For Niantic, the metaverse will be in augmented reality

For Niantic Labs CEO John Kanke, the virtual reality world that Mark Zuckerberg wants to create is a "dystopian nightmare" and that augmented reality will be much safer for it. 

" The future I am describing is the one that will take over. The one in which computing is there all the time, while blending in and helping us do what we need to do. This is ubiquitous computing. In our metaverse, unlike the metaverse in VR, there is that structure that the real world brings. Bytes are linked to atoms. And so you have these things that add information to the place you're in and give you useful functionality. For example, you could put a virtual button in the air to buy a bus ticket, or arrows on the pavement that point the way to the underground, or information about the product you're looking at. It's the potential that counts. It is in augmented reality that the real metaverse will emerge"John Kanke explained in an interview with Wired.