Well, of course, there is a story to that. Parasites were people that didn't pay, Avatars had unlimited time, and we, as the admins of the systems, were the Gods. If you think about this whole cyber-universe that is developing at quantum speeds right now, you see that the rules are being made up as we go along.
Nobody really knows where it's going and nobody controls it.
We have staked a claim on a bit of cyberspace, and that's where you are right now.