Unbelievable. They re-architected the whole operating system around this stupid app. They discontinued their previous homescreen environments in favor of trying to promote Horizon Worlds, only to discontinue the blasted thing anyway? After all of those millions of dollars spent trying to make virtual events happen?
The usage numbers probably reflect what happened in this house: since the pestering to confirm age and the horizon worlds update the Meta VR devices have literally not been recharged.
They had the foundation of something half reasonable at one point, but their product management clearly got in the way.
Interesting, cutting way back in the product they renamed the whole company for.
They feel a bit directionless to me. They are still making money but even their AI attempt feels half hearted. I think they are really trying but I’m not sure they can build the engineering muscle to move in new areas with the brand damage they’ve sustained.
Despite the shock at the amount of money meta spent on their version of the metaverse, I don't think they spent nearly enough to accomplish their vision.
Meta, to the detriment of the market, tried too early in the VR lifecycle to own the market. They basically tried to become the iPhone and Apple in the year 1990.
Tell me, do you believe any singular company in the year 1990, with 100B to burn, would be able to create the iPhone, in any of its varations? Absolutely not, there too much research, too much to invent, too much to program and not nearly enough talent and money for one company to manage.
The sign of a company in absolute decline is when the worst possible place to get info about it, is their official announcement. Whoever wrote the announcement went out of their way to obfuscate the crux of the announcement (compare the clear heading on hackernews to their own heading)
If your (well paid) job is to write and communicate clearly, and for a major announcement you come up with this...not much left to say.
I met some of my best friends in VR, and had life-changing social interactions in some VR games on the Oculus platform... Especially EchoVR. I'm still a true believer in VR as a medium. It'll go mainstream one day, and there will be a Meta-sized company built upon it.
They had lightning in a bottle and somehow lost it. Honestly it might have been hiring Carmack that sent them down this path. Moving away from PCVR expanded the market, but it also killed the magic. Now the quest store is a wasteland of what look like low budget mobile apps.
It’s wild how much mismanagement Zuck is able to get away with just because he controls majority voting shares in Meta. At this point all of the missteps by the company in AR/VR, AI and everything else can directly be traced back to him. Half-baked vision, massive spending and no accountability. The company desperately needs a Sundar/Satya type leader.
It's baffling to me how much they juiced up this platform on Horizon OS, and now they're just axing it from there entirely. Millions if not billions of dollars gone to waste. At least I won't have to see it in the UI anymore, I guess. How does this even happen?
The moment I tried their "Meta horizon worlds" I thought "This'll totally be discontinued in the next few years". What makes it extra stupid is that the entire Quest experience revolves around it.
I really didn’t want this to succeed, could you imagine an alternative future where people are strapping these things to their faces and immersing their full FOV in a zuck-controlled virtual shopping mall? The Facebook brand is absolutely toxic imo, I think it’s an incredibly understated reason for this product’s failure. I’d love to develop for these devices though if I could somehow avoid interacting with Meta beyond as an OEM.
"Earlier this year, we admitted we have no idea what to do with VR or Horizon.
We’re splitting them up because they’re both failing in different ways, and we’re turning Horizon Worlds into just another shitty mobile app. This mess is going to break everything, including the app on your phone. To "streamline" things—which is code for cutting costs—here is everything we’re taking away from you through 2026.
• Meta Horizon Worlds:
By March 31, 2026, we’re pulling Horizon Worlds and Events from the Quest Store. We’re also killing off Horizon Central, Events Arena, Kaiju, and Bobber Bay in VR. You can play your other favorite VR worlds until June 15, 2026, but after that, we’re deleting the app from Quest entirely. If you still want to use it, you’ll have to stare at a tiny phone screen like everyone else.
• Meta Horizon Hyperscape Capture (Beta):
By March 24, 2026, you can’t watch Hyperscape captures in Horizon Worlds anymore. They’re stuck in some beta app in your library that nobody uses. You can still record stuff, but you’ll be doing it alone because we’re killing the social features.
• Meta Horizon Plus (MH+) Perks:
By March 31, 2026, we’re stripping the Horizon-specific crap—like Meta Credits and digital clothes—out of your subscription. We’re charging you the same price for less stuff, but hey, you still get the monthly games.
We’re still spending money trying to make the Quest suck less—we added a keyboard and let you move windows around, and we’re forcing a new interface on you whether you want it or not."
They were trying to compete with an existing, VERY good couple of alternatives, and the people most actually likely to use that product were already on those services.
It was a losing play that didn’t know what market it was actually entering.
Horizon Worlds was always going to be a disaster. Complete crazy goals. An embarrassing mess of dopey looking legless avatars, then trying to force Meta employees to use it (everybody I knew there hated it). At this point I would like Palmer Luckey to take back what is left of Occulus, the tech has (much more modest) opportunities in gaming, entertainment, enterprise, military uses. Zuckerberg should pay him to take it.
When they started it they decided to ignore all the in house experience they had for former game developers and instead to "reinvent animation and collision systems from scratch". Even without legs, it was a damn failure
Wow, Meta just doesn't know what to do with this AI thing, and they are just doing whatever they think is right to just get into AI. However, they are just spending billions, yielding nothing in return. Insane.
I never understood why they were trying to recreate real life social interactions in VR, because it's worse by default, and the majority of the nerds who buy this tech are probably trying to escape that on some level. I know that any time I went into Meta Horizon Worlds, I didn't want to hear 95% of the people I heard talking.
What I do use VR for is Bigscreen VR nearly every night to watch stuff with my friends. Scrolling through reels in a movie theater is pretty fun and even though I never do it solo on my phone, I will sit there for like 3-4 hours in VR enjoying communal brain rot.
Perhaps they should focus on things like that instead of gimmicks that nobody cares about. For example, I have never once played a game in VR that didn't force me to sit or stand in a specific position, meaning to play it, I have to go out of my way to do so.
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10 billion a year supposedly for the past 5 years now.
They had the foundation of something half reasonable at one point, but their product management clearly got in the way.
And it is so simple - just listen to your users and give them what they want - which seems to be VR cat girls.
> After all of those millions of dollars spent trying to make virtual events happen?
Billions. $70 billion since 2021 to be exact.
They feel a bit directionless to me. They are still making money but even their AI attempt feels half hearted. I think they are really trying but I’m not sure they can build the engineering muscle to move in new areas with the brand damage they’ve sustained.
Meta, to the detriment of the market, tried too early in the VR lifecycle to own the market. They basically tried to become the iPhone and Apple in the year 1990.
Tell me, do you believe any singular company in the year 1990, with 100B to burn, would be able to create the iPhone, in any of its varations? Absolutely not, there too much research, too much to invent, too much to program and not nearly enough talent and money for one company to manage.
If your (well paid) job is to write and communicate clearly, and for a major announcement you come up with this...not much left to say.
Context: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/14/meta-reportedly-considerin...
They had lightning in a bottle and somehow lost it. Honestly it might have been hiring Carmack that sent them down this path. Moving away from PCVR expanded the market, but it also killed the magic. Now the quest store is a wasteland of what look like low budget mobile apps.
I believe there is no expectation of a Meta Quest 4 right?
Probably more accurate? :
"Earlier this year, we admitted we have no idea what to do with VR or Horizon. We’re splitting them up because they’re both failing in different ways, and we’re turning Horizon Worlds into just another shitty mobile app. This mess is going to break everything, including the app on your phone. To "streamline" things—which is code for cutting costs—here is everything we’re taking away from you through 2026.
• Meta Horizon Worlds:
By March 31, 2026, we’re pulling Horizon Worlds and Events from the Quest Store. We’re also killing off Horizon Central, Events Arena, Kaiju, and Bobber Bay in VR. You can play your other favorite VR worlds until June 15, 2026, but after that, we’re deleting the app from Quest entirely. If you still want to use it, you’ll have to stare at a tiny phone screen like everyone else.
• Meta Horizon Hyperscape Capture (Beta):
By March 24, 2026, you can’t watch Hyperscape captures in Horizon Worlds anymore. They’re stuck in some beta app in your library that nobody uses. You can still record stuff, but you’ll be doing it alone because we’re killing the social features.
• Meta Horizon Plus (MH+) Perks:
By March 31, 2026, we’re stripping the Horizon-specific crap—like Meta Credits and digital clothes—out of your subscription. We’re charging you the same price for less stuff, but hey, you still get the monthly games.
We’re still spending money trying to make the Quest suck less—we added a keyboard and let you move windows around, and we’re forcing a new interface on you whether you want it or not."
I don't understand what Horizon Worlds is or the other thing mentioned.
It was a losing play that didn’t know what market it was actually entering.
At least they had a purpose, a vision.
Now Zuckerberg is going to be all sour about it and even more cynical about everything.
They’re going to go back to what they know how to do: optimize for attention and sell personal data.
What I do use VR for is Bigscreen VR nearly every night to watch stuff with my friends. Scrolling through reels in a movie theater is pretty fun and even though I never do it solo on my phone, I will sit there for like 3-4 hours in VR enjoying communal brain rot.
Perhaps they should focus on things like that instead of gimmicks that nobody cares about. For example, I have never once played a game in VR that didn't force me to sit or stand in a specific position, meaning to play it, I have to go out of my way to do so.