Meta gets all the headlines because they tried to create the same thing and ended up lighting billions of dollars on fire.
The plan was most likely to try and disrupt the VR market like they did social media, and attempt to capture (hold hostage) a significant share of VR users.
But they forgot that users need a reason to use the product. It wasn't fun, the avatars are bland, sterile Mii-like characters that nobody likes, and the disclaimers about legs are absurd beyond reason. They failed at every turn. VRchat was the main competition, and Facebook forgot that they needed to be competitive.
Even inside the VR industry, the metaverse is regarded as an abject failure. It's more or less the antithesis of what makes a good VR experience: fun, engaging, immersive. Facebook went with bland, boring, and intrusive.
The only good thing Facebook has done in the VR space is getting Quest headsets onto millions of heads. This drastically lowered the barrier to entry for new users, which increases the audience for good developers. The quest hardware isn't good by any stretch, but it's good enough for people to judge whether VR is for them without spending $1000.