Another quarter, another huge profit loss, another massive profit drop, and another nearly 20% drop in Meta stock price.

And there’s the metaverse smack dab in the middle, with Meta’s Reality Labs division, home to Horizon Worlds, the $1,500 Quest Pro virtual reality (VR) headset, and all things metaverse and augmented reality, making for a $3.67 billion hole in company profits. . That’s $9 billion sunk in the first three quarters, suggesting that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s prediction that the company would spend between $10 billion and $15 billion annually over the next decade will turn out to be on the high side of that. range.

To remember:

• Net income fell 52% and expenses increased 19%.
• Revenue fell 4%, but beat expectations.
• Earnings per share (EPS) was $1.64…