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Opinion
Parmy Olson

Zuckerberg’s $1,499 Headsets Won’t Help Meta

In his annual virtual reality conference, the CEO focused on a device that hardly anyone will buy.

Mark Zuckerberg says more realistic avatars are critical to the metaverse.  

Mark Zuckerberg says more realistic avatars are critical to the metaverse.  

Source: Screenshot from Meta Connect 2022 presentation

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As Mark Zuckerberg spoke to the camera in a pre-recorded presentation on Tuesday to kick off Meta Platforms Inc.’s annual virtual reality conference, he needed to address the elephant in the room: Enormous skepticism had grown around his vision for the metaverse.

New users were finding his main Horizon platform buggy, and employees were getting antsy about the radical shift to virtual reality that Zuckerberg announced at this event one year ago. They needed a good reason to believe in his vision, but the Facebook co-founder didn’t give them one.