Meta Scraps VR Horizon Worlds, Shifts Flagship Metaverse Project to Mobile Only

The retreat recalls Google’s 2011–19 Google+ shutdown and Linden Lab’s Second Life plateau after its 2007 peak—ambitious social-tech visions that overestimated mainstream appetite. Meta’s move fits a century-long pattern: each computing wave (mainframes 1960s, PCs 1980s, smartphones 2007-) spawns lavish bets on the "next platform," but only those aligning with existing user habits endure. By diverting capital to AI and wearable glasses, Meta is acknowledging that immersive VR, at today’s cost and ergonomics, echoes earlier false starts like Nintendo’s Virtual Boy (1995). Whether VR eventually matures—perhaps when optics, bandwidth and content converge later this century—the 2026 shutdown marks a historical footnote: the world’s largest social network publicly abandoning the very concept it renamed itself for, underscoring how even tech giants cannot will a market into existence.