For the founder of Facebook, which became Meta on that same autumn day in 2021, most digital social interactions, whether family or work-related, individual or collective, recreational or educational, will take place in the Metaverse in the not-too-distant future. Tomorrow's internet, the one that "will be the successor to the mobile internet", as he puts it, will offer the possibility of being "in" the internet, and no longer just "on" the internet. In this vision, the Metaverse is not simply a “virtual world”, i.e. an environment simulated in three dimensions in the way that video games can be. It is a digitised everyday space in which we can act in augmented reality (AR) [[[Technology enabling 2D or 3D digital elements to be added to perceived reality using digital devices (smartphones, tablets, headsets, smart glasses, etc.).]]] or mixed reality (MR) [[[A set of devices and technologies from the physical and digital world that encompass the real environment, augmented reality (AR), augmented virtuality (AV), and the virtual environment. In this report, this expression is sometimes confused with augmented reality (AR) or extended reality (XR).]]] thanks to display devices (headsets, glasses, holograms, but also computers and mobile phones). According to this approach, the Metaverse is moving away from the conventional screens we are familiar with to play with the intertwining of virtuality scales.

The idea that the Metaverse will be the next internet is widely debated. For some, it is a successor to the mobile internet.

For others, the Metaverse will develop in tandem with the evolution of the internet, the next iteration of which could be Web 3.0 (see "Monetising the Metaverse") Regardless of what Web 3.0 covers (decentralised networks, open architectures, content authentication, etc.), there is nothing to say that the Metaverse will be based on its principles and will have the same uses.

Either way, the Connect 2021 conference sent shockwaves through the technology and media worlds. One of the most powerful companies in the world had just embarked on the Metaverse, taking with it thousands of companies and commentators, and potentially billions of people... and billions of dollars in turnover.