Welcome to the future of the internet, which apparently looks exactly like the past, but with lower resolution and more corporate desperation. Meta, the company that rebranded itself to remind us daily of its commitment to a virtual future, has decided that the “VR” in its VR metaverse was actually just a suggestion. In a move that screams “we’ve spent $46 billion and all we got was this lousy mobile app,” Meta is officially pivoting Horizon Worlds toward mobile devices. Because if there’s one thing smartphone users are clamoring for, it’s a legless digital void that drains their battery faster than a TikTok marathon.

The central claim here is that “explicitly separating” the Quest VR platform from the Worlds platform is a strategic masterstroke. In reality, it’s a digital divorce where VR gets the house and the metaverse gets the curb. Reality Labs—a name that becomes more ironic with every layoff—has already shuttered three VR studios and axed its “metaverse for work” initiative. Apparently, the only thing people wanted to do in a virtual office was quit, and Meta finally got the hint. Claiming this separation is a feature rather than a bug is like a car manufacturer removing the engine and announcing they are “separating the transportation platform from the inconvenience of motion.”

Then there’s the claim that shifting focus to mobile will allow Meta to compete with the likes of *Roblox* and *Fortnite*. It’s a bold strategy to try and beat *Roblox* by becoming a worse version of *Roblox* a full decade after *Roblox* won the market. Meta is walking into a party where *Fortnite* is already throwing a concert with Travis Scott, and Meta is showing up with a clipboard and some avatars that only recently discovered they have knees. Competing with established ecosystems by offering a platform that has struggled to maintain 200,000 monthly active users while *Roblox* boasts over 70 million daily users isn’t “competition”—it’s a cry for help.

The underlying assumption is that the metaverse doesn’t need hardware to be “the metaverse.” But without the immersion of VR, Horizon Worlds is just a clunky social media app with worse UI than Instagram and fewer features than Discord. Meta is betting that the problem wasn’t the product, but the $500 headset required to see it. However, the hard truth is that if people aren’t willing to put on a headset for your digital world, they probably aren’t going to clear space on their home screen for it either.

Let’s look at the facts: Meta laid off 10% of the division responsible for this dream, stopped new content for its premier fitness app, *Supernatural*, and is now retreating to the safety of the 2D screen. It turns out the “infinite office” was actually just a cubicle in Menlo Park where someone realized the burn rate was unsustainable. Calling this a “shift in focus” is a classic Silicon Valley euphemism for “we are frantically trying to find anyone, anywhere, who will log into this thing.”

The metaverse isn’t being built; it’s being downsized. Zuckerberg’s grand vision of a fully immersive digital existence has been downgraded to a mobile game you’ll likely accidentally click on while trying to open Threads. If you’re looking for the cutting edge of tech, you might want to look somewhere other than a “VR platform” that is officially ditching the VR. At this rate, the 2025 update for Horizon Worlds will probably be a text-based MUD. Get your keyboards ready.