Usually the open source community is very scattered, there are many groups developing similar projects like operating systems for instance. If all open source developers focused on the same system it would be miles ahead of the proprietary alternative but it’s usually the other way around. I think with the Metaverse is important that we focus early on a single project because if the Metaverse gains traction everyone may end up living in Facebook’s virtual reality and that would be the same as if we considered Mark Zuckerberg to be our god.
I understand your concern and it’s a great issue to raise but I disagree that there’s nothing to be done. I look at it as a competitive landscape where we FOSS devs will create our own spaces and culture. If we want to provide an alternative that the masses will prefer then then that’s a specific goal that would involve a huge amount of investment, probably on par with what FB’s doing.
The open source way is slower, more viral and ultimately covers more of what people want to do all the time. I think there’s tremendous potential in pioneering how VR can be used for good and using open source software to do it. Maybe FB goes out and paves everything over and it’s up to us to grab what we can and be ready when their stuff crumbles.