Meta commissioned a report by consulting firm Deloitte which said that the metaverse will do well on the back of its use in the defence, medical and manufacturing sectors, plus entertainment use cases such as video games and communication.

Meta said the European Union may see an increased economic opportunity of up to 489 billion euros in annual GDP by 2035 or about 1.3-2.4 per cent of its total GDP. Deloitte said the metaverse could contribute between $33.88 billion to Canada's annual GDP by 2035.

All this makes it sound like Meta’s moves to build metaverse technologies in 2021 were rather clever and ground-breaking. However, last year, a similar Meta-funded report estimated that metaverse adoption would contribute $3.01 trillion by 2031.

This means that Meta experts are lowering their expectations considerably. It might still happen, but it is going to take a lot longer to get the bigger numbers.