The Metaverse, a technology that was once highly anticipated for enabling users to socialize in a virtual world resembling a video game, has met its demise as it was deserted by the corporate world. The technology was only three years old.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, change of the Facebook name turned, Meta that name of the game with the wall street investors though more of metaverse mere an outlook of avatars and cumbersome hardware.
The Metaverse offered people the chance to engage in an "immersive" experience and live us our moments into new virtual world which believed to be "an expansive, immersive vision of the internet." Why anyone strap a clunky headset to their face to attend a low-quality, cartoon concert. The actual technology failed when no one wants to strap a clunky headset to their face to attend a low-quality, cartoon concert the deliver on this promise throughout its short life.
Once the tech industry turned to a new, more promising trend — generative AI — the fate of the Metaverse was sealed.
If any product to be successful in the market should have a best practise use case, demand in the target segment and the customers ready to learn / adopt.
“ Bet on the Trojan horse by Mark Zukerberg a loss of 4 Billion” give us the whole story.
In the world of virtual reality, the idea of digital realms where individuals engage with each other through personalized avatars has a rich history that traces back to the late 1990s. This concept first emerged in massively multiplayer online role-playing games like "Meridian 59," "Ultima Online," and "EverQuest."
Mark successfully persuaded the market that the Metaverse would attract a staggering one billion users who would spend substantial amounts of money within it. The consulting firm Gartner made a claim that by 2026, 25% of individuals would dedicate at least one hour per day to the Metaverse. Additionally, McKinsey, a renowned global consulting firm, predicted that the Metaverse had the potential to generate up to "$5 trillion in value." They also highlighted that a significant majority, approximately 95%, of business leaders anticipated a positive impact from the Metaverse on their industries within the next five to 10 years. Citi, not to be outdone, released an extensive report stating that the Metaverse presented a staggering $13 trillion opportunity. As the momentum grew, prominent names such as Walmart, Disney, and Amazon joined the fray, further cementing the Metaverse's significance.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club, an NFT company, successfully convinced the press that uploading digital monkey images into virtual reality would hold the key to "mastering the Metaverse." And we could expect the combo to play out much till early 2024 until the generative AI give a twist to the drama.
Active user case study l : Decentraland
Despite being the most well-funded and decentralized crypto-based Metaverse product, Decentraland, an online world where users can explore and interact, only managed to attract approximately 38 daily active users within its "$1.3 billion ecosystem."
Active user case study ll : Mashable
Mashable reports that Horizon Worlds had less than 200,000 monthly active users — dramatically short of the 500,000 target Meta had set for the end of 2022
End of the days:
In January 2023, Microsoft decided to close down AltSpaceVR, its virtual workspace platform, resulting in the layoff of the entire "industrial metaverse team" comprising 100 members. Additionally, Microsoft implemented several reductions within its HoloLens team. Following suit, Disney also closed its Metaverse division in March, and Walmart made a similar decision by terminating its Roblox-based Metaverse projects.
Zuckerberg's remarks coincided with the company's recent notifications to tech workers regarding the impact of Meta's recent wave of layoffs. In November, Meta made the announcement of downsizing its workforce by over 11,000 employees, and four months later, they revealed another round of cuts affecting 10,000 workers as part of their "year of efficiency" initiative. The company has even stopped pitching the Metaverse to advertisers and moved from “metaverse first” to “Done with metaverse” the company's chief product officer, Chris Cox, already changed the effort plan of his team towards AI.
The demise of the Metaverse stands as a significant failure in the annals of technological history, deserving recognition as one of the most remarkable instances of its kind.
Before its demise, the Metaverse joined the ranks of several other technological fads, such as Web3 and Google Glass, which had already faded away.
What’s Next?
Meta world was pivoting its focus from the metaverse to AI. Meta is not dead completely but only after AI explored enough now will empower the meta verse more than just the non-editorial visual version for the audience with some amateur visuals.
My Next post: Jio Metaverse first in Indian market – Lets Analyse.
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