What Goes Up Must Come Down Even in Zuckland
November 15, 2022
Facebook used to be the indomitable ruler of social media, then its popularity plummeted in the face of older users and other platforms. Zuckerberg is facing a similar decline with his Meta company, but the plunge hits his deep pockets. Techspot explains what is going on with Zuckerberg and Meta in the article, “Meta Value Down $520 Billion Last Year, Threatening Its Position As a Top 20 Company.”
Meta has less net profits because of the economic downturn in the United States. Companies are spending less money are advertisements through Meta’s products. Meta’s investors are also worried, because the company is funneling billions into the VR/MR “metaverse” project. Meta’s VR/MR branch is called Reality Labs and it lost $10.2 billion in 2021. Reality Labs’s losses are expected to increase in 2023. In 2022, the losses are expected to be $85-87 billion.
Facebook hit the $1 trillion market cap in June 2021 more quickly than any company before. At the beginning of 2022, Facebook was the sixth biggest company in the US. Since Zuckerberg, however, renamed his company Meta its worth has fallen and it could secure the twentieth spot in the biggest company list.
Zuckerberg continues to push VR agenda:
“Despite losing billions and an analyst’s prediction that many business projects in this area will close by 2025, Zuckerberg is doubling down on the metaverse. ‘Look, I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment, but from what I can tell, I think this is going to be a very important thing,’ he said. ‘People will look back a decade from now and talk about the importance of the work being done here.’”
Zuckerberg was a visionary with Facebook. Is he replicating his visions with the metaverse? He is losing billions of dollars, but it could pay off or it will be another blunder in technology history.
Whitney Grace, November 15, 2022