Facebook's metaverse is designed to solve several problems: an aging userbase, dependence on Google and Apple, regulatory risk, and reputational damage
it's about holding a mirror to our own broken, shared world. @Facebook's promised metaverse is about distracting us from the world it's helped break.”-@ethanz https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... Joanna Stern / @joannastern : I just watched @boztank's AMA on Instagram and it's by far the best summary and Q+A of what Meta is trying to do, especially with Facebook logins, Quest and more. For those with questions I suggest watching. Oliver Darcy / @oliverdarcy : “This isn't a vanity stunt for Mr. Zuckerberg,” @kevinroose writes. “In the metaverse, he has found what may be an escape hatch — a way to eject himself from Facebook's messy, troubled present and break ground on a new, untainted frontier.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Justin Ouellette / @jstn : for context: john carmack is a game dev god and the ‘consulting’ CTO of oculus, the hardware lynchpin of fb's metaverse https://twitter.com/... Marcia Gagliardi / @tablehopper : “The bleakest version of what Facebook might become in the next few years [...] — a Boomer-dominated sludge pit filled with cute animal videos and hyperpartisan garbage — is clearly not the kind of thing the company wants as its flagship product.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Thot Leedurr / @docdre : here we go with this technophilic rhetoric: “untainted” and “frontier” *sigh* https://twitter.com/... Derek Thompson / @dkthomp : This is a great frame from @kevinroose FB faces - aging risk - platform risk - regulatory risk - reputation risk Meta - skews young w VR/AR - vertically integrates hardware + software - is pre-regulation - is a reputationally unsettled tech frontier https://www.nytimes.com/... Ed Dead Redemption / @edzitron : Somehow this misses that they don't really have any kind of metaverse product https://twitter.com/... Hannah Murphy / @mshannahmurphy : As Zuck pushes Meta, academics call for metaverse regulation “Meta treats the world as free digital real estate, a resource for corporate extraction, surveillance, commercialisation. This speculation must be preceded by state permit, licence, fee, or tax” https://www.ft.com/... Harry McCracken / @harrymccracken : And now for some praise of Facebook's rebrand. https://www.fastcompany.com/ ... Edward Snowden / @snowden : Facebook is Facebook. Don't write about the name, write about what they do, because that's what matters. Paperwork doesn't change the nature of a thing. Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Looking again at how Apple demos Smart Home stuff while rewatching Facebook's VR demos from yesterday. https://twitter.com/... Jordan Novet / @jordannovet : fun scoopage from @sal19 on forcing the ‘from Facebook’ name into Instagram and other company products https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jennifer Elias / @jenn_elias : The company has already begun removing the Facebook name from several units as it increasingly became a liability, according to employees. Workers referred to it as a “brand tax.” by @sal19 https://www.cnbc.com/... Quinn Nelson / @snazzyq : This is sad. Oculus name has a lot of legacy. “Meta Quest” sounds like a bad 90s sitcom. https://twitter.com/... @nytimes : The “metaverse” isn't a vanity stunt for Mark Zuckerberg, @kevinroose writes. “He has found what may be an escape hatch — a way to eject himself from Facebook's messy, troubled present and break ground on a new, untainted frontier.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Richard Fausset / @richardfausset : “a Boomer-dominated sludge pit filled with cute animal videos and hyperpartisan garbage...” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimesbusiness : Facebook's vision for an immersive virtual environment it calls the metaverse could help solve at least four big, thorny problems it faces here in the terrestrial world. https://www.nytimes.com/... Dave Winer / @davewiner : Journalism writes about their version of reality, which is different from actual reality. Here's a link to the story (no paywall). https://www.nytimes.com/... Ismael Nafría / @ismaelnafria : The Metaverse Is Mark Zuckerberg's Escape Hatch If his new strategy works — a big if — it could help address several of Facebook's biggest problems. Buen análisis @nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York TimesKevin Roose
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook is pairing a corporate rebrand and the Meta Quest relabeling of Oculus with a strategy meant to reduce the company’s reliance on the mobile platforms controlled by Apple and Google. The shift also gives Facebook a new product narrative while its core brand carries employee-described “brand tax.”
Earlier coverage showed Facebook using the metaverse agenda to reposition itself with policymakers and shape future-tech rules. That makes the product push inseparable from the company’s regulatory and reputational strategy, not solely a bet on a new computing interface.
First-order effects
Facebook and its newly branded Meta units are organized around a metaverse strategy that addresses pressure on user growth, platform dependence, regulation, and brand perception at once.
Apple and Google become more directly implicated in Facebook’s strategic rationale, since Meta is presenting the metaverse as a route away from dependence on their platforms.
Second-order effects
Facebook’s engagement with policymakers gains a product-policy dimension: the company has an incentive to influence the rules governing virtual worlds as it builds them.
If major social platforms use new computing formats to reset their strategic position, competition will increasingly hinge on control of the underlying platform and its governance rules, rather than only on social-network audience size.
Trust and safety may become a limiting form of platform infrastructure in immersive products: Meta’s safety ambitions and its stated moderation limits expose a structural tension before such worlds can scale.
The trend: The metaverse push is part of a broader move by platform companies to use new product layers to reduce gatekeeper dependence while rebuilding regulatory legitimacy.
Facebook changing their corporate name to Meta isn't going to change the underlying facts. They're a monopoly. They crush competition. And they refuse to control the spread of misinformation and harmful content on their site. We need to break up Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
We are very honoured that @facebook felt inspired by the logo of our migraine app - maybe they'll get inspired by our data privacy procedures as well 👀 🤓 #dataprivacy #meta #facebook https://twitter.com/...
That face when you just wanted a faster way to rank girls by looks and ended up enabling a fascist coup in the richest country on earth https://twitter.com/...
I've had it with endless Facebook scandals. The only way to change behavior is a criminal investigation of Zuckerberg and fellow FB insiders, and there's a strong case for the DOJ to pursue one. https://mattstoller.substack.com/ ...
@mayazi Smart thread. But isn't hardware FB's achilles heel? Remember the facebook phone a few years back... I agree Zuck is trying to wrest control from Apple et al, but pulling it off is going to be a tough task
“The metaverse isn't about building perfect virtual escape hatches—it's about holding a mirror to our own broken, shared world. @Facebook's promised metaverse is about distracting us from the world it's helped break.”-@ethanz https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...
@edzitron you're either saying the same thing as Kevin, or missing his point: the fact that the Metaverse doesn't exist in any way is exactly why it's a useful escape hatch! “Mark, we'd like to talk about current disinfor-” “May I interest you in this unfalsifiable tech dream?”
Rebranding from #Facebook to #Meta is not an attempt to remove negative associations around Facebook from the internet. We've already paid Google a bunch of money to do that for us.
@sbyrnes The consumer demand for VR is inevitable, more of a question of who will end up developing the platform(s) for it. Very hard to see a world where VR doesn't happen, more of an inevitable outcome of technology improvement. Timing, of course, does matter...
- Amazon's marketplace includes the same surveillance but also owns the cloud for other application. The market is their business, all sides of it - Apple sells the best package & experience tailored according to their rules, their payment rail, App Store, identity & security
If Facebook can rebrand as Meta without asking me, then I get to rebrand myself as Birthday Reminders, no questions asked. Happy Birthday @AndyRichter.
@kevinroose I really think everyone is overthinking the “3D chess” behind this. It's just what Mark Zuckerberg thinks is the cool new thing, and he wants to be the person & company to do it. I really don't think it's much more thought out than that.
This is the problem with the “metaverse” strategy. Facebook is pursuing it because it's good for Facebook, not because there is real consumer demand. https://www.nytimes.com/...
The underrated Zuck move: FB realized that the only sustainable biz model in the stack is one that requires them to own the the OS & hardware. The move to Meta is about to be followed by a shift to more FB owned devices other than the new watch & Occulus (VR headset)
Facebook is changing its name to Meta. “Knock knock!” “Who's there?” “Meta!” “Meta who?” “Meta whistleblower & instead of improving the way we do business, we're gonna pretend to be a new business!”
I just watched @boztank's AMA on Instagram and it's by far the best summary and Q+A of what Meta is trying to do, especially with Facebook logins, Quest and more. For those with questions I suggest watching.
“This isn't a vanity stunt for Mr. Zuckerberg,” @kevinroose writes. “In the metaverse, he has found what may be an escape hatch — a way to eject himself from Facebook's messy, troubled present and break ground on a new, untainted frontier.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Notice Apple, Amazon & Google are after the same thing, only the difference between the FAANG is what biz model they use to monetize. - Google owns Android, search & mail which is enough to monetize selling user data & surveillance, but the Android distribution is . advantage
“The bleakest version of what Facebook might become in the next few years [...] — a Boomer-dominated sludge pit filled with cute animal videos and hyperpartisan garbage — is clearly not the kind of thing the company wants as its flagship product.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
This is a great frame from @kevinroose FB faces - aging risk - platform risk - regulatory risk - reputation risk Meta - skews young w VR/AR - vertically integrates hardware + software - is pre-regulation - is a reputationally unsettled tech frontier https://www.nytimes.com/...
As Zuck pushes Meta, academics call for metaverse regulation “Meta treats the world as free digital real estate, a resource for corporate extraction, surveillance, commercialisation. This speculation must be preceded by state permit, licence, fee, or tax” https://www.ft.com/...
Facebook is Facebook. Don't write about the name, write about what they do, because that's what matters. Paperwork doesn't change the nature of a thing.
The “metaverse” isn't a vanity stunt for Mark Zuckerberg, @kevinroose writes. “He has found what may be an escape hatch — a way to eject himself from Facebook's messy, troubled present and break ground on a new, untainted frontier.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Facebook's vision for an immersive virtual environment it calls the metaverse could help solve at least four big, thorny problems it faces here in the terrestrial world. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Journalism writes about their version of reality, which is different from actual reality. Here's a link to the story (no paywall). https://www.nytimes.com/...
The Metaverse Is Mark Zuckerberg's Escape Hatch If his new strategy works — a big if — it could help address several of Facebook's biggest problems. Buen análisis @nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/...