They've lost $10b on the metaverse so far; you'd think you could design a phone at least SOMEWHAT decent for that price, and at least get a TINY foothold back into the market.

They gave it at least a weak try, with terrible results.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-why-the-facebook-phon...

That's the amazing thing, they tried it once, badly, in 2013 and never bothered trying again.

Wow, can't believe it's almost been a decade since that was a thing. Back when HTC was still around making some of the best phones at the time too, I miss my HTC One.

Also, same thing happened when Amazon tried releasing the Fire Phone. I think a combination of being carrier exclusive and using sub-optimal hardware was a big contributing factor to both their demise.

Facebook making a phone would have had similar problems as VR: what would be the draw of a Facebook phone? If it's an Android phone it's just an Android phone with Facebook branding. They can't deliver exclusive features to only Facebook Fone owners as their money comes from ads so they need the broadest reach for features.

If they rolled their own OS they'd have to spend a lot of effort building and maintaining that platform. If Microsoft and Amazon can't will a third phone platform into existence Facebook definitely can't.

Their $10B metaverse spend is a waste but I think it would have been a waste on a phone as well.

This was Zuck’s biggest mistake. The money spent on Metaverse would have been better spent just making a Facebook phone.

They made a phone once, and it didn't pan out. [Source](https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-why-the-facebook-phon...)