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Comment by time_to_smile | Hacker News Reader

Metaverse has already been deprioritized, and Meta is shifting to generative AI [0].

I was always a huge skeptic of the Metaverse conceptually, but it was a moonshot project (and I'll be the first to admit, skeptics are often proven wrong with moonshots). The problem is you can never have a successful moonshot if it can't survive a few bad quarters.

I mean the actual Apollo program took 8 years to achieve its goal of getting humans on the moon.

0. https://qz.com/meta-layoffs-2023-jobs-metaverse-ai-185019657...

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Not according to Zuckerberg on the earning call tonight

“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from the metaverse, but I just want to say upfront that that’s inaccurate.” They are doing both, and AI and metaverse are connected, according to him

Thanks for the correction!

The Apollo program had a fairly specific goal. I still don't believe anyone can coherently explain what the Metaverse and it's purpose are supposed to be

oh I fully agree. I'm just pointing out that even the defining example of "moonshot" took some serious dedication of resources and time.

What's really wild is that the entire Apollo program cost ~$25 Billion in 1973 (of course est. $163 billion today) while Meta already spent $36 Billion on the Metaverse [0].

0. https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-lost-30-billion-on-meta...

Really? It’s pretty simple really, at least if you’ve tried VR before. The vision is that you can play with people, hang out with your friends, and go to live concerts in VR. They can get there if they manage to achieve:

* a cheaper device so that every household can have one (think printer)

* less friction to use (lighter, faster start, no need to setup guardian and tracking)

* longer battery

* better experiences to hangout with people

I think anyone could be convinced of that if they tried like, playing Catan in VR with strangers (it’s mind blowing)

> Really? It’s pretty simple really, at least if you’ve tried VR before

Sure, all of that sounds cool, I guess... But I'm not convinced there is such a big market for all of this yet. VR seems to be in a similar spot PCs were back in the early 80s (except no/minimal business and enterprise application according to what FB is doing which makes the market even smaller)

> But I'm not convinced there is such a big market for all of this yet.

If there is any market for VR, it will be cheap entertainment headsets. They are the only successful market that has been tapped with VR.

The Quest has sold upwards of 10 million units (nearing 20 million by some estimates), while commodity VR like PSVR and SteamVR has continued pushing forward where commercial headsets failed. Everyone who isn't competing directly with Meta is just building another Hololens.

Yeah, I’ve been reading they are refocusing on gaming. It’s a smaller market, but something they have awesome product market fit on. Metaverse/Social still seems plausible to me, but maybe in 5-10 years when we have photorealistic avatars and can basically hang out with holograms of our friends and family.

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