All the people comparing this to Game Pass are hilarious. How quickly you forget Games with Gold (or PS+, for that matter), which is a much more accurate comparison.
I'm going to defend Meta on this. VR games are expensive, and discounts are a lot more scarce than on other platforms. For many of the most popular VR games, $8 is a steal for a single game. If you want to avoid piracy, this is a legit way to play games you are interested in at a steep discount, albeit you don't get to select the games directly. But you can hold out for the months where they have games you are interested; just don't subscribe for a year.
Now obviously, if you've had a VR headset for a while, you probably already own a lot of the biggest games. (There's a reason Meta chose Pistol Whip - a solid choice to make the subscription look good, no doubt - and not Beat Saber.) It will be interesting to see where they go with the game selection, as they have to teeter the line between giving new players a taste of the good stuff without throwing off the veterans who already own all the major ones.
There's also something to be said for owning games that you intend to play a lot. You won't have access while not subscribed, and that's Meta's incentive to keep you hooked, but it's on you if you fall for that. Realize that not all games are the same. Beat Saber (and many other rhythm games, if you are into them) is an obvious example of a game you want to own. You'll want to play this game for multiple months. So don't subscribe for these games, unless you're really unsure if you'll like it and are ok with an $8 trial period. But there are games like Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, and I Expect You To Die which you can basically play through in < 1 month and then be done with.
If you are just starting VR, this seems like a great way to try different games in an affordable way. It is much more palatable than buying an expensive headset, then realizing you don't have any games to play, and impulse buying multiple $15-40 games to fill the gap because you want to use your shiny new toy. It's also a cheap way to play through one-time playthrough games, provided you can make time for it in a month and don't feel the need to go back.
I think a lot of the complaining going on in here is just people's sentiment towards subscriptions in general, and you aren't looking critically at the value in this particular service. It's obviously not for everyone, and a year long subscription is a gamble without any guarantees about what games you will get. But I still believe this provides great value for a certain group of players who choose to subscribe selectively. I may even be one of those down the line.
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