alt Hacker NewsI think Meta's position as a large company under (rightfully) a lot of media scrutiny fundamentally prevents it from creating a successful "metaverse". It'll be pushed towards being overly corporate/sanitized and centrally controlled to meet expectations of managing misinformation, player safety, etc. opposed to the less restricted conditions that resulted in the web. Smaller companies (like VRChat) or individual hobbyists can get away with more, and generally have less cynical motivations.
Microsoft was in the middle of the biggest antitrust case in history (both in the US and the EU) and successfully launched the Xbox in that time. They had Halo and local multiplayer up to 8 players across 2 connected consoles requiring no internet. Meta didn't have anything besides a naked desire to pursue the end (monetize the user) before the means (a product people wanted).