During a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Chris Coxproduct manager at Meta Platforms Inc GOALHe said that the metaverse will one day become as essential as smartphones.

Before the metaverse can be what Meta envisions it to be, it must function like a smartphone, Cox said.

What happened: The executive said that while Meta has spent the last eight years (and billions of dollars) trying to build a line of VR products that is affordable and accessible, those efforts will turn a blind eye if the lack of interoperability with other platforms continues.

“I think the Internet is a very good way to think about the metaverse, because some parts of the Internet are very consistent with each other,” Cox said on the panel, noting that it’s still not as fluid as…