We’ve all seen the insane jump in popularity and large-scale investment in the metaverse by corporations of every industry around 2-3 years ago. There were incredibly pitched visions of the potential that could be achieved. Just off the top of my head, I can recall Dana White of the UFC saying that they will host MMA fights in the metaverse, with virtual seating and attendance for fans from anywhere to attend. There was also the idea of a large-scale interactive world where each one of us would be able to strap into a headset from the comfort of our own home, being able to explore and meet people through virtual avatars. The ideas for this were endless, from luxury brands mentioning metaverse fashion shows, to big entertainment planning interactive experiences.
This developing technology was supposed to change the way we live, work, and learn, but fast forward to the present day, we have not seen much at all in terms of the metaverse’s development. In fact, there has been much more bad news than good, as there have been countless companies simply giving up on the technology.
In October of 2021, Facebook decided to change its name to Meta, in order to represent its focus shift to being on top of building the metaverse. This was a major change for the company, as we all knew it as the parent company to the social media page. Meta has had its fair share of investments into developing technologies in the past. In 2014, Meta, then Facebook, purchased the company Oculus which was the leading manufacturer of Virtual reality headsets at the time. This was their first step into the development of the metaverse, before we even knew of such a concept. Though this technology on its own has proven to be a stable and popular market for Facebook over the years, including its transition to become Meta, VR headsets have shown their popularity in gaming especially. VR technology had later grown to be a big part of the metaverse’s future, as this would be the primary interactive input to the virtual world.
Meta had formed a specialized division to focus solely on its metaverse project, called Reality Labs and that division has lost nearly $24 Billion dollars over the past two years, as per a Washington Times report. With the emergence of another innovative technology on the horizon, generative AI, Mark Zuckerberg stated the following in a recent Facebook post, “We’re creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI to turbocharge our work in this area. We’re starting by pulling together a lot of the teams working on generative AI across the company into one group focused on building delightful experiences around this technology into all of our different products,”. This could mean that Meta is cutting its focus down a bit on the metaverse, and onto the next hot technology. Generative AI has already become an integral part of many people’s lives, using it for work, school, and inquiries. It would be more a tangible effort for Meta to shift their focus, as generative AI has an actual outlook to be implemented into user’s workflows.
Disney was a good example of a major media and entertainment company to jump on the hype train of the metaverse, back in 2021. Bob Chapek, Disney CEO at the time, described it as a new opportunity to tell stories and produce content. There was not a specific use case announced for the metaverse team created within the company, but an outlook of what was to come. Just yesterday, March 28, 2023, Disney announced a large layoff of nearly 7,000 employees across its entities. This included the entire metaverse team of 50 employees, therefore killing any current development of the metaverse for Disney. This shows how the large drive for a potential major digital innovation at the time, ended up as a trip on the hype train for many companies. The idea at the time showed a lot of potential to revolutionize the way we consume digital entertainment, and still can in the distant future, but it seems as if that idea will be put on the back burner for now.
There are many ideas that are essential parts of the metaverse that still have an important role in the current state of digital innovation. These things include the development of Web3, cryptocurrency, NFTs, and virtual reality. All of these are emerging with somewhat valuable futures ahead, and have potential to grow into major parts of the future technological infrastructure ahead of us. The development of these may help the idea of the metaverse expand into what it was hoped of being. The current situation of the metaverse does not mean that it is dead, but that it just isn’t what we thought it was going to be so soon.
I think the Metaverse is an invention/idea that is too far ahead of society. I think it is a great idea and will at some point be the new normal for people. However, the hype of Metaverse got too big too fast, and there’s still a long way to go before it can perform all the tasks that companies have promised it can. It is really sad to see companies at Disney have to let talented people go because the Metaverse is just not ready yet.
Hey Aly, I really enjoyed reading your post! I was unware of the progression coming along with the metaverse and remembering hearing about how this new technology would change the world we live in. There was supposed to be options to watch NBA games courtside using the metaverse, but I am unware where they stand with that now. It makes more sense to stop their progression with this and focus on generative AI.
Hey Aly! Cool post. I totally get what you mean about the metaverse. A few years ago, everyone was talking about it and how it was going to change the game. But now, it seems like there hasn’t been much progress, and even some companies have given up on it. Developing something like the metaverse is tough and takes time, but I’m still excited to see where it goes in the future. Fingers crossed for some progress soon!
Honestly, I think Facebook largely changed their name as a PR move to draw heat away from the various Facebook scandals. I think it mostly worked, but now that they aren’t delivering on the Metaverse promise, its coming back to bite them because people realize that it’s not quite ready for primetime.
I like this take!
Facebook changing its name was pretty comical for me. I think that the meta verse will be fun and maybe change how we spend our free time and interact with people and games and stuff. For the people buying real estate in the meta verse I think its pretty funny and I see how there could be a downturn on development in that department.
Hey Aly, great post! I’ve never really been a fan of the meta verse because of how it goes against some of my values but from an economic and technological standpoint I support it. Many businesses are trying to ensure the success of their businesses and to do that you must look into the future and adapt to the coming developments beforehand so that you can stay ahead of the competitive market, the Metaverse is a prime example.
Out with the old, in with the new! Not all hype can be delivered up to expectations, so large companies that have the ability to shift and dump a bunch of money into the newest topic.
You bring up interesting points about how companies have approached the development of the metaverse, and how other emerging technologies like generative AI, Web3, cryptocurrency, NFTs, and virtual reality could play a significant role in shaping the future of the metaverse.