If anything, it sounds like the start of a "Meta? I don't even know her" joke.

It's not VR, it's Metaverse; VR might involve experiences that are not bullshit.

The metaverse, if we define it as an information layer that exists in parallel with the physical 'stuff' universe and is a seamless, effortless, and essential part of what we experience as reality will be an enormous part of our future. Meta might just be a few centuries ahead of the curve, which is just as bad as being a few centuries late.

If you define it like that, it's just the internet.

Centuries really? I think Meta's going to be just on time.

I think we may skip the whole VR experience and just have robots instead of virtual friends

That's a large overlap rather than sequential.