Metas investments into VR make abundant sense as an effort to capitalize on a market where Meta was leading, has mindshare, and owns the platform (Oculus). If the bet paid off, or pays off, it would create a sorely lacking competitive moat and potentially provide Enterprise inroads where Meta is otherwise a non-player.
Apple went down the same road, they see the same potential profits. I don’t think either is guilty of contemporaneous dot-com-boom thinking or investments with regard to VR/AR.
Carmack was on board, he remembers Pets.com too.