Most imaginative uses of VR

VR offers so many more opportunities than letting people think they're on a rollercoaster, showing off an unfinished house or gaming. In a way it's almost insulting that that's how people are using it. It's like taking the Holy Grail and using it as a soup bowl. VR can change the world. What a shame that so far really it's only being used to escape it.
For example, do you know how much pollution transportation is currently adding to the globe? Airplanes alone are adding about 4% of the CO2 that humanity is spewing out and that's increasing at an astounding 5.2% per year, despite efforts to make airplanes more efficient. With VR that can be reduced dramatically.

It can reduce the need to travel

Now you've probably already heard of this idea. Why would people need to travel if there is a VR alternative to let them see faraway places without needing to spend 13 hours cooped up in a little metal tube? If VR can do what it's supposed to – allowing us not just to see another place, but also to be in that place through projection, then there is a smaller need for people to travel long distances for business meetings.
Similarly, it could be a cheaper alternative to taking the family out to Giza to see the pyramids – especially if they are virtually projected there and can take that selfie, talk to the locals and decide to see what's down that side road. After all, as VR improves it will be possible to capture an actual location in real time, giving you the possibility to travel with your friends without actually going there and giving a far more immersive experience besides.
But it can do more than that.

It can reduce travel needs

All over the world airlines are struggling to push more people into less space. After all, the more space people take up, the more planes need to fly the same route. VR can revolutionize that entire problem. Why would you need to fold people into tiny spaces where they're hugely uncomfortable, when instead you can offer them the opportunity to dwell in other spaces while they fly?
In that case all people would need is a comfortable bed and some VR glasses. It doesn't matter that you then stack these beds on top of each other – they're not seeing the roof ten inches above their faces, they're seeing fantasy worlds, their work stations, or the large virtual lounge that accompanies every airplane as it hurtles through the sky.
And the more people you can put into those planes, the less CO2 each person that flies a route is producing. And that's not even mentioning how much better flights would be if you could alleviate the boredom! Now you could, seeing as people would be able to range the stars even as their bodies were carried across the ocean.
And if some poor writer is desperately trying to meet a deadline but doesn't have the money to pay for a better seat they don't have to try to type hunched up over their keyboard with their elbows in their neighbors faces. Instead, they can work stretched out, with as many screens in front of them as they need and the keyboard at their outstretched fingertips.

Waiting times would be less important

Similarly, it would revolutionize waiting times. No longer would we be forced to sit around waiting for our bus, our train, or our planes to arrive. Instead we could simply take off into these virtual worlds, where we could stay productive, watch their television programs, play their games or truly talk to their friends half a world away.

All that would be possible because VR doesn't have the same problem that mobile telephony does. It doesn't have a tiny screen that simply does not cut it in relation to the big plasma hanging on the wall at home. VR has the incredible capacity to create the sensation of any sized space you could possibly imagine, all with a pair of glasses and a computer in your pocket. That will completely change computing on the go and make it even easier for all of us to access whatever we may need, wherever we are.

It can disconnect us from consumption

And the more used to that we become, the less we would feel the need to own physical things. Don't believe me? It's already happening. Millennials are far less interested in owning physical stuff. That trend will only accelerate as people are able to immerse themselves deeper into worlds where they can theoretically own anything at the click of a mouse (or whatever we'll be using then to click). Why go through the trouble of owning a mansion when you can simulate one and actually feel like you're inside it?
And that in turn will affect travel further. As we become ever more used to enjoying things virtually, the need to travel to places physically will change. Yes, we'll still want to say we've actually gone somewhere, but it won't be quite as pressing as it is today. Some people might fly to Paris. Others might simulate a trip to Mars. And you know what? That second group will use far less resources to do so.
In other words, VR will (hopefully) finally sever the strange obsessions we have with believing that having lots of stuff leads to happiness. Hopefully that will mean we'll have more of our beautiful planet left over to give back to the plants and animals that we're currently threatening with extinction.

To save this world we need to colonize others

Stephen Hawking famously said that we need to colonize other planets to save ourselves. He's right, but possibly not in the way he imagines. Virtual reality will open up a range of worlds and planets only limited by our imagination (and imagine what all those VR worlds would do for our creativity). The result will be that we'll need to burn through less of the one that is actually limited in order to satisfy our needs and desires.
VR, in other words, offers us the opportunity to have our cake (unlimited consumption) and eat it to (keep our planet from kicking the bucket) now if that isn't an imaginative use of VR I don't know what is.