According to Bloomberg, Marck Zucberberg has been forced to lower the metaverse to earth under pressure from his investors, who have demanded that he recognise that the enormous investment that Meta will make in the development of the aforementioned digital universe will mean that they will lose a lot of money in the next three or five years.
Similarly, the Meta board of directors has acknowledged that some of the most powerful items needed to make the metaverse a reality will not be viable for another ten to fifteen years.
It’s a dangerous wager. Meta’s gamble on the metaverse is possibly the most dangerous wager any technology company has ever undertaken. The corporation invested ten billion dollars in this project in 2021 alone, with 10,000 personnel committed solely to its development and plans to hire another 10,000 in the medium term. Something that may be postponed since, as we previously stated, the company has halted employment as a result of lower profits and the poor global economic situation.
According to these calculations, Zuckerberg’s company would devote roughly 30% of its revenue to metaverse research and development. In this segment, the other major technologies, in addition to diversifying into multiple projects, do not reach 15% of their total turnover.
In principle, it’s a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Market predictions for the metaverse, of course, are upbeat: according to Bloomberg, the new Internet frontier’s commerce might be worth around 800 billion dollars per year by 2024. However, they are just that: projections that may or may not come true.
greatness delusions. The danger is therefore significant, but Zuckerberg seems unconcerned about the reasons, and it was only after months of criticism that he caved in and conceded that the metaverse would be a money-losing machine for investors. According to multiple Meta employees who spoke with Business Insider, the company’s CEO is obsessed with the project, is uninterested in anything unrelated to it, and lacks a cohesive and wise strategy for its development. As a result, everything says that you don’t have a backup plan in case A doesn’t work out.
Indeed, in the same meeting with investors where Zuckerberg admitted the metaverse’s losses, the Facebook founder rejected up to 12 shareholder proposals, one of which was directly related to his risky bet: they asked Meta to commission a report on whether the metaverse’s continued implementation was prudent and appropriate. The corporation rejected it because Zuckerberg has unlimited control at the shareholders’ meeting.