It's not. In the story (the book), the company that runs the metaverse (Gregarious Systems) is portrayed as a "benevolent" company that somewhat respects its users and acts in the best interest of people (you may be thinking of the intentions of IOI and Nolan Sorrento, the adverserial company that sound like our Facebook).
Uh, there's also an unfounded claim in the story that the metaverse software (the OASIS) is open-source, but the author only mentions it once and this claim isn't exactly supported by the rest of the story (at least to me).
One could argue that the benevolent company was giving people an excuse to ignore the problems in the real world. Didn't the main character gain the option to delete Gregarious Systems if he deemed it was best for the world?
