The company formerly known as Facebook now makes its annual developer conference almost entirely about connecting the concept of the metaverse.

You have to admire how the company is invested in this nascent technological paradigm, for which significant demand remains decidedly untested. Having made that move, however, we’re not the only observers to detect a degree of desperation with which CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team continually insist on just how huge the metaverse will be.

The keynote address (see full recording below) at Meta Connect 2022, of course, featured Zuck, doing his best to appear less rigid than he has historically been, but delivering a classic corporate monologue nonetheless. He then introduced his CTO, who listed some data points designed to show the extraordinary…