Nevertheless, Meta will strive to evolve in this field, and if the advent of Facebook and other social media platforms is any indication, it may not be too much longer until we spend a lot of time in online spaces as we do in actual ones. In an interview that took place on Tuesday with CNBC, Mark Zuckerberg, who is now ranked as the 15th wealthiest individual in the world, expressed his belief that the metaverse may play a “significant” role in the firm’s operations in the latter half of this decade.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, said “We have high hopes that the metaverse will one day be home to around one billion individuals, all of whom will engage in commerce to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by purchasing digital commodities, digital material, and a variety of other items with which to define themselves.”
In his explanation, Zuckerberg stated that he prefers people to burn cash on “attire for their profile picture or various digital products for their simulated residence or things to adorn their online meeting room.” He also wants consumers to spend on “utility services to be able to work more efficiently in digital and augmented reality, and around the metaverse as a whole.”
This kind of radical departure from the remnants of Web 2.0 and social networking platforms seems to have been a long time in the making. For example, Zuckerberg’s initial social media platform, Facebook, is now seeing serial decrease for the initial time in its existence. For example, in 2014 Meta (which was then known as Facebook) spent a total of $2 billion for Oculus VR; nevertheless, the company did not nearly experience the success that was anticipated.
Nevertheless, four years back, an official at Oculus named Jason Rubin presented a 50-page presentation to the board of directors of the firm and said that the metaverse was “ours to lose” in the forthcoming decade. Since that time, a significant amount of both time and cash has been invested into turning the concept into a reality.
Microsoft, Epic Games, and Meta, together with 33 other firms, have come together to establish a body for the metaverse. This organization will be comprised of “task-based initiatives” that promote common rules. The rest of the enterprises are looking at the bigger picture as well. There is a great deal of contention around the question of whether or not there will really be anything close to one billion individuals in the metaverse in the years ahead, and there is data to support both sides of the argument.
On one side, events such as the acquisition of virtual land by regular folk, celebs, and property investors such as demonstrate that digital domains can be priced in methods that a person living a decade back would not have been able to envision.
In addition to this, several individuals already invest a significant amount of their time in “immersive online environments.” We talk to one another through video calls while also playing video games and browsing social networking sites. They aren’t nearly as engrossing as the metaverse, but how is it such a huge jump to go from one to the other?
Some others are really not buying into the entire buzz at all. Elon Musk joked about the Metaverse a few months back, saying, “I am not sure whether I really subscribe to this Metaverse thing, but people speak to me a great deal about that as well.” He went on to say that he does not foresee a future in which people desire to remain stationary in the virtual environment.