Yes, it has cost them billions of dollars (ongoing) to develop their AR/VR tech. You can definitely criticize that, but this spending is defensive. If Facebook (Meta) doesn't own at least some market share in a future device, that is an existential threat to them. How much did ATT cost Facebook? [1] Answer: north of $10 billion in 2022. But note: it's actually a reduction in Facebook's revenue by that amount, so in the fullness of time, the total damage is much worse.
> Ray-Ban
Facebook has multiple form factors. They have VR quest (3). They have AR glasses. I don't expect Ray-Ban to capture Facebook/Google's margin here, and Facebook would be able to build first party AR glasses if they wanted. You use Ray-Ban to sell v1 and then you make v2 good enough that it sells itself.
All of this seems tangential to my complaint that I would love an incredibly high res and reasonably hackable VR screen.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2022/04/23/appl...
The proof will be in the pudding: how useful is it to chat with llama? (I'm extremely skeptical but want it to be cool)
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-steal-ray-ban-meta-m...