Obviously, my experience is anecdotal, but I got both Valve-developed headsets at launch, the HTC Vive and the Valve Index, the latter of which I think is still very close to the sweet spot for VR tech 7 years on. I’ve purposely avoided all the Meta headsets.

The stock Vive only using straps for support was indeed a little uncomfortable to wear, but the experience was still compelling enough to use it for hours. I did eventually do the welding mask mod for it that greatly improved the comfort and added over-ear speakers like the Index later got.

Fast forward to the Index, and I still use it off and on. It was comfortable enough out of the box to never modify, and I’ve even fallen asleep a few times in the thing. The Frame further shrinking the front and moving weight to the back for balance can only be better.

I think VR overall is only a failure for those who bought into the hype that it’s an evolution that would eventually replace flat gaming (see the Ready Player One vision). That’s never going to happen because the abstraction that allows you to press a button, move a mouse, tilt a stick, etc. to simulate an action taking much more energy to perform in the real world is a huge convenience we’re never going to give up en masse. It’s perfectly fine for VR to remain a niche, adjacent medium.