Facebook’s Transition To Meta Has Been A Disaster
Last Updated on 11 October 2022 by CryptoTips.eu
Last October, all cryptocurrencies developing their own digital universes surged after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would shift their focus from social media to developing virtual universes (aka Metaverses) and would therefore be rebranded as Meta. Coins like Decentraland took in millions of dollars in Wall Street investments.
Even though Zuckerberg had announced a few years earlier that he would develop his own digital currency (first Libra, then Diem) and it didn’t really work out, Wall Street was very enthusiastic about this new direction.
60% lower
Even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella jumped on the Metaverse bandwagon and announced that the company founded by Bill Gates would also be entering the market.
Digital coins that already experimented with virtual worlds such as Decentraland, Axie Infinity and The Sandbox quickly went up hundreds of percent.
Twelve months later and Facebook’s transformation to Meta has not been a great success. The price of a Facebook (now Meta) share has fallen by a good 60% this year as investors do not really see an opportunity to make money in these virtual worlds. At the end of September, Zuckerberg announced that Meta was introducing a hiring freeze and last week there were even warnings about possible layoffs.
Zuckerberg's failed Metaverse shit is the perfect example of why no single person should be allowed to accumulate that much money and influence. The tech doesn't work and nobody wants it, but Zuckerberg has near infinite resources to pour into it to force it on us
— Basement Wizard (@mobocop038) October 9, 2022
Horizon Worlds
The problem is apparently that analysts have no doubt that the Metaverse will arrive someday, but the reality turns out to be a little further away than what Mark had figured. As Matthew Ball, Metaverse expert and investor noted:
There is a risk that almost everything Mark has outlined about the metaverse is right, except the timing is farther out than he imagined.
Meta’s push to develop virtual and augmented worlds has had a rocky start.
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 10, 2022
The company’s VR game Horizon Worlds is buggy and unpopular. And some employees say that strategy shifts seem tied to Mark Zuckerberg’s whims rather than a cohesive plan. https://t.co/TCBlXAxqZT
Facebook’s own Metaverse game, known as Horizon Worlds, reported in February that it already has some 300,000 active monthly users. Not bad of course, but peanuts compared to the 2.9 billion active users Facebook had at its peak.
