Zuckerberg's Metaverse was ugly and had no plot. Wasn't it obvious it would not make profit?

On the occasion of the plug being pulled on the project, wasn't it sort of obvious that this thing wouldn't sell? Disclaimer, I haven't "played" it, but I do have extensive gaming and MMO experience, and a rough idea of what kind of games sell and are considered "good". The Metaverse has horribly (and increasingly so) outdated graphics appropriate for the early 2000s, has no plot, no nameable game designers have ever been invited to work on the project, no branding or brand integration with any gaming franchise...

How did they ever expect to make money with this thing? Wasn't it always clear that they wouldn't? I always implicitly explained it to myself as a personal pet project, like Musk buying Twitter, or as a testbed for VR, not as a promising business venture. It would be obvious to anyone who has ever done any game development that the metaverse is a money-burning pit.

What were the people at Meta thinking? Did they expect it would be profitable? Why? How?