I always assumed that Second Life popped up in response to the novel Snow Crash, and I always thought that Second Life was a bit lame because the technology just wasn’t there yet. Second Life may still be limping along on fumes, but it has been seeming to me that the sequels to Second Life have been evolving through video games like World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Fortnite, etc. Today I heard about a plot of virtual land being bought and sold for $2.43 million in a new (to me) one called Decentraland. This is clearly speculation at the moment, and you would expect booms and crashes. These platforms are slowly but surely creating their own marketplaces and even currencies behind the scenes. It may already be possible to create and run a business through these platforms. A big question is whether they will become interoperable at some point. I assume it is a given that they will take advantage of virtual reality technology as that continues to evolve. Another question is to what extent they will remain in the entertainment realm, as opposed to connecting to the real world economy and workplace at some point, which is where actual value would start to be created.