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Investors are probably not that convinced of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse plans for Facebook, a sentiment reflected in the decline of the company’s shares in the past six months. Now, even Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is predicting that the social media giant’s metaverse plans will likely fail.
The crypto billionaire believes that it’s too early to tell what people really want from the metaverse. Thus, Facebook’s billions of dollars in investments into the virtual space might end up with products that are not exactly what people are looking for.
“We don't really know the definition of ‘the metaverse’ yet, it's far too early to know what people actually want,” Buterin tweeted. “So anything Facebook creates now will misfire.”
Of course, the Ethereum co-founder is not saying that the metaverse won’t materialize. However, Buterin also believes that existing programs by companies won’t likely be very effective considering that it’s too early to tell where the technology is heading next.
“The 'metaverse' is going to happen but I don't think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere,” Buterin explained.
Mark Zuckerberg is betting big on the metaverse and has even changed Facebook’s name to Meta last year to signal this intent. However, the second quarter revenues fell short of expectations and the company’s shares fell in the past six months.
The company’s metaverse plans appear to be one of the reasons for this performance. In fact, Meta’s metaverse division reported a $2.8 billion loss for the period, according to Coinmarketcap.
Despite reporting his company’s first-ever revenue decline, Zuckerberg remains committed to driving the company’s future growth in new business areas, including the metaverse. “Given some of the product and business constraints we face now, I feel even more strongly now that developing these platforms will unlock hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, over time,” he told investors last week, Fortune reported.
While he described the company’s metaverse efforts to be “obviously a very expensive undertaking over the next several years,” he also remains confident that it would be a massive opportunity worth the cost. “It enables deeper social experiences where you feel a realistic sense of presence with other people, no matter where they are,” he said.
