00:00 Speaker A
Better laid off 1500 workers from its reality labs division last week as it moves away from its vision for a future in the Metaverse and funnels billions into AI. So, how did CEO Mark Zuckerberg go from naming his company after the Metaverse to pulling away from it. Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Howley is here to break it all down. Dan, Dan, where did it all go wrong for Meta’s Metaverse, Dan? Walk me through it.
00:34 Speaker B
Yeah, Josh, according to some experts I spoke to, it kind of started out right from the beginning. Uh when Mark Zuckerberg basically laid out his vision for the Metaverse, it was kind of this futuristic platform where he talked about you being able to do things like uh play games remotely with friends, but not as you would today, as though you would actually play with a hologram. Uh and so there were these, you know, grandiose ideas of maybe uh having meetings as, you know, different types of avatars, but it it really just kind of fell on its face when kind of put to the test. And remember there were memes about avatars having no legs and how that was going to be a big upgrade uh for the service. Not exactly something you want out of a technology that’s supposed to be groundbreaking. And so they’ve seemed to have moved away from this idea of the Metaverse though they are continuing to sell their headsets. It it just doesn’t seem as though that market is exactly going to be the the hot thing that it originally was poised to when Meta made this announcement.
1:29 Speaker A
How smart, Dan, in your opinion, would be Meta’s pivot to smart glasses? Like how would you judge that? And what are the risks if they don’t actually take off?
1:44 Speaker B
Yeah, I mean, look, the the risk is that they’ve invested billions of dollars uh into reality labs. Uh part of that was part of the the Metaverse effort uh and now it’s it’s uh they’re moving some of that savings that they’re having from these layoffs into the idea of these wearables. This, you know, the the meta uh RayBand display and the the uh regular uh RayBand meta glasses, those are the ones with just the the camera that you can listen to music. The display has a built-in display in of itself and that little wrist uh controller that you’re seeing there. They see that as kind of uh the the future of of consumer tech. It’s a big deal and it it is proof that their investments at least in the Metaverse technologies have paid off. It appears to be doing well. People are interested in it. We have other companies going into the space like Google, Samsung, uh and Apple reportedly. Uh and so there’s going to be an increased competition, but is this going to replace the smartphone? Probably not. It’ll probably be an accessory similar to a smartwatch. Now, Meta really wants to be in control of its own fate. It’s battled with the likes of Apple and Google for years over different App store rules that they have to abide by when they have their apps loaded onto those different devices. Uh and so being able to control their own feet through their hardware would be a huge boon for them and something that Mark Zuckerberg has wanted to do for quite some time.
3:07 Speaker A
I get you out of here on this, Dan. You know, big picture, do you look at the Metaverse and say, that’s over, we can close the book or no?
3:19 Speaker B
Yeah, I mean, I it’s difficult, right? Because there’s this idea that the Metaverse isn’t just this singular technology that it’s going to be an evolution of the internet and how we we interact with it down the line, right? And so, you know, you have to think the the what meta was pitching didn’t really land. Uh but there are still plenty of companies out there that are working on on this idea. And so there could be a metaverse in the future where maybe, you know, we’re able to uh move through these interconnected worlds that that were originally pitched, but potentially not, right? Maybe maybe not in that way. It could be how we interact with uh the internet via different screens that we see or uh you know, perhaps with the the idea of smart glasses or things along those lines. So I think it’s really just different areas of the internet will be available and visible, not just on 2D screens that we currently have, rather than the idea of, you know, us floating through some wormhole or something into the internet like ready player one.
4:18 Speaker A
All right, Dan, great stuff as always. Thank you.
