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I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real ide

• SergeAx 4y ago
  On the other hand, no one expected that mediocre "show your domain" centralized networking platform with pictures and commenting will attract three billion people, but here we are.
• deeptote 4y ago
  I don't know anyone under 50 who actively uses Facebook.
  • seydor 4y ago
    Not necessarily a bad thing. The world is aging and old people have all the money
    • dvt 4y ago
      Absolutely a bad thing. Young folks have less money, but are more impulsive with spending. The 18-44 crowd is an extremely coveted market segment.
      • seydor 4y ago
        Can't buy things without money though. And it seems studies show that people 50+ spend more
      • mrits 4y ago
        Have you ever heard of the Home Shopping Network?
        • ilikehurdles 4y ago
          As the butt of jokes and target of mockery, yes.
          • mrits 4y ago
            It is an empire built on old people impulse shopping.
  • therealmarv 4y ago
    That's in your local bubble. In some countries Facebook is no. 1 and on same level or even more important as Google Maps for businesses. Wished it was not the case though.
    • rjzzleep 4y ago
      Taiwanese even use it as some sort of blogging platform.
    • tablespoon 4y ago
      > That's in your local bubble. In some countries Facebook is no. 1 and on same level or even more important as Google Maps for businesses. Wished it was not the case though. Facebook is an American company, if it fails in that market, it will most likely eventually fail globally as well. Orkut being super popular in India and Brazil didn't save it.
    • dwallin 4y ago
      These kinds of changes always start in some sort of localized group or community. While it's wise to not assume that every small movement is going to turn into a large one, it's still worth paying attention to what's going on at the fringes so that you don't get caught with your pants down. As another anecdote, Facebook has died out amongst my peer group, it used to be heavily used for event planning amongst friends but now it's been abandoned despite no good replacements in the wings because nobody is on Facebook to see your events. Instead we are back to using text messages and emails.
      • dont__panic 4y ago
        They did it to themselves. The minute your feed/notifications went so ad-filled and algorithm-driven that you couldn't find events and announcements before they happened... Facebook killed the golden goose.
    • scarface74 4y ago
      And those countries have a much lower ARPU. Facebook staying dominant in those countries is at best a Pyrrhic victory.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • cloutchaser 4y ago
    I know many people under 50 who use instagram. Almost everyone in fact.
  • t-sauer 4y ago
    Just Facebook itself or also Instagram and Whatsapp?
  • jkaptur 4y ago
    Almost everyone I know under 50 uses WhatsApp and/or Instagram multiple times per day.
    • mrits 4y ago
      I'm 40 and never been on either of those. Facebook came out when I was in college. If I didn't have it I don't have a good alternative to keeping track of all the friends I made at that time. I'm sure I'm not alone with that.
    • bonzini 4y ago
      WhatsApp is not making any money though, they bought it just because it competed with Messenger on B2C.
    • threeseed 4y ago
      Almost everyone I know under 50 doesn't use WhatsApp and/or Instagram multiple times per day. I wonder what insights we can extrapolate to billions of people from our sample size of 2.
      • skinnymuch 4y ago
        Their anecdote is worth a lot more. Most people under 50 that any one knows don’t use almost every thing. It likely isn’t true that no one is using it around you. I’ve had a friend say that before when I know mutual friends who use it. There’s too many different things so most things won’t be used among any ones anecdotes. For something to be used in different anecdotes is a pretty big deal. Are you using FB and IG and have tried friends most people you know and actively check if people are around those platforms or how else would you know? I find it hard to believe much of any one who is active on the internet does not know any one who does not use FB or IG. There are a lot more people on IG than most people realize because of it being harder to find people. For a community I run, no one knew half of the other members on IG until I listed everyone out to members.
        • threeseed 4y ago
  • stevofolife 4y ago
    I use it everyday. What’s up?
  • boshalfoshal 4y ago
    Why do people always bring this up when people talk about "Facebook"? Whenever I see people use "Facebook" used to describe the company, I think of all the products they offer, not just facebook.com. With that being said, anecdotally, in younger (American) circles, facebook.com isn't used much as a social media/content sharing platform. However, other facebook (meta) products like messenger, and instagram are still used a ton, not to mention facebook.com "subproducts" like marketplace, or using facebook pages to act as a landing page for a business. Just because younger people don't use facebook.com doesn't mean they have little relevance within that subgroup. This isn't even including the huge influence of whatsapp, granted it still(?) doesn't generate any revenue. Facebook developer products like react or pytorch also have a very strong foothold among young developers.
    • dave5104 4y ago
      > Why do people always bring this up when people talk about "Facebook"? Wasn't one of the points of their recent rebrand to Meta to better define "Facebook" as a singular product, and not the company and its other products?
      • boshalfoshal 4y ago
        Correct, but in this particular context, the top level comment used "Facebook" to refer to the collection of products under the "Facebook" (meta) umbrella. So saying "No young people use Facebook" implies that no one uses instagram, whatsapp, etc. in this context :P I see this a lot in other threads pertaining to Meta/FB but its all semantics at the end of the day. And even if they are referring to "Facebook" the singular product being irrelevant, its not really informative since at the end of the day Facebook is a B2B company that sells data and serves targeted ads. It doesn't matter if they get that information to you through oculus, facebook.com, instagram, or whatsapp, and as of now, their "core" products (fb.com, instagram, whatsapp, messenger, oculus) still cover a huge market of people they can glean data from.
  • jedberg 4y ago
    My wife and I and most of our friends use it daily and we’re in our 40s. It’s true that the 20somethinga don’t use it much, but they’re all on Instagram.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • __alias 4y ago
      I think most people use facebook, just maybe not for the social feed. I'm in my 20s and It's a reliable way for managing events, group chats and marketplace
  • wincy 4y ago
    I’m 35 and it’s the only place to find and hang out with my friends. I also post pictures of my kids so grandparents will ooh and ahh. My wife gets hundreds of likes on her posts. Also the ads I get are generally shockingly relevant to me. I buy stuff from Facebook ads sometimes.
  • PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    Yet somehow 1) Meta has a lot of active users across all of their properties (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp). Even the core Facebook product generates a lot of activity, which can be seen from their financials. 2) The great majority of Facebook users are under 50 (Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/187549/facebook-distribution-of-users-age-group-usa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/187549/facebook-distribu... ) HN commenters (and their friends) don't overlap with Facebook's userbase as much as the general population. It doesn't make sense to try to extrapolate from individual anecdotes when vast quantities of research and data are available on the topic. It's reminiscent of people who refuse to acknowledge climate change because it's not hot where they live. Ignore your bubble, focus on the plentiful data available.
  • dr_dshiv 4y ago
    What about whatsapp? It’s huuuuuge.
  • chrischen 4y ago
    I see a lot of young people who end up creating (mostly empty) Facebook profiles jut to use the groups features or for events. There still isn't a good alternative to those on Intagram or other platforms, and my guess is as young people get older they start having to use Facebook in some way.
  • scelerat 4y ago
    I don't know anyone who uses Facebook creatively or as a primary vehicle for widely-shared creative or entertaining content. Certainly nothing like Instagram or TikTok.
• learndeeply 4y ago
  How is that related to Sheryl stepping down as COO at all?
  • seydor 4y ago
    She's abandoning the titanic
    • nowherebeen 4y ago
      She is also at that age where she can retire very comfortably. It's a smart move by her. She can take a few years off to recharge and if the right opportunity comes, she will aim to be CEO of the next big thing. All she will ever be at FB is COO. Staying on this sinking Titanic any longer will only tarnish her business reputation.
  • davidg109 4y ago
    Likely alluding that this was a major factor to her resignation.
  • frisco 4y ago
    Honestly Peter stepping down from the board was a larger signal to me. But it’s just the totality of the data points.
• oldstrangers 4y ago
  Facebook was always doomed for failure, just like every social platform that came before it. The pivot should've happened years ago with a focus on Instagram and content creation (their shot at streaming was at least in the right direction). At this point, Facebook has simply waited entirely too long, and the likelihood of any pivot working for a company of their size is basically nonexistent.
  • infinite_beam 4y ago
    The future of FB/Meta is WhatsApp.
  • havblue 4y ago
    It's hard to post to a platform when you know whatever you say that's controversial, or even whatever you say that becomes controversial, will follow you the rest of your life.
  • threeseed 4y ago
    a) Facebook is not doomed for failure. Their audience just got older and rather than abandon them they acquired companies more suited to younger generations e.g. Instagram, Oculus instead. And it's a strategy that has unquestionably worked. b) Facebook isn't really pivoting to metaverse any more than Apple is pivoting to services. It's an additional revenue stream alongside their existing ones which are still very healthy and lucrative.
    • jjfoooo5 4y ago
      > Their audience just got older and rather than abandon them they acquired companies more suited to younger generations e.g. Instagram, Oculus instead. This strategy has run it's course. Regulators are keen to weaken FB and will obstruct further acquisitions. Acquisition targets know they can beat FB in the long run and will no longer agree to be purchased.
  • crispyambulance 4y ago
    > ... was always doomed for failure You could also say that "they won" and there's no where to go but down now. Nothing can grow forever and things that try are known, in the biological domain, as cancers or infestations. There's quite a few corporations that "won" their market, so they're primed for a decline-- if you can still even call it that after enough people made more money than god and retired.
• throwaway3907 4y ago
  Meta reported revenue of $27.9 billion in Q1 2022. They will continue making billions from ads for decades even if the metaverse play goes nowhere. But if you believe that VR/AR is going to eventually go mainstream then Meta is positioned to be a player in that market, even if it’s just a 2nd or 3rd place player that’s potentially billions in additional revenue.
  • tempsy 4y ago
    Well the epic stock slide over past few months would tell you investors are highly cautious about the company’s future.
    • tejohnso 4y ago
      On a 3 month chart FB is down 10% from start to now. That's hardly "epic". And the NASDAQ composite is down 13% in the same time frame.
      • tempsy 4y ago
        -44% ytd lol why write something in bad faith?
        • edmundsauto 4y ago
          Tech as a whole is down 27% over that period, which means $FB underperformed but not by a whole lot.
          • tempsy 4y ago
            QQQ is down 23% ytd so they underperformed the Nasdaq 100 by 2000 bps. that is objectively “a lot” especially for a mega cap.
        • tejohnso 4y ago
          Why assume bad faith? You said "past few months" and so I quickly pulled up a 3 month history which is a dropdown option in the UI I was looking at. I replied with what I saw.
• tempsy 4y ago
  Agreed that FB hasn’t actually proven they can build something from scratch that reaches critical mass. They would’ve have been long doomed had they not bought Instagram. Every other popular app eg Oculus and Whatsapp was also acquired.
  • chrischen 4y ago
    A big company acquiring small things and developing them successfully is a pretty common tactic. Many of Google's product, if not most, were also from acquisitions. This includes Maps and YouTube, and some of the less successful ones were not acquired.
    • tempsy 4y ago
      Yeah but that isn’t what I’m referring to. It’s clear FB is investing billions to build their vision of the Metaverse in house, at least for now, and my point is that they haven’t actually proven to anyone that they are capable of building a brand new thing from scratch that reaches critical mass without acquiring it elsewhere. In that sense I agree with investors who have sold the stock that this is a big risk.
      • chrischen 4y ago
        Their Like button was pretty ingenious and Instagram is still a market leader. Disregarding the fact that they didn’t create it, they have been good stewards. Also, while VR isn’t big, they did create a hit hardware device with the Oculus 2. While Oculus was acquired Oculus 2 is nowhere close to the experience of the Original wired dev kit, and they iterated from that to the Oculus Go to the Oculus Quest 2. Also keep in mind Apple has been doing a LOT of prep work for AR. We just don’t notice it but each iPhone comes with a full advanced AR sensor suite, capable of super imposing objects into our field of view. The only missing piece is the physical strapping of the iphone to one’s head, but if you did that the iPhone is capable of delivering Hololens-like promised experiences.
  • senko 4y ago
    They also copied the timeline feature from Twitter. Before that, people had a wall and you could go there and read what they wrote and poke them ... remember poking? They do seem rather good at buying good product companies or copying ideas, which could serve them well in the metaverse-space (ugh...), once it's established.
• wollsmoth 4y ago
  Just kind of seems like they're working on a very expensive, boring video game. the AR thing sounds cool, but are people really going to pick the Meta one over the Apple or Google one?
• konschubert 4y ago
  Right business move would have been to just keep enough engineers to keep facebook and instagram running. Cut costs aggressively and milk that slowly sinking ship for the next 3 decades. Oh, and invest into whatsapp.
• hervature 4y ago
  I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do we not have the input technology, the closest thing we have is a monkey playing pong, but the obstruction of physical world signals is basically non-existent. If it were, then we wouldn't have people in chronic pain. Finally, we already know how this experiment ends. This is basically SecondLife 2.0 (ThirdLife?). We'll have 0.1% stay because they invested so much (money, time, identity) into the world that the sunk cost fallacy kicks in.
  • cma 4y ago
    > but the obstruction of physical world signals is basically non-existent. If it were, then we wouldn't have people in chronic pain. The key one, the vestibular system, is overridable non-invasively: Galvanic vestibular stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulati... Vision and sound covered too, though vision can get better with more res and variable focus. Sound can get better with 3d scanning for custom HRTF's matched to the user's ear shape and body (sound reflecting off shoulders etc.).
    • hervature 4y ago
      I mean, yea, earplugs and a blindfold work too, but how do I feel like I'm walking through a pasture with wet dirt between my toes if you cannot simulate the sensory system? That's what people imagine. A home-bound person wants to feel what it is like to skydive, not watch a POV video.
      • Karawebnetwork 4y ago
        What if the future generations never gets to experience those feelings? They would not know what they are missing.
• cma 4y ago
  They are already outselling Microsoft's gaming consoles (though both use heavy subsidies) in dollar volume by a large margin.
• prostoalex 4y ago
  > The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. We should not confuse the technology with the use case. Once you are the standard-bearer on technology, any future use case is something you can easily piggyback and dominate. E.g. early versions of iPhone did not support NFC payments, while some competitor models did. Nevertheless, Apple Pay is fairly dominant.
  • joshstrange 4y ago
    > Nevertheless, Apple Pay is fairly dominant. I ran stats on an event I wrote software for, Apple Pay was 70%+ of all 1-click checkouts, Google Pay was under 30%. I was a little shocked at the difference though after spending more time trying to develop for Google Pay I can't help but wonder if that factors in. That and them renaming it every other week and removing features, it's a dumpster fire here in the US from what I can see. I've only ever seen my friends use Samsung Pay on their Androids.
• chaostheory 4y ago
  I feel that you need to actually try out the Quest 2 before you pan it.
  • PheonixPharts 4y ago
    The first week I had the Quest I thought it was the most game changing device of my entire life. Especially during the pandemic it was incredible to transport to another world. I was long a nay-sayer on VR but then completely changed my mind, I couldn't shut up to all my friends about how incredible an experience it was... That wore off less than a month later. Even in a house it takes up too much space to use. Using it too much still gives me a headache. Plus being teleported to another world, while amazing at first, does feel isolating after too much use. I have put orders of magnitude more time into playing switch on my couch than my Oculus (which collects dust in my basement) and I got my switch a few months ago. The most damning thing though is how little interest there is in VR by the broader gaming community. I never hear anyone on major gaming sites or youtube channels mention VR other than brief, occasional mentions when talking PC performance. Outside of the tech community nobody I know at all cares about VR in the slightest. The Oculus is a huge step forward, but after having been so excited about it, I'm even more convinced that it will never really take off.
    • chaostheory 4y ago
      > The first week I had the Quest I thought it was the most game changing device of my entire life. Did you own a Quest or Quest 2? Quest 2 is noticeably better. > That wore off less than a month later. A major use case for me is cardio exercise. Imo the Quest 2 is better than a Peleton for the variety of workouts. Many games are low key fitness apps. This is what keeps me coming back. I’ve lost 20 lbs so far with the Quest 2 > Using it too much still gives me a headache. This might be related to Quest 2’s inflexible IPD adjustment. It probably isn’t an issue on higher end XR headsets like the upcoming Apple headset as well as PSVR2 > Plus being teleported to another world, while amazing at first, does feel isolating after too much use. The trick is to only play multiplayer apps or games. > The most damning thing though is how little interest there is in VR by the broader gaming community. There are two major reasons for this: 1. Meta is still a toxic brand. Slightly less toxic than FB, but it still prevents a lot of early adopters from even trying it 2. Other alternatives are drastically more expensive AND complicated. While Quest 2 starts at $299, other VR systems start at $499 - $999, and they need a VR capable PC starting at $1599.
• nickdothutton 4y ago
  Augmented reality will beat virtual reality.
  • rvz 4y ago
    This. That is the true reality of it all.
  • zmmmmm 4y ago
    Not exactly .... what will really happen is the distinction will go away. All the next gen VR headsets are building in color passthrough so that they effectively operate as AR devices - but better ones in some ways because they can actually replace reality fully when they want to, not be constrained to just tweaking it.
    • vasco 4y ago
      Unfortunately you'll still bump against a table.
  • bni 4y ago
    AR, like it has been depicted in sci-fi where digital objects can be placed within the real environment in the users full field of view is very hard to do and is decades away, if even possible. What some companies call AR today isn't, it's just a HUD. Those will all fail. In the near term the opposite of real AR: "passthru-VR", for lack of better term with cameras taking in real world and merging it with a digital VR world, have a chance of becoming popular.
• cvhashim 4y ago
  Yahoo is still around but not as prominent. Could be the same with Meta.
• Seriomino 4y ago
  Meta became what tv channels like history channel became: Cheap entertainment for the masses. Does it make money? Obviously. And funny enough they have so much money and what do they do actually with it? Nothing someone can actually name besides: the feed, messenger, occulus and stuff they bought up like insta and Whatsapp. Congratulations to Facebook and basically no real innovation in the last 10 years. Besides optimizing the addictiones of garbage which got easily trumped by TikTok.
• jl6 4y ago
  > The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Face, meet book. Boom.
• _fat_santa 4y ago
  FB/Meta seems to be transitioning into a tech conglomerate. For the longest time (and even now), you associate FB/Meta with Facebook (ie facebook.com). But it's clear that the facebook.com product is dying. If Meta survives the next 10-20 years, I see them move to a model where they are a tech conglomerate. The new generation won't associate FB/Meta with Facebook, they will associate it with Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and any future acquisitions. I'm sure facebook.com will still be kicking around, maybe just the popular features like Marketplace and Pages sans the traditional news feed and updates. IMO this is the only way I see this company surviving. And the reason I haven't mentioned the Metaverse is because I personally think that it will be a giant ass flop right out of the gate.
• beambot 4y ago
  Consider for a moment that Metaverse as a "product" is a thinly-veiled smokescreen to deflect government regulators away from monetization of their monopoly on the Western social graph, and it doesn't seem that misguided. And if the product somehow generates revenue in the future, then it's just fortuitous happenstance.
  • propogandist 4y ago
    this is the correct answer. Everything from FB so far has been a huge PR campaign to make it seem as if they aren't a data mining company that hoards as much data as possible to serve ads. Most people are being fooled and FB is going the extra mile to distance themselves from their old image to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
• georgeecollins 4y ago
  It's the thirty year anniversary of the Newton, a complete failure as a product. When it failed people said that people would never carry around computers, there was no need. They were bulky, a huge hassle and didn't do anything better than paper. All of this was true. Yet I don't think it is a coincidence that the iPhone came from the same company. I don't like Facebook as a product. But I like that Meta is trying to make something work that isn't possible today, but may be possible in the future. It may not work out for them and their vision may never happen. But when someone makes fun of "strapping a phone to your face" I hear "get a horse". It doesn't take brains or vision to see the limitations of present technology.
  • joshstrange 4y ago
    Yes but FB has never created a successful hardware product, that was not the case for Apple when it made (and failed) with the Newton.
    • georgeecollins 4y ago
      That's true. So maybe they will fail. Should they give up?
• ynx 4y ago
  My money is on this comment aging poorly. Not because there shouldn't be legitimate concerns about VR, but because it's pointing to Facebook execution fail as the only thing that matters to the success of the metaverse, and it's expecting that the timeline should have been further along by now. Facebook has always built mediocre products. Its strength is in acquiring or copying good ones, and then jacking the internal engineering on them up to 11. Apple is seen as putting out good products, but they put out the Newton, ROKR, and even internally designed the iPad before they released the iPhone. There is time to build a good product, and chances are, Facebook won't be the one to build it. And yet - first year iPhone sales and first year Quest 2 sales are somewhat on par. There's reason for optimism, or at least not heavy pessimism, yet.
  • phaedrus 4y ago
    Re: comment aging poorly - somewhere on this site there's a really old comment of mine saying I couldn't believe Facebook didn't accept the Microsoft buy-out offer. I correctly predicted the then-soon coming backlash against Facebook and that they would become "uncool", but I failed to predict that that wouldn't impede Facebook much as a business nor lead to the mass exodus of users.
  • ethbr0 4y ago
    I'd also point out that a huge number of disruptive technologies that succeeded where other had failed did so because of... content. It's effectively impossible to buy sufficient content to meet AAA platform expectations these days. Because you're competing against incredibly competent, experienced, and well-stocked legacy alternatives. Consequently, either (a) "upgrading" an existing deep pool of legacy content (Google search, iPhone/web) or (b) turning every user into a content producer (Facebook, TikTok) have very good chances of success. And finally, to call out a fundamental blind spot: if Facebook doesn't lose, they win. Everyone pretends Facebook needs to win the VR market. They don't. They just need to keep enough of an eye on it that they aren't blindsided by a competitor, and then scale up their engineering once a seed appears successful. Their size, revenue, and ubiquity will win by default. If FB has 100 engineers working on VR for 20 years with nothing to show for it, but that allows them to ramp up when something magic finally happens (right hardware breakthrough, etc), then that's FB money well spent.
• kilroy123 4y ago
  I think Zuch is right about VR and the whole metaverse. I just think Meta (Facebook) won't be the ones to pull it off. It'll be the _Next_ Facebook that does.
• polote 4y ago
  > but it really seems like they’re on constant defense now and have a very tough lift to actually get something truly mass market What about the metaverse ? :) Isn't it something not defensing and mass market ? I feel like you are reproaching Meta to not do exactly what they do. They are having a massive innovative bet on how people will spend their time in the future.
• nine_k 4y ago
  > they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. It's fun to see people demanding more moderation and berating excessive moderation in FB, regularly, on this very forum.
  • majewsky 4y ago
    Despite what is often implied, there are in fact multiple people with different opinions posting on this site.
    • nine_k 4y ago
      Exactly. I try to underline the fact that catering to audience with multiple opinions, often contradicting one another, is not easy, and can only be a compromise. Everybody will constantly complain, no matter how optimal the moderation and general governance would be.
    • refurb 4y ago
      Sure, but if you look at the general HN sentiment, it's true. One topic about "disinformation" get highly voted up and that "moderation is the only way to go". Then another thread about Facebook moderation and suddenly the same people say "It's so terrible that Facebook is moderating so heavily".
  • AlexandrB 4y ago
    I'm guilty of both. I want looser enforcement of IP laws and better/more moderation of genuine harassment. Unfortunately economic incentives generally point in the opposite direction.
• aantix 4y ago
  Apple AR is coming.. https://twitter.com/BasicAppleGuy/status/1531737446534131713 https://twitter.com/BasicAppleGuy/status/1531737446534131713
• joshstrange 4y ago
  I have zero faith in FB being able to deliver on the metaverse and more importantly, on hardware. They bought their way into VR and we still don't know if they will screw it up just as badly as they have every other hardware product they've attempted. Google is king of web, iffy on software, and decent on hardware (when they commit). Apple is king of hardware/software and sucks on web (it's really embarrassing at this point, I want to pull my hair out when I use almost any of their web-based tools, consumer or developer focused) FB is decent on social for now but they haven't innovated in forever, they just buy up things like IG/WhatsApp/Oculus , I'm not convinced they are capable of producing anything interesting internally. Maybe my comment will age badly but I'm not at all worried about FB "owning" the metaverse or anything like that, they have a terrible track record.
• nicodjimenez 4y ago
  The real pivot for FB was their pivot to Instagram, with facebook.com pivoting to a "secret police" business model and shutting down open discussions, which used to flourish there. They've done this very well. FB today is more of a political organization than a business organization especially in the US. The Metaverse is just a distraction from this development that will have no impact on their cash cow Instagram. The nice thing about Instagram and Twitter, as far as Washington lobbyists are concerned, is that it's influencer driven and there's very little room for bottom up discussion between "normal" people. The original Facebook was a tool where dissent could grow in a bottom up fashion, with friends posting and realizing, "holy smokes! I was thinking that too!". This doesn't happen any more now that everyone knows that big brother is watching.
  • HappyTypist 4y ago
    Insightful observation. Arab Spring changed Facebook and social media, across the whole world. Don't forget the AI moderation-on-post. Just recently, a popular 'influencer' posted a scam. I left a comment saying such, along with a comment that the influencer should be ashamed of himself, and immediately, an AI filter told me that my comment may go against the Community Standards, and that repeated attempts to comment would lead to account deactivation. There is no appeal button. To those building these technologies, beyond false positives and coverage error, it takes one law or PR incident for you to re-train this model against dissent. And to those building technologies like Apple's CSAM scanning, it takes one DB replacement to make it flag photos of the Hong Kong protests or Tank Man.
• _wldu 4y ago
  I attended a USENIX LISA conference a few years ago in Seattle. I met a lot of people and saw a lot of demos. Before I went, I thought Facebook was a joke. After the conference, I was convinced they were doing large systems better than anybody. Maybe that has changed, but at that time they made the other big companies look like they were way behind.
• toast0 4y ago
  Disclosure: I worked at WhatsApp, part of Facebook, until the end of 2019. If you think the name change means they're focusing on the metaverse, that's just convenient. The fact is, Facebook is a toxic brand and Meta is just a silly looking brand. Post name change, they can do acquisitions and brand them as X by Meta without associating to the toxic brand. (Plus, maybe they can get the Mennen ad team to add 'by Meta' to the end of all their ads with audio)
  • bozhark 4y ago
    Reality: the name change doesn’t hide anything. Neat to think they believe it does.
    • colinmhayes 4y ago
      They wouldn't have done it if they didn't have evidence showing that you are wrong.
      • bink 4y ago
        I'm curious where this belief comes from that large companies do not mistakes. It's almost as if you're implying that they're omniscient. Just look at Twitter for examples of how these large companies absolutely can and do misjudge markets.
    • deleted 4y ago
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• tootie 4y ago
  I think the huge confusion they are partaking in the difference between data and UI. A 3d virtual world can exist independently from a headset. The headset is just a phone you strap to your face. And the data behind that 3d virtual world is just a 2d virtual world with a z-axis. We've been building 3d games for decades and we've built 3d UIs for nearly as long and they never catch on. They're hard to navigate and, more importantly, convey absolutely no extra information. The entire move from physical interaction like shopping at a store to virtual interaction like e-commerce is that the 2d world is way more efficient. We've already built a fully functional metaverse. We've built fully digital models of commerce, healthcare, education, communication, finance, travel. All of which has UIs that work perfectly well on flat screens. Putting that inside a headset is just not a groundbreaking change.
• elif 4y ago
  I see things completely opposite, other than my agreement that the current meta implementation is categorically bad. The way I see it, Facebook is dead. It lost its place in society by forcibly combining free online expression with personal identity and responsibility. What remains is a culturally normative repository of groupthink with fewer and fewer participants deriving novel value, and that is reflected in the userbase trends. What meta represents philosophically is a return to semi-anonymized and immediate human-to-human interaction, without the pretense of permanence or the necessity to project only socially righteous behavior. It is a natural, and by nature ephemeral medium. It is the only hope for meta long-term, and beating apple out of the gate is an encouraging sign to me.
  • walleeee 4y ago
    > semi-anonymized and immediate human-to-human interaction why are optionally anonymous forums like HN not sufficient for this? why do we need virtual avatars, content markets, gamification? if people want these things there are always video games
• paxys 4y ago
  The pivot to Meta is genius because it helps to move away from the Facebook brand, which is more and more toxic by the day. Whether the future of the company is the "metaverse" that Zuck is selling, or doubling down on Instagram or Whatsapp, or some other yet known product line remains to be seen. What we do know is that the Facebook app (and name) is on the the path to irrelevance.
• narrator 4y ago
  I think the Metaverse will fail because it's a creepy futurism project. Creepy futurism says the solution to climate change is to replace real experiences with virtual experiences that don't burn any carbon. The pièce de résistance of creepy futurism in the metaverse is intended to be the virtual child experience[1]. You satisfy the instinctual drives to destroy the climate with more children[2], but instead you do it in a sustainable simulated way. Kind of like instead of living forever, which is utterly unsustainable, we upload our brains to the metaverse and have your carbon body used for plant food or whatever and our friends and family get the simulated experience of still having us around! Like most creepy futurism projects, nobody really wants this except the people who spend their days trying to figure out how to save the planet by any means necessary and have come up with all sorts of fake climate friendly substitutes, like the vast array of vegan meat substitutes that nobody eats, but seem to be fully in stock in every grocery store and fast food chain. Like all creepy futurism projects, there seems to be an unlimited amount of money and associated ESG and "The Current Thing" street credibility behind these projects that see them funded and cheerled in the press to absurd levels even as the public is absolutely luke warm about it all at best. [1]https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/37980/20220601/virtual-tamagochi-children-will-give-parents-real-life-experience-kids.htm https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/37980/20220601/virtual... [2]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...
• bingohbangoh 4y ago
  Facebook dominated in part because people would endlessly scroll during class, at the bus stop, waiting on line, etc. VR and the Metaverse require a much bigger commitment by comparison. You can't casually use them. Heck, you can't really even eat or drink while a VR headset is strapped to your face.
  • colinmhayes 4y ago
    VR is just a stepping stone. AR glasses can't be far behind, and they're even more convenient than phones. Really the end game here has to be star trek style holodeck or matrix style dream state, at which point the company effectively controls your entire life.
    • AlexandrB 4y ago
      > VR is just a stepping stone. AR glasses can't be far behind, and they're even more convenient than phones. I could see how they would be convenient for a few applications, but they don't have the range of uses a phone has. In particular, any kind of content creation seems like it would be nearly impossible. Though this same line was said about phones in the past.
• deltaonefour 4y ago
  >Facebook has neglected its core businesses for years and seems to have real trouble shipping hardware with reasonable spending. I don't think there's deliberate neglect here. Fashion shifts and facebook is no longer as fashionable. It is very very hard to stay at the forefront of fashion unless you're product is one that reinvents itself on an annual basis (see the fashion industry) The meta pivot seems to be more of a desperate anticipation then a strategic opportunity. Facebook conveniently announced meta just before the earnings call.
• paganel 4y ago
  Not to mention that the metaverse "universe" looks, for lack of a better word, kind of shitty. I mean all those billions of dollars (or maybe more) invested to get something that looks like this [1]? Or like this [2]? Not since Google+ have I seen so much hybris when it comes to one of the big SV companies, but at least back then Google didn't bet the entire company on Google+ succeeding or not the same way as Facebook (ok, Meta) seems to be doing right now with the metaverse (yes, I know about the "all small arrows behind one big arrow" or something like that speech that came from Page but it turned out not even the Google higher-ups believed in their prep-talks). [1] https://media.wired.com/photos/61bd32b4b540f6bc340c4449/master/pass/Business-Decentraland-Land-Rush.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/61bd32b4b540f6bc340c4449/mast... [2] https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/02/15/screenshot-11-1_wide-0abce8f66bbe0a9c13555d12cc482a168627498b.jpg https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/02/15/screenshot-11-1_...
• mmaunder 4y ago
  Don’t confuse investor sobriety after an epic party with strategic miscalculation. Zuck is taking a gamble. Good for him. It’s extremely rare for a big co to have the balls and for leadership to have the autonomy to do this these days. He has both. He may fail. But at least he took a big hairy audacious risky shot at first to market and a chance at being what Steve Jobs is to smart phones. I wouldn’t count him out just yet. What he’s doing with Oculus as a loss leader is interesting, and the tech is hitting an interesting inflection point as it becomes wireless, low latency and cheap for the first time. Hate on FB and confirm your biases all you want, but watch this space.
  • fullshark 4y ago
    It can be both an admirable bet and the failure the OP describes. In fact I think the fact that it's a big hairy audacious risky shot is why OP may prove correct and it's discussed in MBA programs for the next 100 years.
  • glofish 4y ago
    Isn't every terrible business decision a gamble that "could have paid off" if one thing or another happened? Being wrongly infatuated with a concept as Meta seems with metaverse is not a gamble IMHO. It seem more like a stupid decision done by someone that became successful by being in the right place at the right time. And now they want to prove that it wasn't an accident and that they have it takes to repeat hence become infatuated with an absurd idea that we want to be inside the FB world.
    • whack 4y ago
      > It seem more like a stupid decision done by someone that became successful by being in the right place at the right time This is massively underselling what led to Facebook's success. As someone who started using Facebook-alternatives in 2001, there were a ton of competing social networks at the time. Many very superficially similar to Facebook, and many with a multi-year headstart. FB drove them all to extinction and became the social network via a combination of great product management, and engineering execution. And this was all led by a teenager in his second year of college. The vast majority of people in his shoes would not have achieved the outcome that he did.
• berberous 4y ago
  Well, I strongly disagree. I would be shocked if VR/metaverse does not massively grow within the next 10 years. I think the headsets alone will continue to get massively better which will convert most of humanity, just like how much better iPhones got since the first one. In fact, I would bet anything on the foregoing, as I have near total confidence in that aspect. It’s much harder to figure out which companies will profit off of that, so it’s certainly possible Meta will miss. But they have a leader with a vision, and are pouring more money into this than any other major player. Will that be enough? Who knows. But I think it’s a mistake to count them out so early in the process, when they are the ones putting R&D into this. In my mind, it’s like starting an auto company right when cars arrive and people are still skeptical of them, and being the company to pour the most money into developing them. That’s who you want to bet against? Taxes and moderation are considerations, sure, and may backfire partly, but I think the users will go where the tech is. Just like people buy iPhones not withstanding the cost, moderation, App Store tax, etc, because the iPhone is what users want. If Meta makes an excellent headset and software platform, people will use it. Most people don’t care about the things HN cares about (like App Store fees).
  • HWR_14 4y ago
    > Just like people buy iPhones not withstanding the cost, moderation, App Store tax, etc, because the iPhone is what users want. Unless you jailbreak it or turn on scary developer mode all those apply on Android too. Hell, iPhones are cheaper than some Android flagships now.
    • Siira 4y ago
      You can install APKs directly on Android. It only takes one not-that-scary checkbox.
      • HWR_14 4y ago
        Yes, you can. I can. The average consumer? I would never suggest my parents check that box. In fact, I would advise against it in very strong terms. I'm not saying Android doesn't offer that freedom to some. I'm saying most people don't (and shouldn't) use it.
• nickysielicki 4y ago
  To play devils advocate, Facebook is more essential to my life than it ever was before. * Marketplace was a huge success in terms of subsuming Craigslist. The quality of posts and the volume of postings makes me rarely even check Craigslist anymore. * Small forums for various hobbies are almost entirely driven by Facebook groups now, instead of in the past where you’d find some custom bulletin board where the last post on most subforums was 3 years ago. It’s better than Reddit for certain things. Groups for communities (ie: your neighborhood or small town) are thriving, too. * Messenger is the sole mechanism I have to keep in touch with friends from school that are now back overseas. I think their general success is assured, even if the metaverse isn’t ready yet. They can afford to lose some money on a big bet. On the other hand, I think that they missed the boat with the metaverse not being a big thing during covid lockdowns, because the cultural rebound of covid yields zero appetite for virtual existence. People want to make up for lost time.
  • pishpash 4y ago
    This must be cohort-dependent. For me, Marketplace buyers have flaked out more than Craigslist ones. Forums are less useful/dynamic than anonymous Reddit. And I don't even touch Messenger vs. numerous other chat apps.
  • k__ 4y ago
    I used FB only for events before the pandemic, so I didn't use it much in the last years. I like Instagram and WhatsApp, but Meta's "core" business is non of my interests.
  • chrisseaton 4y ago
    > The quality of posts On Marketplace?! This blows my mind that you think this. It's a chaotic nightmare. Sellers post everything as free and then separately negotiate a price. Buyers repeatedly ask you if something's still available. Both of these mean something's very wrong with how people understand to use the system.
    • lokar 4y ago
      Also, how does a buyer including the text "money order" not trigger automatic fraud enforcement?
• gfodor 4y ago
  You’ll change your mind once you start seeing people walking around in their rPods, or whatever. (Apple’s new headset)
• qiskit 4y ago
  People on HN have been predicting facebook's demise for nearly a decade now. People on HN have been wrong. Almost any popular sentiment on HN, especially tech related, seems to be nonsense. > The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. And the idea of people watching video on a tiny smartphone was initially thought to be absurd. > When they first announced the rebrand I actually thought it could be genius Did you really? > but epic strategic miscalculation seems to be going around a lot this year. Right. Like facebook's miscalculation in buying instagram, whatsapp, etc. I've never used facebook. Think the world's better without facebook and most social media and large tech companies like apple, microsoft, google, etc. But man, you people have been so wrong for so long and it's hard to take the facebook haters seriously anymore. Just like the tesla haters a few years ago.
• tomrod 4y ago
  Indeed. I think AR will prove to have higher utilization and usefulness. Google glasses were too soon for true HUD, sure. But perhaps we arrive there sooner. That said, kudos on the strides VR has made in the past decade!
• deleted 4y ago
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• refurb 4y ago
  I think the pivot to Meta was a desperate attempt to avoid the decline that was already happening. It’s pretty clear Facebook will go the way of MySpace.
• e-clinton 4y ago
  The rebrand was mostly PR. Sure they are working on Metaverse, but they are still trillions to be made under the current model. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is to never count Zuck out
• deleted 4y ago
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• prvc 4y ago
  It seems like a concept like "the metaverse" will become necessary at some point as a kind of abstraction layer for communication via future technologies such as Neuralink. The comments I have seen from Zuckerberg on the topic of the metaverse, however, do not suggest that they are conceiving of it at this level of generality, instead focusing on extant video-game related concepts (VR, DLC purchases, etc.). Apple's work in this area (as rumored) also reflects the same limited vision of the concept.
• jayski 4y ago
  I have a similar take. I believe FB management saw the writing on the wall, multiple world governments were no longer going to allow them to sway elections/perception + kids never want to use what the 30/40 year olds use, it was a matter of time before FB became uncool. Staring at this reality, instead of going down with the ship, the logical decision was to take their still enormous resources and pivot to the next big thing. Meta isnt it, and they probably know it, but its their best idea. Im old enough where Ive seen HUGE things everyone on the Internet was using, die quickly; IRC(as the main internet chat), ICQ, MS Messenger, AOL, Napster, MySpace, Yahoo, Geocities. Its FBs turn, IMO.
• xwolfi 4y ago
  The metaverse already exists, Im in an elevator in Hong Kong and you're prob in your toilets in Idaho. We speak in a language that I'm not native of (Im French) about subjects that barely concern France or China. So, what more magic can we add to the internet? Bulky headsets you can only use home, 3D avatars with no more mood cues than a forum smiley ? Micropayment for vanity objects not worth more than my karma count on reddit ? Facebook lost it when they started this nonsense.
• april_22 4y ago
  Honestly, I think they know what they are doing and will continue to play such a dominant role in our life.
• dathinab 4y ago
  > first announced the rebrand Honestly I was offended as I would say their rebrand is cultural appropriation. They didn't invent the "metaverse" it's a by now decades old idea you find in many, maybe even most science fiction novels. Neither is using the term meta in this context. In some way they basically try to forceful appropriate this to redefine it as a Facebook thing. But this might also be why they might fail! Because the term metaverse is already used in such a generic way by so many parties that it only stands for a vague "interconnected vr world" thingy, i.e. you could argue that even by now any trade mark protection law suite is already a lost cause (at least in the EU). Similar have fun protecting Meta as a trademark for anything which is meta (like metadata, like most things in VR...). I mean sure Apple is called Apple, but that only works because they have nothing to do with Apples... Anyway putting that aspect aside there is another three problems with there vision: - added values - convenience - accessibility For success the added value must outclass any inconvenience especially such cause through problems of accessibility. But for multiple of their use cases this is not the case, like e.g. the VR meeting rooms are much less convenient then voice/video calls and add hardly any value. Worse their are less accessible and might legally not be usable by any company hold to accessibility standards. Another example would be e.g. 3d web, which died because for most use cases it added hardly any value over 2d text based web. Similar things like slack became successful due to it being simple text based, if it would have been based around a vr room it would have flopped even if everyone has the right hardware to run it performant. Pretty much the main important point I think Facebook would need to succeed in is to convince most people working in front of a computer that they want to work with a VR headset instead, but who wants to ware a VR headset 8 hours a day.