Is The Metaverse Still Around?

There is something magical about the Horizon Worlds virtual reality app from Meta Platforms Inc. the moment you first step into the app, as you are greeted with a vivid cityscape that is surrounded by portals to virtual worlds labelled with adventure or comedy. Recently, I visited the "adventure" world and zoomed around a town in the Wild West with a Colt single-action revolver, occasionally swiping shots with three other avatars that were running back and forth between salotos and banks as they swung. It appears that Meta hasn't yet come up with a fix to this limitation as the avatars did not have legs, even though they had sun glasses and multicolored hair. 

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In the Soapstone Comedy Club, there were more than a dozen cartoon torsos floating about, the welcome sign for the club said, "This is an unemployed_alcoholic comic". There was a noticeable amount of activity going on in this zone, where avatars stood in groups and chatted about their kids or their lives at home. 

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There was one woman outside the club who told a man, "I woke up at 1, ate something, and then took another nap at two," after she had awoken from a nap at 1.    

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The man referred to as Momsmasher69, who was surrounded by another group, shouted at one of them and cackled, “You ain’t got no legs!”. Several people didn’t know each other, and most of them didn’t seem to know each other either, but they seemed to be having fun nevertheless. On that particular day, there wasn’t a comedy show — these usually take place on weekend evenings in eastern standard time — but most of them seemed to be having a good time. Several kids and teenagers zoomed around wildly and then disappeared.

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After explaining that he was just checking out the place and not intending to stay, one of them muttered, "I'm four months away from being old enough for it." "Shhh." I whispered to him. 

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Visitors to Horizon Worlds are generally well behaved, and such apps have even been a source of emotional support for many people, who have been interacting via avatars in the metaverse for more than one year now. The metaverse, an immersive, multidimensional environment where people interact via avatars, looks a little crisper and more vibrant than it did a year ago.

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In addition to that, this still feels like a niche hobby. Few people are expressing themselves on social media sites like Twitter and TikTok about their metaverse experiences. The headsets that Meta's Quest 2 headsets require to visit the company's metaverse apps are rarely worn nowadays, according to several people who have acquired them. In addition to taking time to adjust and load, the headphones isolate you from other users who may be living with you, and many users suffer from motion sickness. I am one of those users.  

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It appears now that companies are pulling back on their investments in the metaverse, following on from a great deal of hype in the last year. Walt Disney Company has decided to discontinue its efforts in the space and Microsoft Corp. shut down its metaverse app for socializing earlier in the year, called AltSpaceVR. 

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It has also been reported that investors' enthusiasm has waned. Funding for metaverse startups has declined in the past year, while venture capital firms have poured money into generative AI startups. In April 2022, the median sale price of virtual land in Decentraland was around $9,000, but now it is $1,240, according to WeMeta, an analytics service that monitors land sales across the virtual world.

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A visual representation of market enthusiasm for emerging technology, the Gartner Hype Cycle, reveals that the metaverse seems to be a victim of disillusionment, similar to where 3D printing and the Internet of Things (IoT) have languished for some time now. IoT and 3D printing have both found uses in manufacturing environments after all, but there was a significant difference in how they were applied to the manufacturing industry. In addition to campaigning for mainstream appeal, Zuckerberg is rapidly putting a lot of efforts into expanding the reach of the metaverse, which will be the "next chapter for the internet." (Zuckerberg may also be harboring the bias of sunk costs.) 

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While places like Horizon Worlds do seem to evoke memories of the early days of AOL chat rooms, Meta's investors are feeling their patience dwindling as the metaverse's slow progress - and Zuckerberg simply cannot keep doing the same thing and buying back shares in Meta's company for ever.   

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In addition, the CEO's aggressive sales campaign for Quest Pro virtual reality headsets, which cost $1,000 over their competition, seems misguided when it comes to marketing them to corporate users who may use them for virtual meetings, rather than focusing on gamers, a cohort that is more engaged in the technology. 

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Facebook, which pays Accenture Plc to help get rid of toxic content, bought 60,000 Quest headsets in 2021, but the company declined to say whether it has bought any more Quest headsets since then, or if it has bought any more in the future. 

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A spokesperson for Meta also refused to identify any companies that had purchased a Quest or were using Horizon Workrooms, Meta's virtual conference room app, to conduct meetings. The company has made a commitment to the vision we set out for the metaverse, according to a spokeswoman for Meta. Despite the fact that we were aware that we were investing in the metaverse for a long time, we continue to advance it through various areas, including Quest, mixed reality, and social experiences that are on the horizon for the foreseeable future.

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Despite Meta's slow progress on the metaverse, Apple Inc. could also face an issue as the company launches its mixed reality headset in June, and the pace of Meta's development has slowed down.  

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It was Apple who paved the way for better-designed products in a market that was still experiencing a slow recovery after the recession. It entered the smartphone market when others such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson were barely gaining traction. AirPods and the Apple Watch have also redefined the standards for these products.

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As a result, people do not yet seem to know how and why they should visit the metaverse, and there is still a question of why they should even visit it. Headsets are still a little too clunky and uncomfortable to compete with Zoom, and socializing there remains, oddly enough, still an isolating experience. If Meta can create lightweight, faster headsets, which make entering the virtual world quicker and more seamless in the next two years, and that they appear to be working on, this might be able to resolve these issues within the next two years. Although Zuckerberg appears to be making a decent start in making the metaverse fun for socializing and gaming, he probably needs to give up on his attempts to cater to enterprise users. The pursuit of too many strategies will only slow things down, and investors may just lose patience if they attempt to follow too many strategies.