Unbelievable. They re-architected the whole operating system around this stupid app. They discontinued their previous homescreen environments in favor of trying to promote Horizon Worlds, only to discontinue the blasted thing anyway? After all of those millions of dollars spent trying to make virtual events happen?
They also renamed the entire corporation from "Facebook" to "Meta" to prove how serious they were about it.
While simultaneously renaming the VR headsets to also use Meta branding instead of Oculus, even though Oculus was a great brand and the most recognizable name in the VR industry. What made it worse is that by that point they'd produced lots of headsets with Oculus branding, including an Oculus button on one of the controllers. So, they had to change that button to also have a different logo and name, and have the software presumably recognize which revision you had to draw the correct controller model in the VR view. It's insane how far they went in pursuit of what they saw as the next NFTs.
Funnily enough, it did end up as the next NFTs, just not in the way they hoped
IIRC the reason they abandoned Oculus brand was that Palmer Luckey sold the company with condition the Oculus headsets would not need a facebook account to use it. Later they renamed the company and headset, and would you look at that — it requires meta account now.
I think the Oculus Quest 2 was the first one to release with a Facebook requirement, but it was still Oculus-branded. It was this headset that they swapped out the branding on when they renamed themselves to Meta. Earlier models still have the Oculus logo on them and the controllers, despite being as locked-down as all the others. The rebrand came much later than the account requirement.
This isn't correct
Well, NFTs in 2026 are also not so popular
That's not what I meant. I wasn't talking about replicating the popularity (that never materialized), but about getting on the hype train of selling people nothing for something.
Oculus had pizzaz and nice branding separation from Facebook. Which was a good thing.
Meta does not feel like a different brand from Facebook, given it is its umbrella. As brands they both speak "surveillance", "advertising", "scams", "AI slop", "manipulating your experience", "child harms" and "doom scroll regret".
They should rebrand the headsets back to Oculus, put them in a separate division, remove any dependencies. And never speak of Meta This or Facebook That or Zuckavatraphila again.
C’mon it was worth a shot.
Remember how amazing the original NFTs were?
Thank god Mark Zuckerberg is not self aware in the least bit because we can keep getting hilarious gems like this for probably the rest of his days. The guy probably lives as close to the Truman Show experience as one can realistically get.
Hah, you made me think of the future with regards to this fool. Why do I see a future where amongst all the chaos and destruction of a big climate-induced disaster, the headline "Mark Zuckerberg and his family have reportedly retreated into his doomsday bunker" will appear...
I thought the bunker is only a rumor, but DDGing it, it's "rumor" that's been covered in many news outlets, so, I'm guessing it's real although the news outlets might have some details wrong.
Now, that might just be the decoy bunker. :)
Wild musing:
Did Zuckerberg invent Facebook.com or copy it from another person, during college?
I forget where history landed on that one.
And so I wonder if this corporate decision relates to that inventiveness of lack of.
In initial form, there wasn't anything to invent: it was implementing a digital phone book.
That idea was brought to him by the Winklevoss brothers.
He then built it (allegedly, and having to pay $65m to settle a claim about, while lying to his partners) and scaled the company into what is now Facebook.
:-) this is really a great explanation. Thank you for filling me in ...
The rename was successful. The failure of Meta brand didn't directly impact the Facebook one.
Now they have to rebrand the company again to be about some AI hype spy glasses. The Metaverse was a flop.
The corporate metaverse was a huge flop. There are plenty of VR games and communities that are still thriving off the backs of the Corpo metaverse technology.
They have different goals. VR gaming has always been targeting small scale hardcore gamers. Meta was promoting the Metaverse as something the average person would use daily for work and shopping. That never happened and no company has achieved it.
Don't worry, they'll rename themselves LLaMeBook next, and this time will be different!
Moltbook, they bought this recently
They changed the name of the company to distance themselves from a number of scandals including Cambridge Analytica, COVID vaccine misinformation, and sitting on studies about teen mental health and social media use.[0]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59083601
Not sure why you're downvoted but I absolutely do think that they changed their name for better branding. I also think they were involved in a number of antitrust lawsuits so renaming their company to Meta says "see, we're the underdog in this new big VR industry, we're not a monopoly".
Billions. Facebook has spent billions and billions over the past decade in VR. Starting with the Oculus merger and then in 2021 with the rebrand.
10 billion a year supposedly for the past 5 years now.
I kept saying to myself, they must be seeing something I'm not... I guess not
VR games are actually kind of neat and fun. But it’s too much of a hassle to set the thing up every time and, I dunno, the association with Facebook is too icky.
It would have been really interesting to see what Oculus could have become without getting bought. I do think they were a little neat idea, not at all ready for Facebook sized projects.
As I've heard and said elsewhere -- VR Games are absolutely like a day at the fair. But no one wants to go to the fair EVERY DAY.
This is a fantastic way of putting it.
When I was 20, I preordered a pixel 2 after watching the launch presentation from my university library. One of the "bonuses" for doing so was Google's new headset you put your phone in for a VR experience, along with a new controller.
This "Daydream" only lasted a few years (in software support), but it was a pretty good physical implementation of the "strap your phone to your face for budget VR" concept. I used it more than I'd care to admit for watching movies on a virtual big screen. It'd always give me a big headache between the eyes after an hour and a half, but it was fun every now and again.
A day at the fair.
It even convinced me to buy an Oculus CV1 when those were being heavily discounted!
I never ended up using the CV1 as much as my Daydream, which is saying something. The appeal of VR just isn't that great to me. It's something I find myself wanting to do maybe once or twice a year. Now, never, since the CV1 only ever worked well with Windows, and I can't be bothered to keep a Windows install exclusively for VR (I've tried and failed multiple times with the Linux runtimes).
Not nearly enough drive to deal with base stations, wires, or controllers. And even with the newest headsets that do away with all those, not worth the cash or effort to put on, or the space the headset takes up. Not for "once a month" trips to the fair.
It's insane to me that Meta dumped so much cash into VR. Their fever dream of working in VR gives me a sense of dread and migraine just thinking about it...
I use mine pretty much daily though
The Nintendo Wii was like this too.
Yes, but also I often argue that the Wii is better "VR" than VR, because you can play with your friends, which is probably the real "killer app" of gaming?
Love the way you put it, spot on.
No one but children aka Gen Alpha. Meta failed to pivot their marketing.
It's almost hard to tell even if I'm right about this because Meta's marketing was side-splittingly hilariously awful.
"Put on your headset and go into an office meeting!"
It really boggles the mind.
With modern inside out tracking headsets (basically camera based SLAM) the setup us none to minimal (clear up some space on the ground so you don't trip over things if not playing seated).
PCVR is a hassle. Meta VR is simple convenient, and instant by comparison. I was able to use it everyday to workout.
The problem with VR in general is that only children, Gen Alpha, are into it as a demographic. Meta failed to take this into account to reposition Meta VR as either their NES or Roblox into their marketing. They were marketing something only children appreciated to adults who couldn’t see the potential. All adults see is a giant bucket that they don’t want to put on their face.
PCVR is awesome with Steam, even using meta headsets once it's all setup its very straightforward.
PCVR is great for flexibility and freedom, but it really sucks for convenience. There’s too much hassle and too much to turn on and setup even if you’re using Quest headset. I don’t think it will change until Valve Frame, but you can also argue that it’s not really PCVR
"The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."
- All The President's Men
Sometimes it’s just a jobs program to keep people busy so that they can’t build something else that can threaten your business
If this were remotely true, there wouldn't have huge layoff rounds. The opposite is true: they hire thousands upon thousands of people and teach them how to build scalable software, and then set them loose. I'm frankly surprised by the lack of competition, but I suppose that's gated at multiple levels (visas, personal risk, funding, network effects, etc)
It was true. Then they needed money for other things and whole orgs get laid off.
>teach them how to build scalable software
Don't they screen to hire people who already know that?
> Don't they screen to hire people who already know that?
There was a time when big tech widely hired dor entry-level jobs.
Also, cramming for the design portion of an interview, and doing it for real, and interacting with the architects/design documents are 2 very different things
That was more an issue when rates were low and borrowing capital was “free”.
I am more leaning towards them simply having infinitely more money than sense. So they keep throwing it at anything that looks like it could be something. Well same goes for Google...
The product isn't Facebook, Quest, or Instagram. The product isn't advertising. The product isn't even people.
The product is the stock price.
Viewed through that lens, keeping the hype going at all costs makes sense.
The product is a platform Meta control free of Windows, Google or Apple.
That's what meta(verse) was suppose to build.
Yea - and what a foolproof product. Chase $HYPE, boost stock price, quietly deprecate $HYPE in favor of $NEXT_HYPE, stock doesn't correct, just goes up more
you could do this forever!
There is. Reality Labs is not just VR. There are several divisions doing things non VR related. These areas have significant investment.
For now.
Is that a bad thing? That's 10b that engineers and other employees now have and Facebook doesn't have. And while VR might never make them money, is it bad from our pov that they did the research and development?
It's probably a bad thing for anyone who doesn't already own a house near Menlo Park and wants to buy one.
So, a fraction of the AI investments? It’s pretty clear where the focus is bow and who/what no longer has a future at Meta.
> So, a fraction of the AI investments? It’s pretty clear where the focus is bow and who/what no longer has a future at Meta.
And the tens of billions spent on AI at Meta... As a result, we're all using "Meta Code CLI" and "ChatBook" and "Geminizuck" right?
Seriously: while we're all on Claude Code using the Anthropic models and many are happy with Gemini and ChatGPT for other stuff, where is Meta's AI offering? I love their Segment Anything Models (SAM) but what the heck has Meta to answer to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI?
Do they need one do you think? They are trying to make one for sure but it's interesting to think about whether they actually need their own models to survive the shift. Maybe they just deliver other people's models via Meta products?
It's about growth.
Meta stock is priced as a growth stock - not on its current financial returns but on what the market believes it will do in the future. It has been priced like this from the start because it has been growing since the start.
As soon as it stops being able to convince the market it is still growing, then the stock price drops to what the business's current financials dictate, which will be a huge drop. That huge drop has severe negative consequences for everyone involved in that decision. Spending tens of billions on the Metaverse project was better, even though it failed, because it created a growth story they could sell to the market.
So now that's gone they need another growth story. Given the current state of the tech world, that's probably AI-related. And they probably need their own models as part of it.
They can't just "survive the shift" because it's not really about survival. They need to be part of the shift, so that they can convince the market that they're still growing.
I always assumed their free open weight models were either a prestige thing or else part of a poorly executed commoditize-your-complements strategy.
Sure they are spending like crazy. I do think now they have bought Manus, they will try to compete. We'll have to see what all the talent they bought is going to create.
> a fraction of the AI investments
you realize 99% of those announced "investments" have yet to occur as recognizable transactions, correct?
Meanwhile, the barrel of $70b in metaverse waste was actually spent
They already hold a lot of the debt for the AI investments, is my understanding. I guess they could pay it back and not spend it.
What's the quote:
"A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about some real money."
I meant hundreds of millions on Horizon Worlds specifically. Virtual concerts and the like. Big "Hello Fellow Kids" energy.
Can you blame them? They saw the huge success Fortnite was having in that space.
Facebook's core competency is copying other successful products. Sometimes it works.
should have just bought epic then like they usually do
Indeed. Reportedly Epic was worth $31.5 billion in 2022. That's only ~1/3 what they spent on Metaverse.
Reality Labs is more than VR
Not on Horizon Worlds
They could have just waited until AI came out, now they can spend $1 million on tokens and slop :)
I still remember the VR hype of 2015, they predicted a market size for 2017 that we won't even reach by 2027, and probably 2037
[flagged]
50 billion can't solve world hunger. It's not even a money issue.
Since you're an expert, perhaps you'd like to share the magic number with the rest of us.
The usage numbers probably reflect what happened in this house: since the pestering to confirm age and the horizon worlds update the Meta VR devices have literally not been recharged.
They had the foundation of something half reasonable at one point, but their product management clearly got in the way.
but their product management clearly got in the way
I'm pretty sure the buck stops with Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg wants a cyberpunk future, not some 3D immersive HR department on your face.
I think to him those are the same thing.
If he wanted an imaginative environment he'd be in VRChat.
VRChat is what you would point at to justify the creation of Horizon Worlds, while saying “it is just too creepy for normies”.
Neither of those extremes are tolerable.
And at the same time VRChat is reaching record popularity and user counts with tiny fraction of the budget Facebook wasted.
And it is so simple - just listen to your users and give them what they want - which seems to be VR cat girls.
I think that's the issue Meta had, they were trying to introduce VR to the greater public. VRs actual community is a niche of individuals who love the technology, they didn't want what Horizon was offering. VRChat is too weird for the average person, but Horizon was not interesting enough for the average person either.
I do believe that the recent Meta headsets pulled in a lot of users who will stay, thanks to their price point and performance.
There was a solution for meta though but they failed to pivot. Almost every generation as a whole disliked VR, except for children. Gen Alpha is into VR, but meta failed to market it as their NES or much better Roblox. Instead, meta marketing stayed focused on disinterested adults. Maybe it was because the children were using their parent’s accounts since it’s apparent that meta’s marketing department didn’t touch their VR devices? Otherwise, they’d realize the horizon and every online VR game was filled with kids.
> After all of those millions of dollars spent trying to make virtual events happen?
Billions. $70 billion since 2021 to be exact.
Not millions. Many many billions. (not on virtual events, but on the platform itself--that's the crazy part)
Mark isn’t in charge because he’s smart, he’s in charge because of voting rights.
Or, to put it another way that actually gives him some credit, because he founded the company.
Personally, I find it refreshing that he’s one of the only ultra large CEOs that’s willing to go big or go broke. Otherwise, you end up with fossilized X trillion dollar company that amounts to a combination of safe haven/growth stock for retirement accounts and whose innovations amount to little more than finding pretty ways to machine different types of metal cases and who seemingly has entire research teams dedicated to discovering various new shades of grey every year. (This take isn’t fair to Apple, tbh, but they have gotten booooring under Tim Cook.)
What innovation has Meta made since Facebook itself done that’s been incremental to revenue? Instagram and WhatsApp are acquisitions. Facebook itself is fundamentally broken from an actual user perspective. Not to mention the real harm Facebook and Instagram do to kids.
No, not millions. Billions. Like $70+ billion.
Thats a lot of money to (attempt to) remake Ready Player One, and then abandon it??
They rebuilt half of their company around this thing and countless people saw promotions all around.