Just how real is the Net?

[Blue]

In 27 years of something being around, I'd think most of the excessively complicated shit may have been figured out. Especially something as all encompassing as The Net. I mean, look at the cellphone. 27 years ago, it was barely able to make a phone call. Now, cell phones are more computer than phone. Hell, look at the progress in the medical field. They have cameras which can jack into the optic nerve and allow blind people to see. They have prosthetics that can actually move. In 40 years, this innovation is supposed to come out. I can believe that by then we would be able to fully simulate vision, hearing, movement, and even feeling virtually. And if not, 27 years later, with 27 years of research into improving said experience, would have done it. Especially consider these huge companies will want to improve their revenue as much as possible.

They had bars in Russia during that time because there WASN'T another option for bars. What I'm arguing is that if there is something you can do in two places, people will choose the better place to do it. IE: You don't go to a shitty club with women/men you don't find attractive. You go to the one with the hotties.

I never said people weren't going to go outside. What I said was, if there was another choice that is better than that, people will choose it. Maybe you can't exercise online. I'll grant you that. But in a virtual world, you could spend time at someone else's house without leaving your own. From the description, it would seem that things online are at least as real seeming as reality. I mean, hell... look at modern videogames. They're already on a level nearly as detailed as reality. I think that in The Net, it wouldn't be like merely watching something. For all intents and purposes, you WOULD be there. It wouldn't be like watching a video, because it's not something you look at on a screen. It would be all around you, as real as looking across the room at your girlfriend.

And yeah. I'm sure physical contact will still be a thing. You're going to have your lovers and your socialites. I'm saying most interaction would happen online, since this thing is so pervasive. But reality isn't going to be like our modern world, with choices of bars and things.

I imagine many of the entertainment options that are pervasive in our modern world would be much more rare in this dystopian future. People would likely play sports not for money, but for the fun of it. You wouldn't have bars on every corner like in some cities. I'm assuming most metropolitan areas wouldn't have more than a handful left open.

I'm not saying that you have to write any way. Myself, I was planning to play an evangelist dead-set on tearing down this virtual world. I'm trying to press the importance of the difference between The Net and The Waking World. It's not going to be a pleasant place in reality. As such, it's likely to be a pretty lonely place for the small groups of people who still prefer offline interactions. It's probably going to be nothing like even our modern life. You're not going to go to a bar or club and see dozens of people there, the most likely scenario is that even a single bar in a city won't have more than a handful or two. And the prices of things out there will probably be through the roof as compared to online services.

I mean, you're totally putting aside that these three near-Monopolies are basically running the lives of people. Why would they allow even a minor threat to their stranglehold on people's wallets?