There's a short story called the Lifecycle of Software Objects. It introduces the idea of platform wars, e.g. competition between various metaverse worlds. I see this playing out with Horizon, maybe Roblox, Epic, etc. Things are mostly interoperable across platforms but some have limitations.

Having the choice for digital worlds would make it a little less dystopian. But I think the bigger thing is having competition with hardware, for the 'next-level surveillance' reason you highlight.