Maybe the metaverse is a viable concept or maybe it isn't. But Meta doesn't care about the metaverse or the potential users of it -- they simply want their own platform similar to how Google has Android, and Apple has iOS, and Microsoft has Windows. Apple, in particular, is a thorn in their side.

Not caring about what the user's want is the first problem. The second is that they wanted this done yesterday. So rather than evolving the technology and seeing where the market was going, they tried to build the whole thing at once immediately.

They didn't know what they were building, how to build it, and they threw it together as quickly as possible. The result was, unsurprisingly, pretty lame.

Then to justify the expenditure, they then forced it into every aspect of their Quest devices trying to force adoption. Unsurprisingly again, this failed and also pissed off all their Quest customers and damaged the viability of that platform.

Meta thought they could simply spend their billions and that would be enough to succeed.