I'm guessing: makes people potentially interested in a VR headset, but some of them will be put off by the high price and will look for another option, and the Quest 3 is kind of the obvious choice for most consumers.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Now that Apple has kickstarted the AR/VR hype to mainstream people, means the other device makers can piggyback on that free advertising the VR/AR industry is getting, and they also now have more competition and incentive to invest in them instead of thinking the market is dead and giving up on it.

See the Quest 3. Before the AVP people were saying $500 is too expensive for a VR headset, but the Zuck can now advertise it as a AVP alternative that's more functional and also 7x cheaper than what the AVP offers for the money, now that Apple set the market price point.

Apple joining the club is a win-win for the industry players and the consumers.

Because it’s an interesting product that many new to VR users would be curious to try. It’s also so expensive that nearly no one will buying it. But they can experience 80% of a Vision Pro media and productivity experience with the Quest 3, plus a bunch of VR and gaming experiences that the Vision Pro can’t do.

Likely that it was over 3x the price of the Quest 2 and while it had better hardware it mostly felt like an incremental update. Part of this is definitely because not enough software took advantage of the new hardware it had (i.e. eye tracking).

It also didn't help that it was released near the end of the Quest 2 life cycle and people could predict that a more consumer friendly version would be released in the near future. The Quest 3 was announced ~6mo later and released a year after the Quest Pro.

Vision Pro is getting a ton of coverage right now, and a common comment is that the Quest 3 does all the same things for a fraction of the price. (can't speak to the claim, it's just what I've heard a lot of)