What is the metaverse?

Simply put, the metaverse is the next stage in the evolution of the internet. The metaverse is the internet mediated by graphically rich 3D spaces with an increasing focus on virtual and augmented reality.

Over time, the internet has gotten progressively more intuitive and interactive. The early internet was almost entirely text based, with hyperlinks used to navigate between text pages. Over time it became more graphical until internet applications such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, etc, became the norm. All of this progress still has happened on screens (2-dimensional surfaces), but humans live in a 3-dimensional world.