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To be fair, Meta started working on the components of its "metaverse" before COVID-19. It is a weird gamble though. I get that Facebook needs a new product read

To be fair, Meta started working on the components of its "metaverse" before COVID-19. It is a weird gamble though. I get that Facebook needs a new product ready before Facebook and Instagram succumb to the next social media platform, or just lose relevance, but their metaverse seems like it's not thought through. My main concern about the traction for the metaverse is how are they going to pull people in? The good thing about both Facebook and Instagram is that you can use both product on the go. You don't have to set aside time for it. Celebreties and influencers aren't going to move from Instagram, where they can do few posts during the day from where ever they happen to be, to a platform where they need to put on special equipment and allocate hours where they can't do anything else. I question whether or not you're actually able to be an influencer, if you spend hours a day in a virtual world. That's not inspiring or even that interesting. VR makes sense for gaming, not but social media.

atoav 5y ago
The issue is that a company like Facebook no longer thinks in terms of "what would be a good product?". They think about revenue, margins, cash flow, business relations. If anything Facebook should fix existing known problems with social media, work on the trust relationship between the company and the users (e.g. by retiring Zuckerberg) and then maybe think about how to integrate a social platform with augmented reality and VR on a big scale. But as of now Facebook/Meta is not in the position to create a new userbase around some mediocre new app. Either it is so undeniably good that everybody understands it without a second thought, or they need to find a way to move their old userbase over to the new thing slowly. But having a mediocre thing from an company that most people actively distrust is not enough.
Gigachad 5y ago
VR does work for social media in a way because VR chat is the most popular VR app. I just don’t see how facebook can compete by building essentially the NFT version of VR chat where instead of limitless ability you get a locked down version of VR spaces.

atoav 5y ago

The issue is that a company like Facebook no longer thinks in terms of "what would be a good product?". They think about revenue, margins, cash flow, business relations. If anything Facebook should fix existing known problems with social media, work on the trust relationship between the company and the users (e.g. by retiring Zuckerberg) and then maybe think about how to integrate a social platform with augmented reality and VR on a big scale. But as of now Facebook/Meta is not in the position to create a new userbase around some mediocre new app. Either it is so undeniably good that everybody understands it without a second thought, or they need to find a way to move their old userbase over to the new thing slowly. But having a mediocre thing from an company that most people actively distrust is not enough.

Gigachad 5y ago

VR does work for social media in a way because VR chat is the most popular VR app. I just don’t see how facebook can compete by building essentially the NFT version of VR chat where instead of limitless ability you get a locked down version of VR spaces.