Meta’s Horizon TV splashes up big hero images for shows and films, a neat row of app icons, and a heap of recommendations that look suspiciously like any smart TV homescreen.

The pitch is to woo older, less gamey types with lean-back fare. There is a tie-up with James Cameron, plus moves into sport and other sofa-friendly time sinks. However, what is lacking is any deals with the big streamers like Netflix or Disney. It does have Amazon, Pluto and Peacock. Icons for YouTube, Spotify and DAZN are there.

To really inshitify everything and make it largely useless there is an ad play. It seems that Meta thinks that recreating a TV platform in VR means it has to inheriting the same headaches that dog Samsung, Google and Amazon on living-room screens.

It has been a long time coming, eight years ago Meta, chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg predicted: “Instead of a $500 TV sitting in front of us, what’s to keep us from one day having it be a $1 app.”

Meta Reality Labs, director of entertainment content, Sarah Malkin said: “We absolutely have taken inspiration from the navigation systems that have come before. We want customers to feel a sense of familiarity.”

Malkin also left the monetisation door open, saying there was nothing to announce on rentals or subs while hinting the company wants to “support and provide additional outlets for the existing business models of the entertainment industry to thrive,” she said.

If headset owners do bite, they will find the same streaming-war debris piled up in VR as on the telly: missing apps, territorial deals, and endless rows of stuff they cannot watch.