Please don't ask me to visit my bank in virtual realitysource: The Verge
At times, it seemed as if Wells Fargo was trying to integrate banking into every hot new technology, whether it was practical or not. One idea, for example: Customers could use an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to virtually walk into a bank branch and talk to a teller.
There have been a couple high profile experiments with this sort of thing already. Sony Playstation Home, and Second Life come to mind.
My general take on VR, is that you will want to do things that are impractical in the real world, but generally not duplicate/emulate it fully.
I think many people will want a "home" on the web. Sortof like a detailed Minecraft world. While many might have a few simple virtual rooms, ie: One to learn basic info about them, another for photos, maybe book or media recommendations, etc. I'm sure others will create elaborate connections to all manner of services.
People won't want to waste a lot of time virtually walking though. Virtual teleportation, sure. If it's a shared VR space, you'll see people beaming in and out of your space constantly.
VR won't replace voice, web, text or email. If a task is easier to do with those tools, people will continue to do them using those older tools.
People probably will want to watch movies and tv, once the screens get virtually big and good enough. People will also choose to watch shows with other people's virtual avatars. Pausing and talking during the show.
People will want to play some 1st person shooter games, but 1st person shooters will be easier to play longer on a non-vr regular flatscreen. The 1st person shooter VR experience will make most people motion sick, so they'll prefer it as it is today over VR.
However, people will want to play virtual boardgames, think chess, Monopoly, Heroclix, and that sort of thing. Those sort of spacial, slow moving, mostly stationary games will be ideal for VR. The VR will allow them to be enhanced with motion and animation in fun new ways but static non-moving stuff will be popular too.
People will want to take virtual tours. VR Google Maps Streeview, VR Museums, and VR movie sets will be very popular. Businesses may even install a few 360 cameras in their location, so people can virtually "beam in" and look around before committing to visiting in RL.
VR concerts where the performer is on stage in a smaller venue and the viewer can look around from a stationary spot fed by a 360 camera in the front row, will be very popular.
Watching VR sports will be less popular, too much distance traveled/occupied for most of sports for them to be compelling in VR, motion sickness again. Tennis, Fencing, wrestling and other sports that happen in a tight small locations will be popular though, in these smaller venues, the concert experience described above will work well.
There will be a whole category of Virtual presence TV-like experiences, where real world events will have stationary 360 cameras that VR participants can view the event from.
People will want to VR chat with the avatars of people they know, less so with the avatars of businesses and brands. People will mostly want to text and short message businesses and brands. This won't stop brands from creating 3D animated avatars of 100 years of cartoon spokes characters and trying to force this experience on people though.
VR will be a thing, but it won't be a perfect emulation of the real world, any more than the web is a digital emulation of a physical library.