When Facebook infamously rebranded its parent company to Meta Platforms in Q4 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was under the illusion that his grand metaverse vision was a few years away from becoming a ubiquitous new digital experience. Well, here we are in early 2026, and Meta is laying off yet more staff from its Reality Labs division, which houses development for the company’s metaverse and AR/VR projects like Horizons and Oculus (Meta Quest). These experimental projects have been a massive financial drain on the company for many years, yet investments have persisted. Reality Labs has registered cumulative operating losses of over $60 billion since the unit began reporting separately in late 2020/early 2021. In 2025, the division was registering losses…