[potatolicious]

It feels less like low vs. high-end and more like specialized vs. general hardware.

For example, if you're selling VR headsets for the purposes of industrial training, you may not want the consumer-grade hardware Meta is selling. You may need weather-sealing to allow outdoor operation. You may need vastly higher-resolution screens for industrial applications. The list of specializations goes on.

The specialized businesses tend to have wider moats and bigger margins. The TAM is smaller - too small for a mega-cap company like Meta to care about, but nonetheless can contribute to the health of the ecosystem.

This play gives influence over these niche, specialized uses of AR/VR without having to commit the entire company to it.

For example think of a medical instruments company that trains on VR headsets. Their choices right now are to use consumer-grade hardware which may not hit all of their needs, or become a full-on AR/VR company with all the requisite R&D that involves.

This allows these companies to exist in the middle ground - having the core R&D being done by another party, but having sufficient control to ship specialized hardware.