this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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The metaverse must have been a money laundering scheme, there is no way in hell an unreleased product like that cost 80 billion.
$80b does not describe the figure that they put into Horizon Worlds, it's the total of all R&D for their entire VR/AR ecosystem. The first VR headsets had to use screens that were designed for smartphones. Now, panel manufacturers fill custom orders of screens that are specifically designed to be used in VR. A lot of current-gen headsets are using panels that were custom made for a now abandoned meta headset. I could go on and on about the major innovations that they've brought to the medium, but it's mostly nerdy shit that doesn't sound particularly flashy. When the quest 2 came out, the controller tracking was so bad it would lose the controller's position if it was near your face, so drawing a bow in VR was a crapshoot. Now, you can serve a ping pong ball behind your back. I don't think most people realize how insane that is. The headset has no positional data for the controller if it can't see it. They've gotten so good at predictive motion tracking using only IMUs that you can accurately hit a ball behind your back even when the controller is completely obscured by your body, and they did that all with software. There are dozens and dozens of similar small improvements that wouldn't even be noticed by someone who doesn't play a lot of VR, and many of them were incredibly complex engineering and software problems which are now solved.
Zuck's still an evil bastard, and Horizon Worlds is a steaming pile of shit, but I'm a big VR nerd that's been following the progress of the medium since before Facebook bought Oculus. I am so glad that Zuck was convinced that his metaverse idea was viable. It caused him to dump billions into R&D that would have taken years and years to develop organically. I promise you the entire medium of VR is now years ahead of where it would be if not for Zuck blowing all that money.
Plus now they're seemingly pivoting to put all that R&D toward their perv glasses, which tragically seem to be catching on.
$80b for a shitty VR version of Facebook would be ridiculous, but that's not all they spent it on. We went from $800 headsets that required an expensive gaming PC and tracking hardware set up around your room, to a $350 battery powered standalone headset that requires no external sensors and can play games like half life 2 without needing a PC at all within ~5yrs. That's how they spent $80b.
I think they actually released that. It's almost even sadder that they released it and absolutely nobody cared.
Not only that, they renamed the whole company Meta because that was what they wanted to be known for. Now it is just named after a dead product.
Tbf, they renamed it to try to get away from the bad press they got after the Facebook Files scandal. They thought renaming the company would make people forget, or something.
At that time they were all in on the metaverse, so of course they had to name it Meta. I guess that's another bad decision from zucc added to the collection.
What I really don't understand is why they haven't changed it again, either back to Facebook or to something new. Now Meta always reminds me of both the metaverse failure and trying to weasel out of the Facebook Files fallout.
"Meta" like "all that metadata" they're harvesting, manipulating, selling! Perfect, IMO! :D
they went from one risky venture to a worst one.
doesnt look like it if they lose 80bn dollars, also diving into AI slop.