Meta believes that a billion people will participate in the metaverse within the next decade, despite the concept feeling very vague at the moment.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to CNBC’s Jim Cramer on a recent broadcast of crazy money and went on to say that purchases of metaverse digital content would net the company hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030. This would quickly reverse the growing shortfall of Meta’s Reality Labs, which has already invested billions in researching and developing VR and AR hardware, and software.
Currently, this sounds like a stretch given that only a small percentage of the population owns virtual reality hardware and few dedicated augmented reality devices have been released by major manufacturers. Apple and Google have each developed AR solutions for smartphones and Meta has admitted that the metaverse doesn’t require any special hardware to access it.
Any modern computer, tablet or smartphone has enough performance to display virtual content, but the fully immersive experience is only available when wearing a head-mounted display, be it in the form of a VR headset or AR headset. glasses.
According to Cramer, Meta will not be taking any cutbacks from creators initially, while it plans to continue investing heavily in hardware and software infrastructure for the metaverse. Meta realizes it can’t build a whole world on its own and needs the innovation of creators and the pull of influencers to get the platform off the ground as Facebook and Instagram have done.
Zuckerberg explained that Meta’s playbook has always been about building services that meet a need and expanding the platform to a billion or more users before monetizing it. That means the next 5 to 10 years could be a rare opportunity for businesses and consumers to take advantage of a low-cost metaverse experience before Meta starts demanding a share. Like Facebook was once ad-freethe early metaverse may be blissfully free from distraction.
This is not just Meta’s strategy, but the growth method used by most Internet-based businesses. Focusing first on growth and later on money has become the norm. Going forward, a balancing act will be needed to make enough money to fund services while keeping the metaverse affordable enough to keep users.
Though Meta may not get a billion people to put on a VR headset by 2030, there is no doubt that the metaverse will become an active growth area. It should interest enough VR, AR, smartphone, tablet and computer owners to be self-sufficient within a few years and could even explode to reach a billion people by 2030.
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