"Treason" seems a bit much. We put a very high bar on that term because it comes with the most serious consequences.

The fact that nobody seems particularly surprised by it suggests that the damage is long since done.

Metaverse, we hardly knew ye.

Actually, we didn't know ye at all. Did anybody actually see anything?

And maintain them, which I suspect costs even more. Parking meters do fiddly work, out in all weather, where people hate them and do all kinds of vandalism.

It doesn't surprise me that they want to make hardware maintenance your problem.