We Know This Playbook # There is a script. We have seen it play out several times in recent years. A technology is presented as inevitable. Critics are marginalized. Regulators nod along. And by the time the public wakes up, the infrastructure is already built.
Zuckerberg Buries His Billion-Dollar Bet. The Only Surprise Is That Anyone Is Surprised. # On June 15, 2026, Horizon Worlds VR will be shut down. No more building, publishing, or updating VR worlds. Reality Labs laid off over 1,000 employees in early 2026, internal VR studios were closed. Losses to date: 80 billion dollars [1].
There are moments on the internet where you sit in front of your screen, stare at what you’ve just watched, and genuinely ask yourself: Did someone actually make this? And then you realize: Yes. Yes, they did. And it’s the best thing you’ll see all week.
The Stasi, the Ministry for State Security of the GDR, was a symbol of total surveillance and oppression. With a vast network of official and unofficial collaborators, it infiltrated the most intimate areas of citizens’ lives. But what was once considered the epitome of a surveillance state now seems almost primitive compared to what Big Tech and artificial intelligence (AI) have made possible.
You wake up, check your smartphone, drive to work, buy coffee with a card, work on the computer, stream Netflix in the evening. A normal day? No. A day under total surveillance. Every day, over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are collected about us – and most people don’t even notice.
