It was created when software provided by Active Worlds was installed on a computer at a California university. Initially, in order to encourage building by teams of students, there were few restrictions on building-anyone could build anywhere. The lack of restrictions allowed malicious acts and destruction. Probably all of the people sharing space in a VR society are in different physical places. Often visitors arrive from other worlds, sometimes speaking other languages.
Electronic connections are almost instantaneous, however.
For example, the symbolic token, money, is a means of time-space distanciation because it can be used in transactions between agents separated in time and space. Our students did not invent money, but money transactions could be incorporated into a commercial VR society. Students did exchange expertise, primarily information about objects, shortcuts, and names of expert builders who could answer questions. Building was accomplished by duplicating 3-dimensional objects available in the worlds. Objects contained information about themselves that could be copied and re-used.