Meta bought Oculus VR technology in 2014. The attempt to make Meta Quest a mainstream hit cost $8.3 billion this year alone. Despite the lack of enthusiasm from gamers, Mark Zuckerberg does not plan to give up. Since the end of 2020, Oculus VR rebranded as Reality Labs, has accumulated losses of around $50 billion. These are not final amounts; the latest results are even worse than in the first quarter 2024.
Despite the obvious lack of success, Meta is neither giving up nor even slowing down. Efforts in this technology unrelated to gaming have become the subject of jokes, such as Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous VR selfie. The entire Metaverse concept is currently rarely mentioned, although there is no indication that Meta plans to abandon it.
That’s an counterfactual argument, because there is a third option: not buy at all, which is what people are doing.
And it’s largely because Facebook, even outside of Lemmy circles. Heck, the sale of the original Quest was even forbidden for quite some time in large parts of Europe because of shady business practiceses of Facebook. This is not a privacy bubble fringe problem, at least not in Europe.