The concern for me is that there is a demand for a metaverse (although as noted in the comments there are some positive use cases)-- are we so unhappy with the real world?

Escapism is not all-evil (I enjoy books, movies, games and think they add to my quality of life) but there is so much potential for abuse and misuse with a metaverse, and Facebook has not yet proven itself capable of controlling (or understanding) the impact of their current platforms; how can anyone trust them with this?