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> Facebook has made building the metaverse one of its big priorities.

There is something incredibly seedy about a company like facebook who's revenue model is around advertisement building a whole metaverse.

The concept of the metaverse is from books describing a dystopia. The fact that people unironically and without context refer to it as part of a vision that deserves to be made reality is so depressing I cannot adequately find the words.
Wait for second project in the pipeline, something something "Death Star"
Demolition Man future is now.
Has FB even defined what they mean by "metaverse" yet? What are these 10k people going to actually do?

So far the explanation I've heard is basically "VR world app, you know, like the metaverse".

The idea of 'virtual worlds' has taken off in free-roam games like Fortnite. So much so that Epic have hosted concerts by Ariana Grande and Travis Scott, where the performance happens inside the game, with the artists represented as 3d avatars.

To me, that looks utterly pointless, but then again, I don't understand the appeal of watching other people play games for hours, and that's already proven to be a multi-billion industry somehow.

You echo my sentiments exactly, I don't understand the allure but I can't deny its impact.
Zuckerberg wants to be the villain from that Ready Player One book but without any of the hassle of taking it over
> Zuckerberg wants to be the villain from that Ready Player One book but without any of the hassle of taking it over

He probably sees himself as the misunderstood, genius creator of The Oasis rather than the conniving corporate bureaucrat in that movie (I never read the book version)

If you strap sensors to people and have their eyeballs inside a box full of sensors and lenses, imagine all the data you'll have for better targeting and advertising insights!
I'm a big VR enthusiast but hell will freeze over before I touch any "metaverse" that Facebook has had a hand in creating. I used to have a Rift and dropped it like a hot coal when they started pushing the FB login BS.
Is 'metaverse' the new 'information superhighway'?

I use that term in the Bill Gates context, specifically in his 1994 book "The Road Ahead", which posited how people would use the up-and-coming Internet, with Microsoft firmly at the center of that hub.

That book was of course hastily re-written a year later as Netscape, AOL and other non-MS moats briefly became the first introduction people had to the web.

But in this case, FB owns Oculus plus 3 gigantic communication platforms. They're far better suited to act as gatekeeper than MS were.

The way they are playing up how they are HIRING IN THE EU feels like such a blatantly obvious way to influence their image in Europe.
Expanding their territorial presence. My comment yesterday about WW3 being fought against Facebook is becoming truer every day.
a closed all including environment controlled by Facebook is the last thing I want
It seems a good move for Facebook, mainly for two reasons:

1. the average cost of a software engineer in Europe is lower than that in the Silicon Valley;

2. 10k employees are a powerful leverage when the EU will raise concerns about FB monopoly.