Post-Mortem on a Hype Cycle: What Ever Happened to the Metaverse?

Let’s cast our minds back to the heady days of 2022. It was a time of boundless digital optimism. The “metaverse” was on the cover of every magazine. Facebook had rebranded its entire corporate identity to Meta in a multi-billion dollar bet on this new frontier. Digital real estate was selling for millions in platforms like Decentraland, and we were all told to prepare for a future where we would work, play, shop, and socialize as legless, cartoon avatars in a persistent, 3D version of the internet.

It was, we were assured, the next great evolution of human connection.

Now, in the reality of 2025, a quiet has descended. The breathless headlines are gone. The corporate buzz has faded. And most of us are still conducting our work meetings over Zoom, not in a virtual boardroom. This raises the question: What ever happened to the metaverse? Was it a fleeting fad, or is the revolution just on hold?

The Autopsy of a Hype Cycle

The metaverse, as it was sold to us, didn’t just fade away; it collapsed under the weight of its own hype. The vision was spectacular, but the reality was deeply flawed.

1. The Technology Simply Wasn’t Ready: The single biggest barrier was the hardware. To truly “enter” the metaverse, you needed a VR headset, which for most people was (and still is) an expensive, clunky, and isolating experience. The software itself was even worse. Platforms like Meta’s Horizon Worlds were graphically underwhelming, looking more like a video game from 2007 than a futuristic digital world. The user experience was buggy, disorienting, and frankly, a little bit lonely.

2. There Was No “Killer App”: The metaverse was a solution in search of a problem. What was the one thing you had to be there for? For work? A Zoom call is infinitely more efficient. For socializing? It was easier to just text your friends. For gaming? Dedicated, beautifully crafted video games offered far more compelling experiences. The metaverse never found a killer app because it never defined a core purpose beyond just “existing.”

3. The Vision Felt Sterile and Corporate: The version of the metaverse pushed by the big corporations felt deeply unappealing. It was a vision of virtual conference rooms, branded experiences, and digital shopping malls. It lacked the chaotic, user-driven, and authentic spirit that actually makes the internet interesting. Users didn’t want a heavily moderated digital office park; they wanted to build their own weird, wonderful communities.

4. The AI Tsunami: The final nail in the coffin was the explosion of generative AI in late 2022. The collective attention—and investment—of the entire tech industry pivoted almost overnight. The metaverse went from being the “next big thing” to yesterday’s news, as all the smartest engineers and venture capitalists raced to build the future of large language models instead.

The Legacy: What Survived?

While the buzzword “metaverse” is now radioactive, the core ideas behind it haven’t vanished. They’ve simply been rebranded and absorbed into more practical technologies.

• “Spatial Computing” is the New Metaverse: Apple, with its Vision Pro headset, has carefully rebranded the concept as “spatial computing.” The focus isn’t on escaping to a different world, but on blending digital information with your physical one. It’s a more grounded and immediately useful application of the same underlying 3D technology.
• Gaming and Social VR Continue to Thrive: The dream of persistent, social 3D worlds is very much alive, just not under the metaverse banner. It’s happening in massively popular games like Fortnite and Roblox, which have become social platforms in their own right. And niche communities continue to thrive in apps like VRChat.

The metaverse of 2022 was a classic tech bubble—a premature vision that the technology couldn’t support and the public didn’t ask for. The death of the hype cycle, however, doesn’t mean the death of the dream of a more immersive internet. It just means that dream will be built slowly, piece by piece, under new names, and driven by real user needs rather than just a billionaire’s keynote.