Ten years later, Facebook’s Oculus acquisition hasn’t changed the world as expected

Wait, who expected the acquisition to change the world?

Dropped a comma. Here, I'll put it back.

"Facebook’s Oculus acquisition hasn’t changed the world, as expected."

Like the Metaverse?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

It evokes a flood of romanticized images of Homebrew Computer Club nerds soldering together circuit boards in South Bay garages.

Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.”

Mark Zuckerberg is probably as guilty as any single person for perpetuating that perception, happily working his hardest to make the company’s Horizon Worlds platform synonymous with conceptions of the metaverse.

As an HTC Vive exec told me back in February at MWC, “I think Meta has adjusted the market perception of what this technology should cost.” Other companies can’t compete on price and content in the customer space, so the savviest of the bunch have moved over to enterprise, where clients have much deeper pockets.

Apple is targeting business customers at that price point, while Meta is far more committed to democratizing access by — again — losing money on a per-unit basis.

As we mark a decade since the Oculus acquisition, I find myself returning to the above Zuckerberg comment: “Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.”

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