Meta* admits that no one cares about the metaverse anymore
Date: 2023-07-13 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: BUSINESS
The company's vice president shares the opinion that the hype around the metaverse has come to naught, but sees advantages in it
The hype around the metaverse is dead, but it's good for Meta's business*. This opinion was expressed in an interview with Fortune by Vice President of Meta * (banned in the Russian Federation) Vishal Shah. He noted that the company invested in virtual reality technology long before the hype (Meta absorbed the developer of virtual reality glasses Oculus back in 2014).
"I think the hype around the metaverse has come to naught. I think we were in a hype cycle. [...] We didn't invest [in the technology] for the hype, we invested in the space for years," Shah said.
At the same time, Shah is personally "very happy" that the hype is over. According to him, the company can now focus on the development of complex technologies. What prevented Meta from doing this amid the hype is unclear. The vice president of Meta also doubts that society will abruptly switch to virtual reality. Shah assures that it will take many more years to implement.
It is worth noting that the introduction of other technologies, such as chatbots, did not take much time for the public. According to Exploding Topics, ChatGPT's user base has grown to 100 million people since 2023. At the same time, the chatbot is used more than a billion times every month.
Meta, in turn, is nowhere near boasting of similar results. In November 2022, The Verge journalists trashed the company's virtual worlds. Those who have tested virtual reality from Meta argue that the company is unable to fully implement the plans of Mark Zuckerberg, taking into account existing technologies.
In March 2023, when the metaverse hype dried up, Zuckerberg said that artificial intelligence had become the company's new priority. Prior to that, the company laid off tens of thousands of employees, and the cost of creating a dubious metaverse exceeded $5.5 billion.
