I genuinely wonder why Facebook thinks that using that term is a smart thing, considering that Snow Crash is a pretty heavily dystopian novel where everything is owned and run by corrupt, powerful, and abusive corporations.
It really seems like they're tipping their hand here.
Snow Crash is literally the first thing that came to my mind when I saw FB talking about "metaverse".
And not only it is a dystopia, but the Big Bad in the story is literally the guy who owns the physical metaverse infrastructure:
> “I deal in information,” he says to the smarmy, toadying pseudojournalist who “interviews” him. He’s sitting in his office in Houston, looking slicker than normal. “All television going out to consumers throughout the world goes through me. Most of the information transmitted to and from the CIC database passes through my networks. The Metaverse — the entire Street — exists by virtue of a network that I own and control.
He's also pretty open about his methods:
> “Yeah, you know, a monopolist’s work is never done. No such thing as a perfect monopoly. Seems like you can never get that last one-tenth of one percent.” ... “Y’know, watching government regulators trying to keep up with the world is my favorite sport. Remember when they busted up Ma Bell?” “Just barely.” The reporter is a woman in her twenties. “You know what it was, right?” “Voice communications monopoly.” “Right. They were in the same business as me. The information business. Moving phone conversations around on little tiny copper wires, one at a time. Government busted them up—at the same time when I was starting cable TV franchises in thirty states. Haw! Can you believe that? It’s like if they figured out a way to regulate horses at the same time the Model T and the airplane were being introduced.”
One step closer to real life Shadowrun.