Meta haven't abandoned the metaverse, and made it very clear from the beginning that "the metaverse" was something that does not exist, and will not exist in any form until the end of the decade. They continuously reiterate this during earnings calls, while increasing their capital expenditures on it.
You cannot determine it's a waste if the effort isn't completed, and if you have no insight into their progress.
Certainly the part of those investements wasted on cramming a whole PC into goggles that smash into your face with straps around your head and pretty much all of the Meta and Meta subsidized content to go along with that can be evaluated now, and not in 5 more years. The fact that Quest stalled out 2 years ago with only about 7M actives after tens of billions spent trying to make it go is pretty much all anyone needs to know about Zuck's metaverse investments. Now they're pivoting to glasses with a heads up display and pretending that was the plan all along because Zuck won't admit the cash bonfire that Quest and Horizon Worlds has been, about $100B sunk for only about $15B return with only a few million users.
Based on your comment it's apparent you neither follow the industry closely nor understand it's dynamics. The vast majority of the billions of dollars are being pumped into R&D, not marketing existing legacy devices.
You also seem to be implying in your comment that the orion glasses displayed at connect last year were a last minute pivot, which is a ludicrous statement
And I'll say again, the vast majority went into software. The Quest line can't be more than about 1/4th to 1/3rd of it and other hardware R&D is less than that. That leaves a majority to software.
Meta is a profitable business that can afford the R&D budget. I'll agree that it's a stupid way to spend $46 billion, which the average HN commentator could have told them in advance, but hey, it's their money.
