XR Diaries: VR Adoption Is Stalled. Here's Exactly Why — and When That Changes

Haseeb Fonte has been inside the XR machine. Former Chief of Staff to Meta's COO, product leader on the AI smart glasses and Meta Quest teams, and a veteran of Samsung and Monitor Deloitte — he's seen XR from the inside out. Now, as COO of Game Changing Style and a track lead at MIT Reality Hack, he's thinking about where it goes from here.In this debut episode of XR Diaries, Haseeb and host Kate Nelson pull back the curtain on the state of XR — without the pitch deck spin.Key takeaways:Gaming and social world-building are the only areas with proven XR traction. Everything else — healthcare, retail, enterprise — has pockets of success but hasn't broken through yet. The honest answer is: it's a developer supply problem, not a consumer demand problem.Meta's trust problem with developers is a real liability. When they killed Spark AR and pulled back from Horizon Worlds VR, they didn't just lose platforms — they lost the developers who built their careers on those platforms. Rebuilding that trust will take time that Meta may not have the patience for.Samsung and Apple entering the headset space is the real unlock. When iOS and Android developers can build for XR headsets using tools they already know, the content library explodes — and content is what drives adoption.For enterprise leaders curious about XR, skip the conference. Go to a hackathon. MIT Reality Hack and Stanford XR give you four days of hands-on exposure, direct access to developers building real prototypes for your industry, and the kind of fast learning no conference panel can replicate.VR adoption will follow the same arc as every other communication technology. Screens. Mobile. Social media. Every time, people said "no one will spend hours doing that." Every time, they were wrong. The Roblox generation is already growing up — and they're going to expect XR in the workplace.Guest: Haseeb Fonte — COO, Game Changing Style | Track Lead, MIT Reality Hack | Former Chief of Staff to Meta COO Host: Kate Nelson — Tech Consultant and XR LeaderConnect with Haseeb:LinkedIn: [Add]MIT Reality Hack: https://www.mitrealityhack.comGame Changing Style - Fashion & Gaming Awards @ NY Comic Con (October 2026): https://www.fashioningamingawards.com/