digital spaces are fundamentally uninteresting. But a clear distinction should be made between a long-term vision and an application available today.
So what is the Metaverse – and what isn’t it?
The Metaverse is a vision of interconnected, persistent, and social digital spaces – no single app, no headset, and no platform.
A VR application is not automatically a Metaverse. A multiplayer game is not automatically a Metaverse. A virtual trade show is not automatically a Metaverse. And even a platform like Horizon Worlds, Roblox, or Second Life is not „the Metaverse“.
Therefore, in 2026 we can look back on the discussion in a much more sober light: The big concept has lost its importance, while many of the underlying technologies have become more professional and useful.
In our view, this is even progress for companies. Instead of asking questions „How do we get into the Metaverse?“, Today, the much more meaningful question can be asked:
„Which XR technology solves our specific problem?“
If you are interested in specific applications, you can find more information at Design4real. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality in Industry and virtual training.
Sources and further classification
- Meta, 2021: Introduction of the Meta corporate brand and metaverse vision
- Mark Zuckerberg, Founder’s Letter 2021: „metaverse-first“
- Meta, 2026: Separation of VR and Horizon / End of Horizon Worlds on Quest
- Meta Connect 2026: AI Glasses and Meta VR Glasses
- CNN, 2022: „Pixel pushers: How the metaverse became real estate’s new frontier“
- Meta, 2026: Horizon Worlds becomes mobile-only; VR version on Quest ends
- Microsoft: AltspaceVR was shut down on March 10, 2023
- Microsoft: Mesh is being converted into Immersive Events within Teams
- Mozilla: End of Mozilla Hubs service in 2024
- MeetinVR: Service termination on April 30, 2026
- Glue: Insolvency of the parent company and takeover of the service in 2024
- Spatial, 2026: End of the Creator platform and 3D World hosting
- Animoca Brands, 2026: The Sandbox and a strategic pivot to SANDchain
- ENGAGE XR, 2026: Companies in preliminary liquidation
- John Carmack / Ars Technica, 2021: Critical assessment of Meta's social metaverse goals
- Meta, 2022: Personal Boundary to combat unwanted interactions in Horizon Worlds
Frequently asked questions about the Metaverse
The Metaverse refers to a vision of interconnected, persistent digital spaces where people can interact with digital identities. It is not a single app or platform.
Not in the originally promoted form of an open, interoperable digital space. There are individual virtual worlds and platforms with metaverse-like features, but no unified metaverse.
No. Horizon Worlds is, or was, a single platform owned by Meta. It represents certain social and virtual properties, but it is not the cross-platform metaverse described during the hype.
No. Virtual Reality is a technology that is used for very different applications. The Metaverse was a possible vision for interconnected digital spaces and just one of many conceivable VR use cases.
No. Blockchain and NFTs were often associated with the metaverse during the hype, but they are not a technical prerequisite for VR, AR, or mixed reality applications.
In 2021, Facebook consolidated its apps and technologies under the corporate brand Meta. Mark Zuckerberg explicitly linked the renaming to the long-term vision of building the Metaverse as the next social computing platform.
The grand narrative of the Metaverse as a short-term successor to the Internet has significantly lost its relevance. However, many underlying technologies such as VR, AR, mixed reality, spatial computing, and digital twins are continuing to develop and have concrete applications.
What has remained are mainly concrete XR applications: virtual training, product visualization, spatial collaboration, AR, mixed reality, digital twins, and immersive 3D applications. These do not need the term Metaverse to have practical utility.
Well-known platforms that have been set up or significantly scaled back include AltspaceVR, Mozilla Hubs, MeetinVR, and the VR version of Meta Horizon Worlds. Microsoft Mesh was moved from standalone apps into immersive events within teams. Spatial closed its open creator platform in 2026.
Common virtual presence is not automatically a sufficient benefit. Successful social VR offerings require a strong community or specific activities. Additionally, headset comfort, moderation, technical complexity, and limited user numbers increase the barriers to entry.
