The Metaverse Has Always Been a Dystopian Idea

[empedocles]

3. From the key dystopian source in the cite:

“This imaginary place is known as the Metaverse,” as Neal Stephenson wrote.

*The hero of Snow Crash is named Hiro, and he is a gig worker delivery driver who moonlights as a hacker, and lives in abject poverty in a 20x30 storage unit he shares with an alcoholic roommate. “Hiro spends a lot of time in the metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.” . . .


The U.S. as we know it has ceased to exist, and corporate entities and organized crime control whole city-states. Workers like Hiro can be killed for taking too long to deliver a pizza, and they are driven into the metaverse underworld to find extralegal work and enough money to make ends meet. The only reasonably safe places in the physical world are heavily fortressed “burbclaves” where the wealthy reside behind batteries of guns and gated communities.