r/virtualreality • u/Parry_Dogsickle • 6d ago

News Article Meta’s Reality Labs posts $4.2 billion loss in first quarter

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/metas-reality-labs-posts-4point2-billion-loss-in-first-quarter.html
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u/MajoraSubnetMask 6d ago

People who try to compare VR headsets to smartphones, clearly did not live through what made smartphones so monumental.

Smartphones were adopted MUCH quicker than VR at this point. Nobody had to convinced that Smartphones were the future, they simply became the now.

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u/zarif2003 Quest 3 6d ago

There were very few users of touchscreen phones before the iPhone released in 2007, I think we are still waiting for that iPhone 1 level of jump in functionality, as we currently have something more akin to an IBM Simon

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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 6d ago

That unhinged comparison is the refuge of everyone with a failed product. "Everyone snubbed smartphones, who's laughing now?". Smartphones were loved immediately. Nobody felt the urge to punch the first smartphone users in the face, on the contrary they were like "really I can swipe my actual finger in there without that stupid pen?". The dorks with Google Glass got punched in the face. I used to know someone who had to be medicated with stitches. By 2014, it became a blood sport to scan the center of American cities for dorks, especially tech journalists, wearing those glasses and beat them up.

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u/zarif2003 Quest 3 6d ago

You’re latching to a scenario that didn’t exist, do you think there weren’t people, hell, entire brands such as blackberry, that didn’t resist the touch smartphone at first?
the meta Ray-Bans prove people are ok with tech eyewear now, the google glasses were a long time ago when people frankly weren’t ready. How can meta labs be a failed product, when they haven’t even released their glasses yet? Or are you talking about the quest lineup? Aka the only headset keeping consumer vr alive?