“Akin to Rubbish”: Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Takes the Heat Again
Mark Zuckerberg is having a rough day? Month(s)? Maybe years?
It’s October 2021 and Mark Zuckerberg is busy. No, not with creating Threads that has been slowly losing its usership since its launch in June. Rather, he is working on renaming Facebook to Meta, as part of his ambitious plans to conquer the world with the metaverse.
"Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. That is why we are focused on building this. In the metaverse, you'll be able to do almost anything you can imagine," he said.
But if Threads, despite encountering a host of problems, still enjoys a substantial number of users, Meta has only 300,000 monthly users.
The metaverse’s success is measured in billions. The only problem is that those billions refer to the incurred losses by Reality Labs, Meta's virtual and augmented reality branch. According to reports, it lost $21 billion since last year.
Is that a problem in Zuckerberg’s world?
Doesn’t seem like it. In April he claimed that he is not moving away from focusing on the metaverse. He is now for the annual VR event called Meta Connect where he will need to convince investors that this whole undertaking isn’t just Mark’s whim. He is expected to underscore that Meta is a long-term project and also sell the vision of where the world going (spoiler: the metaverse)
The problem, however, is that not many are convinced that this is enough. Especially taking into account how poorly the Horizon World is doing. Not only is it effectively empty (or attended by kids), but also people keep emphasizing that the graphics are rubbish.
While criticizing Zuckerberg appears to be many’s favorite past-time, it’d still be fair to note that not all is doom and gloom in his kingdom. To that end, Meta’s headsets have sold more than 20 million units. Meanwhile, its Quest 2 headset received positive reviews.
Zuckerberg is now looking to advertise Meta's new headset, the Quest 3.
But is this enough for the investors to keep pouring money into his venture?
Let’s answer this question with the line from a BBC correspondent who noted that “Real life is stubbornly appealing.”
Besides, Zuckerberg is no stranger to failures. Just recall what happened to Libra, the coin that was slated to revolutionize Facebook.
Previously, Gagarin News shed light on the attempts to tax the metaverse.
