Ah I see so it's like a space, but on the web. Like some sort of a cyber...
Anyone talking about this "metaverse" like it is anything other than the normal internet we already have (which is equally amazing, btw) would have to have either created or fallen for some sort of marketing material.
My bet is that it becomes like what Clubhouse is now: a home for all kinds of whackjobs, hustle culture bros, "become wealthy" gurus and recruitment channels for MLMs and political extremists.
ERP can also mean Erotic Role Playing.
They may be some competing metaverses, I doubt one will win out (I kind of doubt any will do well)
So my bet is that there will never be The Metaverse just like there never was The Forum, The MMORPG, The MUD.
We may still have useful/fun stuff in specific VR worlds, of course.
Even Meta's Quest hardware is still not at that point, and the ecosystem is pretty small. I feel like we're not even at the "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad." stage yet.
In that sense, I agree with you we should ignore the marketing, and I also think we should talk about the metaverse as we talk about the web, not as some rigid concept, but more a vague idea of a thing in VR.