Ask HN: Why would Facebook/Oculus not just give away/discount VR headsets?

Facebook needs a large user base for VR to get going.

And given that they are prepared to spend billions buying Oculus, why would they not just spend the money to give away the headsets, or maybe massively discount them down to $10 each for example?

The new Oculus Go standalone VR headset is said to be only $200. At this price Facebook could spend $500,000,000 and get a user base of 2.5 million.

I would have thought getting this initial user base is the important part of the equation.

So why don't they do it.... give away the headsets?