After years of denial and billions in losses, Meta has finally accepted the inevitable — the metaverse is over. The company announced it will shut down Horizon Worlds on VR platforms entirely by June 15, reducing the once-celebrated virtual universe to a simple mobile app. Mark Zuckerberg, the man who renamed his company after this dream, is now presiding over its quiet funeral.
The story begins in October 2021, when Zuckerberg unveiled the Meta rebrand with theatrical flair and genuine conviction. He described a future where people would attend concerts, hold business meetings, and explore fantastical worlds — all through VR headsets and digital avatars. The metaverse, he said, would become as transformative as the internet itself, and Meta would lead the charge.
The reality that unfolded was starkly different. Horizon Worlds never grew beyond a modest user base of a few hundred thousand monthly participants. The virtual spaces felt empty, the technology proved cumbersome, and consumers showed little appetite for strapping on headsets to socialize in a digital replica of reality. The product simply failed to resonate with the people it was built for.
The financial consequences have been staggering. Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse and VR division, accumulated nearly $80 billion in losses over roughly four years. When the company slashed more than 1,000 jobs at Reality Labs in early 2025, the direction of travel became unmistakable — Meta was abandoning the metaverse for AI and wearable technology.
The internet reacted with a mix of schadenfreude and genuine frustration. Critics argued that $80 billion represented a colossal misuse of resources that could have addressed real-world crises. Whatever the verdict of history, the metaverse stands as a reminder that even the most powerful technology companies can build something nobody actually wants.