The metaverse promises to bring our digital and physical lives closer together in terms of wealth, sociability, employment, commerce, and entertainment, whether through virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), or simply through a screen. Because these two worlds are already interwoven, there's no need for a headset: Consider how the Uber app uses location data to estimate the distance between you and the car. Consider how Netflix offers suggestions based on your previous viewing history. Consider how contemporary iPhones' LiDAR scanner can scan your surroundings in 3D. The metaverse (also known as "web3" by some) is a step forward from the current Internet. True believers would disagree. It believes that the metaverse can benefit everyone, that it can expand access, opportunity, social networks, and mental health—though it must admit that much of what the metaverse can do is still speculative, and depends on a confluence of events, from hardware deployment to data infrastructure developments, all of which are on very shaky timelines. If the metaverse is just an extension of the internet we presently have, one only needs to consider the plethora of issues we have yet to address in our online existence—hacking, catfishing, harassment, and hate speech—to realise how dangerous a future on the metaverse could be.