You really can't evaluate what Meta is doing unless you adopt a particular perspective on the future of computing, and I think there's a fairly stark divide bet

You really can't evaluate what Meta is doing unless you adopt a particular perspective on the future of computing, and I think there's a fairly stark divide between a minority of people and the rest on this: either you think VR/AR is the future of computing or you don't. You can have a big argument about that, but once you "red pill" yourself and become convinced that one way or another this tech is the future of computing, just about everything Zuckerberg is doing makes sense. I think Zuckerberg sees it as totally inevitable that VR/MR/AR is the future of computing and he also sees from living through the iOS/Android experience that there is really only room for two players in a space like that. Given Apple will cruise into one of those, it simply comes down to, who is number two? Mark wants to be number two. Who could stop him? There isn't really anybody. In theory Google could have but they've chose to stand by the sidelines. They appear to be making the lazy assumption that, since they are smarter than everybody else in the room, if it turns out to be a mistake they can come back in and overtake - that looks delusional to me but it fits with Google's character. If you're Zuckerberg this looks like utter foolishness and the most important thing right now is to race to cement as much of an advantage before they come to their senses. Another interesting feature of the iOS/Android comparison is that arguably Google has never really made much money from Android. It has worked for them defensively but it hasn't ever really done more than support their other businesses. Mark doesn't want to be in that position. So he's going to make an open ecosystem play but he's going to do it by owning the hardware and hence a vastly greater share of the profits. The author asks whether Meta can earn $20B/year from the metaverse. I would say that Mark is shooting here at a 30% chance of making $200B/year. Which is to say in a completely different way, to him at least, it's a no-brainer. However he's effectively taking Meta back to being a startup. So it's right for conservative investors to leave - they never really should have been there in the first place. But it's not necessarily an indictment of his strategy if they do. It's just the wrong risk profile for such investors.