I think this is sane washing their idea in the modern context of it having failed. I think at the time, they thought VR would be the next big thing and wanted to become the dominant player via first mover advantage.

The headsets don’t really make sense to me in the way you’re describing. Phones are omnipresent because it’s a thing you always just have on you. Headsets are large enough that it’s a conscious choice to bring it; they’re closer to a laptop than a phone.

Also, the web interface is like right there staring at them. Any device with a browser can access Facebook like that. Google/Apple/Microsoft can’t mess with that much without causing a huge scene and probably massive antitrust backlash.

> I'm not convinced that it's a mistake for Meta to peruse not being beholden to other platforms.

Devoid of other context, it’s hard to disagree. But your parent comment only asserted that the metaverse specifically as proposed by Facebook was an obviously stupid idea.

Naming your company off a product that doesn't really exist yet and then ultimately fails is a pretty crazy and stupid thing to do. A bit cart before horse.

> At any point one of those companies could cut FaceBook off (ex. [1]).

Some of those companies can cut off invasive apps.

There is no risk of facebook.com getting blocked. And absolutely nobody is going to prefer a headset over a website for doing facebook things.

For the money spent(over $80b), they could have launched a phone or a car. Now their pivot is to smart glasses which require a phone so once again they are beholden to phone manufacturers.

>Why?

Patrick Boyle did a nice video a few weeks back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BaSBjxNg-M

Good luck using an Oculus in your car or while waiting the bus.

If it was really their goal, they would have made an Android competitor. Maybe a fork like amazon did and sell phones that supported it.

Zuckerberg had one great idea (and then it wasn't really his idea) at the right time, since then he failed over and over at everything else. 'Internet for all', remember ?

I really wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt.

so after $80 billion spent, they must have an ecosystem of hundreds of millions of users? Right?

Maybe they should have spent that on the facebookphone

Because it's been very clear for a long time that the vast majority of people do not want to play VR Second Life.

Can anybody cut meta off? I don't think you could mass market a device with no access to FB, IG or WS.

Maybe a niche product could do it, but good luck selling a laptop that won't open FB

Because it's been a massively expensive failure. They can't just will their own platform into existence just because it would be good to have, consumers have a say and they've rejected it completely.