30 ms·

I think it really boils down to, they need a near future myth for investors to speculate their stock price up. That myth is, ubiquitous, always-on AR is just ar

by handol 5y ago

I think it really boils down to, they need a near future myth for investors to speculate their stock price up. That myth is, ubiquitous, always-on AR is just around the corner, and they're going to be the platform it runs on.

Enginerrrd 5y ago
This seems like the most plausible explanation to me. But Zuckerberg does also seem weird and unsocialized enough to actually believe there's potential in the metaverse.
ericabiz 5y ago
Yes, exactly. This is just like Uber and self-driving cars…only instead of “this will lower our costs and finally make us profitable!” it’s “this is another platform where we can have infinite growth!” It’s a tacit acknowledgement that the days of wild growth for their existing platform are over.
bko 5y ago
A future myth? They've been printing money for over a decade now. Their first positive net income was 2009. Apart from last quarter, they're still gaining users every year, sometime double digit percentages. They were able to squeeze multiple times the revenue out of their user base than other social networks. If they execute on VR half as well as they did their core product than the hype is real
- handol 5y ago
  > A future myth? Yes, a story about the future that he wants to generate a collective social belief in.
potatolicious 5y ago
Reminiscent of the Uber play - once it was widely noticed they couldn't drive costs down enough to achieve profitability, there needed to be another narrative to maintain optimism in the company. And so the narrative changed, from: "through the magic of {pixie dust technology} we can make providing chauffeur services so cheap it would be hugely profitable" to "we will replace all the human drivers with robots, any day now" Of course, that future was much, much further away than purported, but it certainly was useful for pumping up optimism in a company where the present-day situation isn't necessarily favorable. FB's money-printing products seem to be facing major headwinds. They're scandal-wracked, user growth is plateauing heavily especially in the most profitable markets, and a fast-moving competitor is rapidly eating into their most coveted growth areas and they seem unable to convincingly fight the trend. A narrative shift is certainly needed for them.
- jonfromsf 5y ago
  which competitor are you thinking of?
  - largbae 5y ago
    Bytedance (TikTok) is the one most often discussed.
- lhorie 5y ago
  Problem is, if Uber recent news are anything to go by, in the current environment investors aren't interested in promises, they want to see results and they want to see them now. Uber literally just forecasted positive cash flow by the end of this year, and the stock tanked. FB banking on a far future R&D move is not likely to fly well with investors. Most certainly not in the near future.
  - potatolicious 5y ago
    Oh I fully agree, investors won't be nearly as credulous with FB as they were with past companies with wildly optimistic visions (and not nearly such rosy results in reality) like WeWork or Uber. I think it's both a function of investors having been burned in the recent past with unicorns failing to deliver on their lofty promises, but also the reality that FB has suffered significant (read: catastrophic) reputation damage from the endless stream of scandals. FB employees seem to have an inexhaustible belief that they can weather any storm without permanent harm, but I suspect that isn't actually true. More than that, the narrative shift isn't convincing. At least with Uber they had fancy robot cars to show off, even if they didn't work. What does FB have to convince us of the metaverse future? A lot of expensive CGI-rendered "concept reels" and very little actual product that is actually here (or imminent). The recent Superbowl ad did not contain a single frame of actual product footage - nor did the "fake" product in any way resemble anything FB has announced! And the little that does exist (Horizon Worlds) is... really... really... painfully bad. The fact that FB has even let the public at these experimental products (rather than iterate internally) is baffling. As someone who's been in the consumer tech space for a really long time the strategy here is just mind-boggling. The company continues to pitch no actual product - it has remained frustratingly vague about what the metaverse even is - but also insist at the same time that the entire company is reorienting around it. What little is released is shockingly poor - to the point where one wonders if these half-baked products will poison the well against a better thought-out and genuinely useful product further down the line. It reeks not of visionary thought and more dragging whatever you can out of the experimental arm of the company to try to cement the narrative shift.

by handol 5y ago

Enginerrrd 5y ago

This seems like the most plausible explanation to me. But Zuckerberg does also seem weird and unsocialized enough to actually believe there's potential in the metaverse.

ericabiz 5y ago

Yes, exactly. This is just like Uber and self-driving cars…only instead of “this will lower our costs and finally make us profitable!” it’s “this is another platform where we can have infinite growth!” It’s a tacit acknowledgement that the days of wild growth for their existing platform are over.

bko 5y ago

A future myth? They've been printing money for over a decade now. Their first positive net income was 2009. Apart from last quarter, they're still gaining users every year, sometime double digit percentages. They were able to squeeze multiple times the revenue out of their user base than other social networks. If they execute on VR half as well as they did their core product than the hype is real

handol 5y ago
> A future myth? Yes, a story about the future that he wants to generate a collective social belief in.

potatolicious 5y ago

Reminiscent of the Uber play - once it was widely noticed they couldn't drive costs down enough to achieve profitability, there needed to be another narrative to maintain optimism in the company. And so the narrative changed, from: "through the magic of {pixie dust technology} we can make providing chauffeur services so cheap it would be hugely profitable" to "we will replace all the human drivers with robots, any day now" Of course, that future was much, much further away than purported, but it certainly was useful for pumping up optimism in a company where the present-day situation isn't necessarily favorable. FB's money-printing products seem to be facing major headwinds. They're scandal-wracked, user growth is plateauing heavily especially in the most profitable markets, and a fast-moving competitor is rapidly eating into their most coveted growth areas and they seem unable to convincingly fight the trend. A narrative shift is certainly needed for them.

jonfromsf 5y ago
which competitor are you thinking of?
- largbae 5y ago
  Bytedance (TikTok) is the one most often discussed.
lhorie 5y ago
Problem is, if Uber recent news are anything to go by, in the current environment investors aren't interested in promises, they want to see results and they want to see them now. Uber literally just forecasted positive cash flow by the end of this year, and the stock tanked. FB banking on a far future R&D move is not likely to fly well with investors. Most certainly not in the near future.
- potatolicious 5y ago
  Oh I fully agree, investors won't be nearly as credulous with FB as they were with past companies with wildly optimistic visions (and not nearly such rosy results in reality) like WeWork or Uber. I think it's both a function of investors having been burned in the recent past with unicorns failing to deliver on their lofty promises, but also the reality that FB has suffered significant (read: catastrophic) reputation damage from the endless stream of scandals. FB employees seem to have an inexhaustible belief that they can weather any storm without permanent harm, but I suspect that isn't actually true. More than that, the narrative shift isn't convincing. At least with Uber they had fancy robot cars to show off, even if they didn't work. What does FB have to convince us of the metaverse future? A lot of expensive CGI-rendered "concept reels" and very little actual product that is actually here (or imminent). The recent Superbowl ad did not contain a single frame of actual product footage - nor did the "fake" product in any way resemble anything FB has announced! And the little that does exist (Horizon Worlds) is... really... really... painfully bad. The fact that FB has even let the public at these experimental products (rather than iterate internally) is baffling. As someone who's been in the consumer tech space for a really long time the strategy here is just mind-boggling. The company continues to pitch no actual product - it has remained frustratingly vague about what the metaverse even is - but also insist at the same time that the entire company is reorienting around it. What little is released is shockingly poor - to the point where one wonders if these half-baked products will poison the well against a better thought-out and genuinely useful product further down the line. It reeks not of visionary thought and more dragging whatever you can out of the experimental arm of the company to try to cement the narrative shift.