Good question ...and it's natural when you see so many mock meat products these days.

Let me tell you why.

But before that, I want to tell you some background. For me and my tribe, many of our past generations have not consumed meat for thousands of years. And our upbringing is that way that we are put off with anything that looks like meat, even if it is not (to an extent that some of us are even repulsive to jackfruit or watermelon). So obviously, these meat substitutes don't work in our local market and it's kind of Western thing for us.

Now to give you the answer to your question, it is very natural understanding to us that meat is not at all necessary for our optimum health. But most of the world's population is heavy meat eater. I hear that people in USA or Europe eat meat almost daily in their diet. So these people can't even imagine their diet without meat. They are hardwired (for the sake of saying) in their mind to perceive anything resembling to meat as their natural food. Even if some people after some research come to the conclusion that meat is not necessary to be included in their food, it's difficult for them to give it up totally due to an "addiction" to its taste. This is due to their upbringing and inculcated tastes & habits.

So, essentially, all these mock meat products and meat replacements are for transitioning vegans. Once people get transitioned to a regular vegan diet, they no longer need to consume such products. In fact, most of these artificial, soya-based or over-processed commercial mock meat products ain't any healthy and shouldn't be included in your regular diet.

In an effort to make "vegan meat", to give a vegan alternative to regular meat products, people keep experimenting with different recipes. So imho, that meat ball look-alike, which didn't tasted as actual meat-ball, was a failed experiment. It was probably attempted to taste like meat but perhaps failed in its objective.

TL;DR:
Mock meat products and plant-based meat substitutes are for transitioning vegans and not for life long vegans.

Hope this answered your curiosity!