The End of the Metaverse

Money without imagination or original thought will take you only so far. One example is the $88 billion spent on the Metaverse by Facebook and its CEO, Mr. Zuckerberg.

In 2021, Mr. Zuckerberg announced to the world that he and his company is all in on the Metaverse. To make a point, he also announced that because of that he’s renaming Facebook to Meta.

The term Metaverse was introduced by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash. In that book, people escaped from the real world to a place where they could live a better life. As they did in other books and movies — from post-apocalyptic world to paradise.

Thanks to modern technology, not only can you read about it, you can also watch and listen when Mr. Zuckerberg describes the next chapter in social connectivity.

From the perfectly scripted message, we first learn the difference between Facebook and the others — “We’re a company that focuses on connecting people. While most other tech companies focus on how people interact with technology, we focus on building technology so people can interact with each other.”

After that, he reminds us that “One of the reasons I started Facebook was that at the time you could use the internet to find almost anything. Information, news, movies, music, shopping. Except for the thing that matters most of all: people,” which is cute. While using the generic term ‘people’, in reality it started as a website for guys to rate the (naked) attractiveness of female students. The symbol ‘Like’ is an artifact from that time. Yes, you have to start somewhere.

The talk goes on and on with gems like — “Together, we can finally put people at the center of our technology and deliver an experience where we are present with each other” and finally he reveals the renaming of the company to Meta.

It was hard not to share the excitement.

Metaverse was the buzzword of the day. Actually the buzz peaked in January, 2022 and ever since it has been in decline.

As with any new exciting thing come all the predictions how this time the technology will change the world. One thing is to hear from the CEO of the company which has direct interest to make it work, but when you hear from a company like McKinsey — strategy and management consulting firm — in the report “Value creation in the metaverse” you know that this thing is real.

From the report:

• “The metaverse is still being defined, both literally and figuratively. Yet its potential to unleash the next wave of digital disruption seems increasingly clear, with real-life benefits already emerging for early adopting users and companies.”

• “Examining its potential effect should be part of strategy discussions, with leaders accelerating their analysis of how the metaverse could drive a very different world within the next decade.”

But as we know talk is cheap, show me the money — “While estimates of the potential economic value of the metaverse vary widely, our bottom-up view of consumer and enterprise use cases suggests it may generate up to $5 trillion in impact by 2030.”

It goes without saying that any new technology might have its downsides — “The metaverse also poses urgent challenges that cut across firms, their employees, independent developers and content creators, governments, and, of course, consumers. Part of the workforce will need to be reskilled to take advantage of it rather than compete with it, and cities and countries serious about establishing themselves as hubs for its development will need to join the global competition to attract talent and investment.”

As a side note, one must admire McKinsey’s foresight when it comes to technological innovation. The paragraph above works regardless of whether you use the term ‘metaverse’, ‘AI’, ‘Web3’, or the upcoming ‘quantum computing.’ No wonder they are the best in strategy and management consulting.

The report also offers historical perspective on things recounting the predecessors of metaverse — part of the Web2.0 — eg. Second Life, Roblox, this new thing will be something totally different.

Maybe the above mentioned ‘old’ virtual worlds were ready for departure, but somehow — unlike the metaverse by Meta — are still around, still popular and above all still making money, something which was the elusive dream of Mr. Zuckerberg.

As Meta was pouring money into a project where your projection aka avatar didn’t have legs, others did too.

Do you remember Decentraland or The Sandbox to name a few?

Maybe headlines like “Virtual real estate plot sells for close to $1 million” from June 2021 or “Virtual real estate plot sells for record $2.4 million” from November, 2021 documenting selling imaginary real estate inside Decentraland brings back forgotten memories.

All that is coming to an end and the latest headline “Meta is shutting down VR social platform Horizon Worlds in further pivot away from the metaverse” just confirms that.

I know, a few of you might be on the verge of tears and disappointment. Don’t be sad. Metaverse was just warm up. Mr Zuckerberg already pivoted to AI and as always he and Meta are fully in on this.

How do we know?

The latest from the Internet — “Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly building an AI clone to replace him in meetings” “… Meta is training the AI avatar on Zuckerberg’s image and voice, along with his mannerisms, tone, and public statements, ‘so that employees might feel more connected to the founder through interactions with it.’” and to make a real impact, Meta announced spending of $135 billion in 2026 compared to $72 billion in 2025.

But the most telling thing is that “Mark Zuckerberg moved his desk and is coding again, Meta president says.” That, for a company with close to 80,000 employees, will make a real difference.

AI will be the real change. This time for sure.

Despite all the spend, all the scandals, lawsuits declaring this company harmful to its users; the most important thing is that it is a company printing money by selling its user’s ‘likes’ to the advertisers which are happily paying. Why? Because it delivers results.

The recurrent pattern? It is hard to forget your roots. For Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg, it is impossible. Just wait what he’s going to try with AI. Money without imagination or original thought will take you only so far.