That's because you are comparing Facebook to startups when you should be comparing Facebook to AT&T. AT&T spent billions on Bell Labs and gave us the transisto

That's because you are comparing Facebook to startups when you should be comparing Facebook to AT&T. AT&T spent billions on Bell Labs and gave us the transistor among other things like modern day switching networks. AT&T was a government sanctioned monopoly, and for that privileged they spent billions on research. Keep in mind that billions were already spent on the technology behind the metaverse in research institutions and government labs. Think internet, computers, AI tech, VR tech, all had billions of investment from the public sector already. What you are seeing with the metaverse is a privatization of the technology that already had substantial public investment. And even your startups are just piggy backing off billions spent in research. Google itself was started by a government grant for example. In other words when you look at spend at starups, you are just looking at the tip of an iceberg. Where under the water there was billions spent already by the public.