In early 2026, Meta began dismantling its original Horizon Worlds vision, only five years after declaring its all‑in bet on immersive virtual reality. It would be easy to call it a failure and move on. But that misses the point. The metaverse didn’t die, Meta just built a version of it that nobody wanted to spend time in.
I say this as someone who bought in early. I had the Oculus Rift, then the Quest. I played Half‑Life: Alyx, watched NBA games in 3D, even attended a Coldplay concert in VR. The immersion was real. For a moment, it felt like the next frontier. And the market seemed to agree. VR headset shipments surged more than 50% year over year in early 2021.
