How to understand "like it or not"?

This is from the transcript of a podcast.

How many times has it happened to you: you’re sitting around watching a rerun of Friends and you think: Man, if only I could catch a whiff of that hazelnut mochaccino they’re all pretending to drink. Well, me neither.

But engineers have now developed a programmable, odor-emitting device that, like it or not, brings us one step closer to realizing the dream of smell-a-vision.

Here is my question:

How to understand "like it or not" here?

Solution 1:

The phrase is a shortening of whether you like it or not.

I.e. whether you think the consequence of the action is good or bad doesn't matter, it will occur anyway.

So for your snippet, the author is saying that it doesn't matter if you like the idea of smell-a-vision[sic] the aforementioned device is getting us one step closer to that reality.

Solution 2:

"Like it or not" is shorthand for a longer expression, "Whether you like it or not," that is, whether you like a thing or you do not like it, it is what it is anyway.

"Like it or not" is a phrase added to tell the listener that the speaker is claiming to withhold judgment but recognizes that there are good and bad implications to what he is saying.

"Like it or not, this is the way it is," might be something a boss says to an employee once the boss has made a decision, if the employee responds negatively.