Meta is ending its Metaverse project, in which it invested $80,000,000,000.00
This all goes back a bit to the era of NFT, virtual reality, when, during COVID, we went to virtual events, had VR glasses and promised ourselves that we would spend more time in some digital parallel reality online.
Well. So Facebook, with a growing portfolio and a new vision, renamed itself Meta.
That it would be the Metaverse.
After about 5 years and $80B invested, they wrapped it up.
And now I'm wondering, do smart glasses matter when one of their main selling points was the Metaverse, which failed? [now thinking whether, due to this, also other smart glasses will suffer as there is no current future for that metaverse vision]
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The NFT craze and Metaverse was possibly one of the most astounding phases in crypto/virtual tech. Both markets have evaporated, but I remember a time when NFTs were getting sold for millions. What a time!
@calvin_lim_1 cannot agree more! was part of some blockchain projects for a while, the community was very active! so interesting that it totally evaporated over time
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@calvin_lim_1 That time, I got first time in crypto, so I didn't understand things so well. Also had some NFTs, was offered some money, but I thought it could have a bigger value in the future, so I didn't sell it. Now, it has the value of 10 dollars :D
@busmark_w_nika Everyone though NFTs would be the future but it ended up being just a trendy subject in time. Those Bored Apes NFTs that were once worth over $1m are sitting around or under $10k today. I think the idea and vision was good, but without usability or functionality, NFTs just became overpriced digital art.
The wow factor of VR wears off. One thought I always go back to is that people generally don't like wearing glasses. Unless you need them to see or block the sun, there had better be a big advantage to having something resting on your face all day.
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@sweeteyecandy hahaha, yeah, I do wear glasses and must admit, I do not feel so much comfortable with them :D
The metaverse failed but I don't think smart glasses go down with it. The metaverse was a specific vision of where smart glasses would take us — but the glasses themselves are useful without it.
Navigation, real-time translation, notifications without pulling your phone out — none of that needs a metaverse to be valuable. Meta's Ray-Bans are actually selling well just as a camera and audio device with no VR component at all.
The failure was the destination, not the vehicle. Smart glasses just need a more honest use case than "live inside the internet." 🎯
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@pierrekr7 Probably true, I do not have one, so it is difficult to say for me what I am missing.
I think wearables will continue to be a major part of future technology, and Meta has shown it can build strong products in that space – so there’s definitely a niche for them. What I’m curious about is what happens to the companies that have already heavily invested in the Metaverse. Will they see a return, or will those investments end up as sunk costs?
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@felix_sattler Probably sunk costs. I remember how one automotive company (Škoda) created a campaign for the metaverse :D And imagine that in the Metaverse by Meta, there are like 900 users monthly :D That's a bit shame for a giant that serves 3 billion people :D
It feels like that whole nft/vr/metaverse wave happened in some distant internet age, but it really wasn’t that long ago. Only a few years back and all of these were being sold as the next big shift. Honestly, it’s a good reminder that hype doesn't mean much long term.
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@aniela_oprea I secretly hope that that era will re-appear for some time and I sell out all useless images I have :D