all of apple's recent growth is coming from its content ("services") business, which means it's hot to track you for advertising purposes. passkeys provide another stone in their walled garden to be able to track you but keep others from doing so as effectively, which on balance contributes to its competitive advantage.

make no mistake that this is the direction apple is headed. it's been clear for the last 5 years or so, since hardware sales have leveled off. perhaps the goggles will dampen the velocity a bit, but i'm very skeptical that the AR/VR market is mature enough to have that effect in the near future.