Silicon Valley, Facebook Giving Up on Reality, Building Terrible Alternative

I don't think the author is wrong necessarily about any of this but the tone of the article is so wildly cynical and scatterbrained that it can't achieve a focused argument.

A lot of the topics of the article are entirely tangential to the "metaverse" products themselves.

Yeah, we get it, Facebook is an elitist company with an out-of-touch billionaire founder. We get it, climate change is an important issue to address (though of course the article glosses over the fact that virtual meetings and overall better telework will combat climate change).

Facebook isn't really even generally the "low pay, crappy life" company to work for. They aren't Uber or Lyft or Amazon. Amazon is mentioned in the article but they don't make metaverse products, so I don't even see how they're relevant to the topic.

The author imagines a world where everyone has to escape the Blade Runner world on their Facebook Oculus device. I imagine a very status-quo world where Facebook is just attempting to sell fancy videoconferencing hardware to enterprise customers.

Such luddite nonsense. VR/AR is a fantastic emerging technology and Facebook are working hard to make it a rich accessible experience for the masses. My $300 Oculus Quest 2 entertains me every day and makes my life better.