In October 2021, Facebook rebranded to Meta, signaling a shift towards the metaverse, a vision that began with the acquisition of Oculus in 2014. Despite ambitious goals of reaching one billion users in Horizon Worlds by 2030, the platform struggled with only 200,000 monthly active users by late 2022, while Reality Labs faced $58 billion in losses since 2020. Interest in the metaverse has waned, with a significant drop in public searches and discussions since 2022, although Meta has found some success in augmented reality through its partnership with Ray-Ban.
