In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, the stock market got hooked on cloud computing. The new IT infrastructure in the cloud, the backbone of what is known as software as a service (SaaS), fueled a boom in profitability for early adopters. The growth of cloud computing is still alive and well and should continue to expand for the foreseeable future.

But after more than a decade of low capital expenditures on technology infrastructure thanks to the cloud, Internet technology is evolving again. Often referred to as “the metaverse,” data traveling across the web and in and out of the cloud is booming. Big Tech is leading the charge, with Metaplatforms (GOAL -2.43%) most notably, increasing his spending on this effort, and drawing criticism for it.

But Meta Platforms is not alone. Belt…