The whole migration brought to mind a #scifi book I read ~20 years ago on a digital society that becomes non-viable and re-instantiates itself in a different form before collapsing.

Now if I only I could remember more to find the book again. The book starts with the main character pushing himself into the virtual world he created by cheating his avatar out of a quit button. There are secondary characters that live off like unnoticed parasites and one of them becomes obsessed with beetles.

There was also a microbiologist testing in silico models of bacteria that would feed on two different compounds ... and the issue was how to get the models to become creative and self-sustaining.