Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once envisioned his virtual and augmented reality metaverse reaching one billion users. However, the Meta CEO is now scaling back his investments in the project.
Reality Labs, Meta’s division focused on augmented and virtual reality products and services, has been instructed to reduce its spending over the next few years.
The hardware teams responsible for producing headsets and smart glasses will cut their spending by 20% by 2026.
Additionally, there have been layoffs within the team working on metaverse-related silicon.
These spending cuts reflect a shift in Zuckerberg’s priorities.
In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg stated that he wanted his company to focus entirely on the metaverse, declaring, “From now on, our priority will be the Metaverse, not Facebook.”
Since then, the company has invested tens of billions of dollars into the project. Despite Reality Labs losing at least $46.5 billion since 2019, the flow of resources had continued uninterrupted.
However, this approach has drawn serious criticism from both within the company and among shareholders.
Internal documents have even described the metaverse as a “hollow world.”
In response, Zuckerberg, a long-time advocate of the metaverse, has now called for a $5 billion annual reduction in spending on the project.
During this time, the priorities of Big Tech have also shifted dramatically.
From Google to Tesla to Amazon, companies are now focusing on competing with OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology, and Zuckerberg has followed suit.
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