they have almost 50% marketshare on steam... they did not fail at VR accessibility https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

Meta has consistently tried to drive the price of their headsets down compared to the competition. They weren't looking to build the expensive high end groundbreaking hardware, they are looking to make cheap ubiquitous AR/VR so that people can access the "metaverse" which is the real platform and product that meta wants to control.

So no, meta's play was never "groundbreaking hardware", it was making the hardware better while keeping the price accessible to normal people. Apple hasn't even entered the competition there.

Probably. But I don’t think many were expecting Meta to dominate this space because it was always obvious that they don’t have a multi-device ecosystem like Apple does.

Or it could be the public really isn't interested in VR/AR.

I get we're no longer allowed to be critical of the tech now that Apple has directly entered the market, but some tech never takes off despite repeated attempts and I'm convinced this is one such situation.