Meta, the parent company of Facebook† has steadily built an alternate universe to reside in, with the hopes that you and a billion of your closest friends will join them.
It’s all part of the company’s plan to build what’s known in tech circles as a “metaverse” or, essentially, a virtual reality platform. (Think: “Ready Player OneA whole new world of Meta’s creation, so central to the company’s plans that they changed their name to reflect it.
during a interview Wednesday with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave us a little insight into the company’s grand plan to metaverse a literal one stop shop for all your virtual worldly desires.
“We’re actually hoping to reach about a billion people in the metaverse who each do hundreds of dollars in commerce, buying digital goods, digital content, and various things to express themselves,” Zuckerberg said, adding, “whether that’s clothing for their avatar or other digital goods for their virtual home or things to decorate their virtual meeting room, utilities to be more productive in virtual and augmented reality and all over the metaverse in general.
I am not exaggerating when I say that Meta plans (virtual) world domination. The company has even attempted several times to establish its own global, digital currency for use in the sales Zuckerberg describes. That plan was predictably halted by federal regulators (although we can still expect other cryptocurrencies and NFTs to play a big part in the metaverse).
The point is, Meta has the inside track to become the most popular and powerful titan in the virtual world. Those of us who have criticized Facebook’s manipulative tendencies as a social platform are right to be concerned about how the parent company will operate a virtual platform that is even further from reality. But no one can deny how close the company is to doing just that — and on a massive scale.
They currently have the most affordable standalone virtual reality headset – the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 – on the market. That makes Meta’s platform relatively accessible.
They are constantly running ads which I think are both eerily ubiquitous and rather helpful in explaining the coming world of virtual reality† That gives her name recognition.
And despite recent losses, they still have a lot of money to spend in the future†
Even if you don’t believe Zuckerberg’s theory that Meta will get 1 billion people to occupy its virtual world (and I think it’s possible), rest assured that the company will use all its energy and most of its to be try capital. That just means that important conversations about who will run these and other virtual reality spaces in the future, and what these spaces could be used for, are ongoing.
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