A little over a year ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced the name change of his company, which would go from being called Facebook to being called Meta. The company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of virtual reality and the metaverse. well now Zuckerberg wonders if he made a mistake in betting on the metaverse.
The metaverse has been a trend, a term widely used by everyone that encompasses many things and is not defined by anything. We recently learned that the EU wasted 400,000 euros on a party in the metaverse for 6 people. And the list of money wasted in a digital universe is enormous.
Zuckerberg finds out the hard way that the metaverse doesn’t matter
Reality is showing that virtual reality and the metaverse are two irrelevant things. Even more so in a very complicated economic situation worldwide due to the invasion of Ukraine and the trade tensions between China and the United States.
NPD Group, a research firm, has released a rather devastating report. Indicates that in 2022 virtual reality glasses have been sold in the United States for a value of 1,100 million dollars, 2% less than in 2021. To give us an idea, advertising on Facebook generates that same amount of revenue in approximately three days.
CSS Insight, another analytics firm is even tougher. In their report they state that in 2022 only 9.6 million virtual reality devices have been sold and increased. It supposes a 12% drop regarding the 2021 figures. In addition, this analysis firm indicates that 2023 will be another bad year for virtual reality due to a weak economy and inflation.
These are data that do not show a good situation for Facebook, now called Meta. The company has lost about 60% of its value, only this year. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg says that the commitment to the metaverse is ten years from now, which will be when it becomes something important. Until that moment arrives, the company already plans to lay off almost 20% of its workforce in Spain, to begin with.
Dark times for all (or almost all)
The reality is that Zuckerberg’s bet has only served to worsen the company’s situation. Its original social network, Facebook, is increasingly sparse and lacking in interest for users. Instagram is holding up for the moment, because it is already in itself a metaverse of light and color, of total unreality. WhatsApp implements some paid features, more intended for businesses and not for the general user.
But it’s not the only tech company with big problems. Twitter is in a process of total destruction since Elon Musk joined the company. We have seen how Twitch has lost users and at the same time, advertising has increased wildly.
Currently, only YouTube and TikTok are saved from serious problems. The truth is that YouTube is more than consolidated and hardly has to do anything to maintain itself. TikTok, for its part, is a very new social network that who knows how long it will last.
