Android

Google accomplished step 1 and they failed on step 2. So... no.

Facebook being the entrench monopoly and Google+ being the new competitor. Unlike Facebook, Google tried to bulldoze their way into a new market.

Instagram and Threads/Twitter have user bases of a similar mindset. Google never had a user base that was of a Facebook (social media) mindset - they have a ton of randos. They tried to convert these randos into real people (social media) by forcing the Real Name policy at the time (ie, bulldozing their way into a new market).

They think their failure with Google+ was because there was already a monopoly in place. Their failure was that they were trying to get one mindset interested in something completely different. Meta generally applies a similar formula - creating and cultivating the social media mindset. Each company (each new brand) adding to the whole. Their core users respond to the new companies because it's stuff they are already interested in. It worked like a charm with Threads.

The Metaverse was (too much) a departure from that mindset and we saw how badly that turned out (3 billion users or not). So Step 1, Step 2... sorry, no.

I think Google could follow this (meta) playbook and create new brand names (TikTok & On Demand Streaming) instead of hiding these services within the general Youtube brand. In the same way Meta just did with the Instagram to Threads conversion. I still think this was impressive and even moreso that they didn't let the Metaverse disaster make them timid (Like Google+ did with Google).

(edit: clarity)