My feeling is that Meta is rather running away from a failing business and less running towards a new green meadow.
To me these are proofs of concept that meta verse is a real thing. The open questions are if these experiences will eventually transition to VR, or if traditional form factors are immersive enough; and if Facebook can make a more compelling experience than the existing services.
It felt so detached, and the interviewer was very mellow, only saying that perhaps the cost is a problem, but the Meta guy insisted that it's needed so they have to find the money.
I mean, I've been to Palo Alto, and its crazy... but not that crazy.
Imagine the kind of pearl clutching you would find in The Guardian if Zuck built something closer to VR Chat or Roblox.
Disclaimer: we are the devs behind VRWorkout
In the fitness space there is a huge group of people who would like to go to the gym but don't because of social anxiety. And VR fitness is already one of the major pillars for the headset manufacturers ( Meta, Pico and HTC ). So the social anxiety issue may very well be a driving factor overall
Where VR fitness does shine is the social aspect without the social anxiety.
Doing an intense full body workout with people across the globe and seeing other express their movements without having to show themselves leads to a much more relaxed an fun experience than for example a Zoom workout.
I am fully aware that this is not for everyone, that's why it's good to have options. I for one wouldn't even have the space or money to put up a peloton bike but I can temporarily allocate 2 square meters between our living room and kitchen for my calisthenics exercises in VR. And by using mixed reality I can even shrink that a bit further.
It's probably a bit hard to explain with only words so here is a short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WGOZlFXjQU
But for adults.. well after staring at a screen all day the last thing I want to do is stare at another screen, I'd rather lift weights or play guitar or whatever.
That said, most adults need to work in order to survive. Couple that with the fact that most jobs these days are done either directly in front of a computer or using some screen-enabled device, and it's not hard to see that most adults will have been staring at a screen all day most days.