1. VR rebranded (Facebook’s approach)
2. a specific family of games that allow you to buy and own land/territory, mediated by the blockchain (see Bit.Country[1] as one of many examples)
3. a term used widely in crypto/web3 world to refer specifically to the fact that we can finally build networks that people can own (buy/sell but also control directly via programmable governance) and built on without being rent-collected by extractive web2 companies (mitigated platform risk); using web3 platforms which externalize most of the value they create
Hacker News tends to understand the 1st but not the 2nd or 3rd. The 3rd is most interesting and less well-understood: the metaverse is about much more than a new viewing device (VR headsets). It’s about new kinds of economics around ownership and control.
[1]: https://bit.country/