Pretty much everything about Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is divisive these days. So it comes as no surprise that the company's new premium virtual reality (VR) headset, Meta Quest Pro, was received with disdain by many in the media. Hating on VR, the metaverse, and the company's attempt to build a 3D app future is an easy way to get clicks -- especially from those who are unsure of what the metaverse even is in the first place.

But that's really a shame, because Zuckerberg isn't pursuing the metaverse just for kicks. Rather, Meta is building a new computing hardware platform to ensure the company's survival. 

Meta's social media empire makes money from ads, but at its core, these are still software businesses. Software is asset-light and highly profitable, but it isn't particularly sticky. Alphabet's Google Search is a notable exception, because cataloging the internet itself is an incredibly expensive task. Nevertheless, Google benefits from a special relationship with Apple through which the iPhone peddler accepts billions of dollars a year from Google to remain the default internet search browser on the iOS ecosystem. 

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Source Fool.com