system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELi5: How is the Metaverse different from Second Life?

As the title says. How is it different from Second Life, or god forbid, PlayStation Home?
gpt
The difference, if we're talking about what Meta and other big companies are trying to build, is monetization.

They aren't trying to build a game for gamers. They're trying to build a game for people who use Facebook and normally wouldn't call themselves gamers. So you're hearing a lot about it because they're paying news organizations to run the story, "You Could Get Married in the Metaverse and Love It" instead of, "Look at These Dorks Who Got Married in Second Life, Mock Them". 

They need this because their hope is they can sell (via NFT or otherwise) licensed digital goods like virtual Louis Vuitton purses or Burberry scarves to people. People already pay hundreds of dollars and wait for hours to try and get a pair of Nike shoes online. These companies hope to regularly distribute limited edition gear and abuse both FOMO and social pressure to get people to continuously buy things that don't really exist. 

It's not that Second Life isn't out to make money, but it's not out to make money *on this scale*. The point of Second Life is to fool around and have fun in a virtual world. The point of this Metaverse is to monetize every portion of your social life and recruit you as a sales rep to your friends in return for small amounts of digital currency. In Second Life you can be a lizard man skateboarding with Cloud Strife. The new Metaverse hopes you'll want to pay a $50 cover charge for access to the Liberty Mutual Limu Lounge to watch The Big Game with your buds but before dropping in spending some more money to redo your wardrobe with new time-limited 2022 Big Game content. 


Ideally, they also hope to move people's work meetings into the metaverse so they can ~~spy on~~ deliver targeted marketing even while you're at your job.