Our version of a persistent virtual space was never going to be like fiction. There will be 3 or more competing metaverses, none of which have any interoperability.
Or hundreds of incompatible little ones. If VR really takes off "We need to add chat to our app" will become "We need to add our own metaverse to our app."
That can actually end up more healthy overall & lead to some competition.
Having just one metaverse everyone uses seamed like the worst thing in Ready Player One - because then one entity can control it and for their rules and morals on all participants.
Much harder to do that with multiple competing incompatible metaverses.
