People happily pay to indie artists making their 3D models of objects or avatars, people use in VRChat, even when having free alternatives. But one thing is right, "metaverse" should be a federated protocol like e-mail or http, where anyone could host content, and join, without stupid centralization.

Booth.pm, gumtree, sketchfab, patreon, take way less, and it's already being used to sell VR avatars and prefabs to VRChat users.

Scientists have to publish articles in governmental approved lists of journals with a score given to each journal. That score is how the merit of the scholar is being calculated to have better positions in academic institutions or to be granted a tittle of professor. Those points are used to validate the grant reports and influence the probability of getting new grants to continue your research. You publish in approved journals or perish.