The Metaverse has Always Been a Dystopia

Name ONE work of fiction involving virtual reality in which virtual reality is not viewed as a horrible hellscape. (okay, name two)

One of the climactic beats in Neuromancer, which came out 10 years before Snow Crash and without which Snow Crash would not exist, has the hero in a false reality constructed by an AI in which his dead girlfriend is alive again. The AI appeals to him to stay a while because this reality is better than the one he's currently dying in. The protagonist chooses to return to the crappy reality because it's real.

It's the RUR problem: the first appearance of robots in fiction is about a robot uprising, and the majority of works since have also. We write these stories to reinforce what we don't want, not what we do. Frickin' Snow Crash is fundamentally about a virtual reality virus that infects your real brain and the tantalizing evidence of a mother tongue destroyed by the tower of Babel but then Stephenson whiffs the ending because he's a hack. ABSOLUTELY NO PART OF IT is inspirational in any way, shape or form.

People don't even want augmented reality, let alone virtual. Yeah you can play Pokemon Go that way but it slows you down, is a gimmick that lasts 2 minutes and nukes your battery (as well as isolating you from the friends you're playing with).

Second Life has reliably failed to catch on for 18 years now.