Parmy Olson, Columnist

Zuckerberg’s First Store Is a Smart But Expensive Metaverse Bet

Facebook is planning retail outlets to help get more people wowed by the Oculus headset.

April 25, 2022 at 3:15 PM UTC

Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.”

An attendee wears a Oculus headset at the annual Barcelona tech fair in March.
Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

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Mark Zuckerberg gave his social media giant Facebook a mountain to climb when he switched focus to the metaverse, an abstract concept whose future customers must open their wallets for a relatively experimental technology.

His strategy till now: Heavily subsidize the cost of its Oculus Quest virtual reality headset. But $300 is still a lot for a type of device that most consumers have never worn. So Meta Platforms Inc. is taking a cue from Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and other tech companies that have tried their hand at reaching the masses through retail outlets. It’s a smart but risky move.