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Facebook just posted its first-ever dip in its revenue and scrutiny over its vaunted metaverse has increased exponentially as a result.
iPhone X beside MacBook. Photo by Timothy Hales Bennett.
First, for Facebook (the division), a revenue drop is headline news by itself. Second, the race to keep up with Tiktok and the like is certainly taking its toll on everyone with the constant updates and changes (not to mention public backlash). When you combine these two phenomena together and consider that Meta is using these two pillars to launch itself into its “metaverse” future, things start to get messy. That’s because the metaverse doesn’t make any money yet, and some of the company’s Oculus devices recently pivoted from consumer-facing to business hardware for that same reason.
The drop is just one percent, as The Verge points out, but that small number comes with big questions about Meta’s future popularity. To explain this drop, one of the many factors Meta lists is the recent restriction in tracking on Apple iOS devices which harmed the company’s ability to deliver up ads and the revenue from that.
Even with those numbers, Meta was still able to grow its platforms some 4% last year which we’re sure is a metric they’re happy to post. Imagine if the report was that Facebook was not only losing money but also users and you’d have a really bad situation for Meta.
All of that brings us to the metaverse concept. Is this really the future of the company in light of intense social media competition for their bread-and-butter apps? Meta seems to think so and is doubling down on this effort as well as others moving forward. Whether the future looks more like TikTok or something else entirely remains to be seen but we wouldn’t be surprised if Meta starts becoming more aggressive in promoting its ideas with regard to the metaverse over the coming year to give investors a clearer picture of where their money is going.
Do you expect to spend much time in the metaverse in the future? Let us know what you think of this latest concept in the comments below.
Kehl is our staff photography news writer since 2017 and has over a decade of experience in online media and publishing and you can get to know him better here and follow him on Insta.
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