Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis
dissolving metaverse
introduction to the metaverse universe. Man wearing augmented reality glasses for future technology. transition to the virtual world.
Image licensed via Adobe Stock

More Bad News for the Metaverse

Virtual reality projects are losing steam across the tech industry in the wake of layoffs and investor skepticism
Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Big tech companies across the spectrum, including Meta, Microsoft, and Apple, are scaling back on virtual reality research and development. The technological demands of the metaverse are more advanced than CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg have anticipated, and employees are feeling the impact.

Microsoft recently laid off 10,000 workers, cutting funding from the lab responsible for the production of its mixed-reality “HoloLens.” The army was originally in the works to use the Microsoft lens for aids in combat and training, but the technology has since been labeled as “dangerous and poorly designed.”

Meta laid off 11,000 employees last November and continues to struggle to gain interest and traction for its ambitious metaverse project. A report from Insider notes that a combination of obstacles keeps Zuckerberg’s meta-dreams shackled. For one, the technology isn’t keeping up with the funding, which is causing investors to reassess their investments and back out. It’s difficult to make this product actually work and is expensive to make.

In addition, it’s unclear who even wants the product. Hasan Chowdhury opines in the Insider article,

The metaverse is an inchoate, even incoherent, technical concept, there’s little evidence anyone wants it, and it’s expensive to make. It seems a bad thing to focus on when your shareholders or investors are clamoring for you to cut costs and focus on stuff that may be less sexy but sells, like ads or subscription-based software. To that end, it isn’t surprising that firms laying off staff are chopping these expensive, experimental units back.”

Hasan Chowdhury, Mass Layoffs in Silicon Valley Spell Doom for the Metaverse (businessinsider.com)

When Mark Zuckerberg renamed his company from Facebook to “Meta,” it signaled his confidence in the viability of virtual reality. Today, his dreams, along with the ambitions of other formidable tech companies, are experiencing an acute reality check.


Peter Biles

Writer and Editor, Center for Science & Culture
Peter Biles graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois and went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. He is the author of Hillbilly Hymn and Keep and Other Stories and has also written stories and essays for a variety of publications. He was born and raised in Ada, Oklahoma and serves as Managing Editor of Mind Matters.

More Bad News for the Metaverse