Last year, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, signaling its shift from traditional social media to a big bet on the so-called metaverse. This network of 3D, online spaces is accessed through virtual reality headsets like Meta's Oculus and promises to revolutionize internet communications. But is there substance behind the hype, or is the metaverse just a fad? And if virtual reality worlds are here to stay, what do policymakers need to know about them? To answer those questions, I've brought Mark Jamison back on the podcast. Mark is the director of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business and a nonresident senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute. Over the past several months, Mark has been writing about the metaverse and the challenges it faces.