It's an incredible tool and way to engage with virtual worlds, but the question we should be asking isn't "Is VR technology good enough" which I think people get stuck on. Really the question is "Does everyone want to be in a virtual world regularly?" and my intuition having spent a good amount of time in VR is that the answer to that is actually no.

I love video games, so much so that I even try to make them. I spend many hours playing in virtual worlds, but I very, very rarely want to use VR. I'm the perfect candidate for the technology, and it's honestly mindblowing when I do use it, but it's just not a casual experience. Even if we had the perfect, unobtrusive and lightweight technology, you are still choosing to disconnect from your current environment and spend time fully engaged with a different world in a way that games and TV don't. That can be really exhausting.

Seems like he has no choice. Even if it doesn’t work or we’re all skeptical — he better play along and go for it.

But that's fine for Meta. Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp might all be running out of growth, but they are all big enough that Meta can afford to invest in something that will only pay off in a decade or two, as long as the payoff is big enough. Gaming-VR headsets are just a good way to get the technology into people's hands right now, and iterate on it.

Meta is in trouble, and it needs to do something to retain relevance. This is something, and Meta is doing it.