Of course we can have someone crazy like Elon Musk deciding to spend 50 billion dollars to try to build one, but even that would be very hard and would take a decade to build what "meta" means to us.
I think it can still be possible. Meta is a tech and sooner or later someone will tapped or expand the meta on different sector. Its just like facebook before, that really become a huge adoption once the people get to know it. Of course I believe it will take time before going into that but time is just fast, soon we realize we are already on that meta era. Its fine if its a failed attempt. There is no success if we arent open for mistakes along the way.
Interesting thought, I agree with you, really it's just the beginning, but people like to think that way, and expect incredible worlds... can't say that's a bad thing, I think it's great on the contrary.