I also never had to connect my (rift) headset to a Facebook account, but wasn't there a period when new quests needed to be connected to Facebook accounts?

If you didn't have a previously-existing Oculus account, there was a period in which you were forced to use your Facebook account. I think this was since the release of Quest 2, up until a few months ago.

This sounds like it could be right - I was pretty early on the oculus bandwagon - then only recently had to "upgrade to meta".

To answer some of the siblings. Yes a Meta account is not a Facebook account. Facebook = A product. Just like an Instagram account isn't a Facebook account either. But they are both 'meta'.

Meta essentially end-of-lifed oculus accounts but transitioned them to Meta. I think (myself included) people would not have liked being forced into another product.