Is Zuckerberg’s Metaverse ending? Meta decimates staff, sours on VR.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse may not be the next big thing after all.

It hasn’t been that long since the Metaverse was the place to be, with celebrities like Snoop Dogg saying he would start a new record label and social media giants the Nelk Boys promising fans exclusive experiences.

Several sources are reporting that Reality Labs, Meta’s division that works on virtual reality headsets, smart glasses, and wristbands, is dumping around 10% of its workforce.

‘About 80% of users are reportedly under the age of 16 years old.’

The New York Times reports this could amount to somewhere around 1,000-1,500 employees and “disproportionately” affect those who work on the Metaverse and virtual-reality-based social media networking. Bloomberg’s report echoed similar numbers and said Meta is cutting back on virtual reality investments. A Meta spokesperson told Return the Bloomberg report is accurate.

CEO Zuckerberg may no longer think his prized avatar world is the future. He reportedly wants money reallocated from VR goggles and the Metaverse toward his wearables division, to push smart glasses and wristband computing.

For example, Meta is famously partnered with Ray-Ban glasses for video recording and AI integration into the user’s point of view.

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It is difficult to gauge the active users in the Metaverse. In 2022, the internet was rife with stories of barren online wastelands such as Decentraland and Sandbox’s $1.3 billion disaster that was garnering fewer than 1,000 daily active users.

As Blaze News reported in December, Meta had recently revealed it spent $77 billion on its overall VR strategy that included Meta Quest hardware (headsets) and Meta Horizon, its Metaverse social platform.

“We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward wearables,” a Meta spokesperson told Return. “This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year.”

Current estimates have the active user count for the Metaverse, overall, at somewhere between 400 and 600 million. About 80% of users are reportedly under the age of 16 years old, and half of all users are under 13.

Last year, the company said it had significant growth in sales for its VR headsets and increased payment volume on its platform by 12%. This came with a 10% overall increase in monthly time spent on its media apps, Meta’s VP of Metaverse content, Samantha Ryan, wrote in 2024.

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Still, Zuckerberg has made it clear that the company is shifting toward its wearable technology and AI, including what it takes to power it.

With plans to build new massive data centers, Zuckerberg has promised to deliver “personal superintelligence,” confirming in recent remarks that the company will continue to “invest in and finance Meta’s AI and infrastructure.”

The company says it will focus on experiences with mobile phones for the Metaverse, instead of VR headsets.

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