SnowCrash
It all started with … SnowCrash!
In Neal Stephenson’s brilliant novel (personally, I had trouble stopping to read before the end at least) Snow Crash, he introduces us to something like a very futuristic Second Live.
For those that remember gopher and newsgroups in the early Internet years before there were browsers, this kinda represents yet another evolution on the Internet tools, and as such… not just probably, but maybe even desirable. The World Wide Web did change a lot since it’s invention by CERN in Switzerland in 1989 - see WWW for details.
Of course, the Internet is even older than the web. Or maybe we should call it by it’s original (1962!) name, the Galactic Network, founded by the US government.
TLDR: In the future, the real world is fragmented, while the Metaverse is not; it does belong to a kinda of benevolent dictator/owner/founder (for more details you should read the book!). People meet in the Metaverse to talk, have fun, play games and more. So, like a futuristic version of what we do have now in lots of games.