I doubt Mark Zuckerberg’s vision will become a reality because Meta is, at it’s core, more of a media company (like The NY Times) than a tech company (like Intel or Apple). Having the world’s largest publishing platform and some ad tech, however impressive, doesn’t automatically make you the type of tech company that creates the platforms of the future. It’s possible to pivot to that but it seems like it would probably require a huge cultural and philosophical shift, from management on down, and it’s not clear that Meta has the ability or people in place to pull that sort of change off.

Sometimes, new ideas in tech get mocked before they become as accepted as the iPhone. It’s not impossible that Meta is just having hiccups on the way to being a great tech company. But VR isn’t a new idea and my guess is Meta is being mocked today because their their marketing is so far ahead of their talents and we get a buggy Miiverse meets Second Life (soon with legs!) and everyone just thinks it’s funny to watch a cynical, sociopathic company fail at appealing to regular humans.