I want it to stay single player. They tried with the Sims 4 already and it didn't work out. I don't want history to repeat itself. If they want to try the VR/MMO route with a side Sims game, have at it.
Reasons for decision:
1) Too much dissension on forums, social media, and fan sites between Simmers. There would be no escaping it if it were to come into the game itself.
2) Loss of monopoly. There are a lot of MMO games out there already that have done it. If the Sims were to do this they would be competition with companies that have already done it for example Second Life and Skyrim and Minecraft.
3) The Sims is too safe of a game, it would be boring and no different from VR Chat. The most popular MMO games out there are more violent in nature.
4) MMOs are expensive to maintain with little return back. I've talked to people in the industry and there are so many costs for keeping the servers running, having active mods at all times, more bug complaints, characters getting stuck in games, and the bigger the size the better so even a Sims 3 world would be considered tiny compared to the MMO worlds.
5) Griefing/reaping there is no guarantee that your creations will stay the same or be free from harm from other players. Some like me are deviants and believe me GTW type of illnesses will be the least of your worries when playing with others. Plus I'm a bit of a pyro Simmer, so yeah I like playing with fire no matter where it is at.
6) Sims mobile games already offer free to play/MMO style games. Why pay when you play for free?
7) MMO games get expansions in a much longer time frame than the Sims. For example Guild Wars 2 was released in 2012 and just barely got their second expansion last year, so it requires a lot more patience for your favorite themes.
8) VR is expensive. For people who don't want to pay $700 for just a computer to run the Sims 4, you are going to tackle an extra $400 plus to that price. So expect even less people than in the Sims 3 days to be able to afford to play it.
9) Motion sickness. VR causes motion sickness, so make sure to have some tums near you at all times, so enjoy the extra cost to keep your nausea under control if your stomach can't handle it.
