Are you saying that the population that has access to virtual reality hardware is "much larger" than the population that has access to going outside?

Not just outside but to places with sufficient interesting birds. If that costs a gallon of gas, or you have limited mobility, or limited time to spend getting to the right spot, or limited free time while the sun is up in certain months... yeah I could believe that's actually more restrictive for a lot of people than getting 5 years of use out of a VR headset at $70 per year.

Convincing yourself that your local birds aren't sufficiently interesting is a great way to rationalize avoiding getting into birding. (Source: I am trying to learn to distinguish all the pigeons that constitute most of the bird population near me. They're great.)

And it is a classic for folks with limited mobility:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/birding-window-get-s...

There's a reason why it has a reputation as a great retiree hobby - it's "go sit on a bench and pay attention" not "first, purchase a mountain bike of adequate spec...".

I think going to benches is fine but takes non-negligible effort. As for looking out my window from home... Maybe? It really doesn't seem like there are enough birds visible to make that worth it.

The person in that article saw ten species in two months? This doesn't sound like a situation where your activity is listed as "birdwatching", it sounds like you spend a minute on it every once in a while.

And if I consider binoculars and a feeder, that's on the same price tier as VR.

Knock yourself out, if you prefer the VR version

It's probably better than nothing. From a human and nature perspective, you're not "touching grass". You aren't waiting with anticipation, wonder if you'll see something or what you'll find. You aren't locked in 100% to the experience. I don't think it would be the same.

I think one of the drawbacks of VR birdwatching is that you are served the bird in focus, in frame, almost immediately - there's no search, there's no WTF is making that noise?

Some parts of birdwatching could be Virtual - watching a feeder somewhere (anywhere) waiting for birds to come in and watch what they do - or watching different trees/plants at different points in the year attracting different birds exhibiting different behaviours (eg. I have a love of seeing Tui[NZ] when Taiwanese Cherry or Kowhai are in flower, they gather in the tree at different times of the day when the nectar is at its peak, there are fights for dominance between the birds, there's a racket as they all feast, then boom, as quickly as they arrive they're gone again, off to the next tree)

In real life, you have to navigate nature as well.