HN Explorer

12 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 27.4 ms ] thread
flw_0311
didn't they rename the company to Meta because of their investment in Metaverse.... what will the company rename itself to next?
glenstein
I think they actually renamed to avoid anti-trust by attempting to shift the company's identity away from social media monopoly. If you're perceived as pointless and weird (and actually are), it's much better than being perceived as a monopoly which is the target of bipartisan effort to be dismantled.

I think they took a boutique idea that had no legs and leaned into it because it also happened to be complementary to a strategy to escape the anti-trust heat.

urbandw311er
Are they? I thought they were moving the access to it to be solely via their app or something like that
xg15
I wasn't following the project very closely and so might have missed something - but could someone explain what happened there and where all those billions went?

The idea of an immersive, persistent, multi-user virtual reality is not exactly a new one and we've had several mature implementations over the years - VRChat, Second Life, in some sense most MMOs, etc.

Compared to that, all the impressions of the "Metaverse" that made some larger rounds in the press looked more like the prototype of a WiiFit knockoff. And that for 85B? Did they do some significant research/development in other problem areas that are less visible than the graphics? Or what was going on there?

furryrain
Tech sentiment around 2022 was time was Zuckerberg was a good leader for actually setting a clear direction for his company.

I'm not sure what to conclude from this.

metalman
it was so bad that they couldn't even get anybody to form negative opinions about it