There's a "Mega Replay" store near where I live, it has second-hand electronics, games and DVDs. The biggest section in electronics is the VR goggles, a lot of people have given up on them.
I don't really understand why VR helmets they aren't more successful. My first guess is that any console needs exclusive high-profile games to be successful, and producing many exclusive high-profile Meta Quest games is probably too expensive for current market adoption. A chicken-egg problem.
Or maybe the hardware price isn't low enough currently. The original Game Boy was successful with its low price despite its terrible screen. The Game Boy Color chipset was very underpowered compared to the competition but again more affordable.
I think the more relevant difference is that there are vastly more (and therefore: better) PC games than VR games.
Most people psychologically don’t like wearing or carrying technology unless there’s a really good reason. Most people also don’t like psychologically feeling isolated.
VR doesn’t have a good reason, and makes you feel isolated. No further rationale is necessary.
I personally believe that VR of the arm swinging/interactive variety will never be widely adopted due to the cost of real estate in the tech savvy, trend-setting consumer population centers.
Compare with setting up a home theater and having people over to watch a movie, or split screen gaming.
After all that you run into the limited content availability and, as you noted, the high price.
I do wonder why Meta hasn’t done something like license Skyrim or GTA for the quest. It shouldn’t be too expensive compared with the other investments, and would bring over some solidly popular (and big!) content.