TL;DR: you now need to pay a $20/month “meta premium” subscription to use a 100% offline feature that runs on your own malware-ridden smartglasses.
If you don’t subscribe, you can use the feature that is already included in the hardware that you already paid for 3 hours each month
The now-paywalled feature boosts the voice of the speaker in front of you, something that even low-end ANC earphones are doing now. 5 minutes of free usage per day is basically nothing.
Yeah, there’s potential use for AR glasses, but not as a consumer item for personal ownership. They fit more in industrial settings or in specialized roles. Fuck Meta.
You seem caught up in the Meta aspect. Take them out of the equation and it’s none of your business if someone else wants a hud for any number of reasons that don’t invade the privacy of others.
Main point being …
Meta or not, this concern doesn’t disappear.