As the concept of the metaverse has snaked into the discourse, predictions about it have seemed mainly to reflect the desires of the corporations that are setting the terms of the conversation. The key idea is that, no matter what you’re doing in the metaverse, or where you are, your identities and assets will be multi-platform and transportable: you’ll be the same “you” at work and at leisure. In recent months, the metaverse has been described as a kind of online place, combining virtual reality, augmented reality, the Internet, entertainment experiences, gaming, and remote work. I think it is useful, in attempts to forecast the future, to be humble about the enormous mystery of other people’s desires. Watching Zuckerberg stroll through a blandly monied virtual set, appointed, as if from a drop-down menu, with books and trinkets and unused-looking sports equipment, I wondered if there were people who wanted this, or would find this vision exciting. I thought of him most recently while watching Mark Zuckerberg deliver an hour-long presentation on Facebook’s rebrand-it is now called Meta-and its newfound focus on building the “metaverse”: a vast and integrated virtual world. It is hard to know what anyone else really wants, and I think of this man often. FarmVille, our host confirmed pleasantly-it was a game, a farming simulator, played by tens of millions of people on Facebook-before asking if we might be interested in some eggs.

The dog nosed around in the vegetable beds. Through the picture window, we could see mist rising from the evergreens. “FarmVille?” I asked, half awake, spreading honey over a slice of toast.

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