> The Metaverse was always such a bad direction.
This seems like a bit of 20/20 hindsight. At the time, the biggest concern Zuckerberg had was that they didn't own a platform. Apple had the iOS ecosystem, Google had Android, Microsoft had Windows, Amazon had AWS and their logistical moat. Zuckerberg made a bet that the world would move to VR similarly to the way the world moved to PCs in the 80s, which allowed Microsoft to take over a big chunk of the world.
Zuckerberg's fear wasn't unreasonable, he just bet wrong. Apple's privacy changes had a huge impact to Facebook, and the other FAANG without a "moat-defining platform", Netflix, is also in the most precarious position among the big techs.
That said, I agree with most of the other comments. I can see VR evolving a little beyond gaming I guess, but it's actually kind of a nightmare to imagine myself wearing a fucking headset all day. At this point I think Zuckerberg knows he bet wrong and AI is the future, and he's clearly trying to pivot, but it's really hard to move a big company like Meta quickly, and it also means he has to admit he just lit billions and billions on fire.
This seems like a bit of 20/20 hindsight. At the time, the biggest concern Zuckerberg had was that they didn't own a platform. Apple had the iOS ecosystem, Google had Android, Microsoft had Windows, Amazon had AWS and their logistical moat. Zuckerberg made a bet that the world would move to VR similarly to the way the world moved to PCs in the 80s, which allowed Microsoft to take over a big chunk of the world.
Zuckerberg's fear wasn't unreasonable, he just bet wrong. Apple's privacy changes had a huge impact to Facebook, and the other FAANG without a "moat-defining platform", Netflix, is also in the most precarious position among the big techs.
That said, I agree with most of the other comments. I can see VR evolving a little beyond gaming I guess, but it's actually kind of a nightmare to imagine myself wearing a fucking headset all day. At this point I think Zuckerberg knows he bet wrong and AI is the future, and he's clearly trying to pivot, but it's really hard to move a big company like Meta quickly, and it also means he has to admit he just lit billions and billions on fire.