The Metaverse Is NOT Collapsing. Here's Why.

[Marduk]

Good multi-role platforms usually don't start out multi-role. They start out intended to be good at one thing with the rest getting added in a haphazard "What the heck, why not?" manner as time passes.

And sometimes the different roles have conflicting requirements, and the platform runner may not even allow the level of customization necessary to overcome that.
For one Meta as a company wants to stay in good graces with mainstream advertises, very vulnerable to any sort of controversy.
Meanwhile VRChat's recipe for success includes a lot of reliance on user initiative, having shitloads of custom, user made\commissioned art, including pretty damn spicy stuff, separate servers with different community, culture, rules and purpose and so on.
VRChat itself doesn't give a shit about what mainstream advertisers think about any of these because it's not reliant on them.
Meta as a single company trying to reach into such different directions means it cannot separate the PR needs (among others) of one branch from the freedoms and limitations of others.
Point in case:

Woman, 21, is 'virtually RAPED' by a stranger in Meta's metaverse app

A researcher from SumOfUs went in to Horizon Worlds with a female-appearing and female-sounding avatar, and was sexually assaulted within an hour, according to a report.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Agent23]

VR in its current state is a total crapshoot.

The only reason why the Metaverse is still afloat is because Cuckerberg is an autistic megalomaniac with too much power, he is shoveling all of Meta's profits coming from FB and Instagram into that shit.

Take a good look at Meta's chart.

The only reason it bounced back from 90 is because Cuckerberg anounced huge layoffs and there were some rumors about im dropping it, and the usual copium about interest rates lifting all boats.

He is kicking out people because he needs to shovel more cash into the steam boiler of his megalomania and he is also purging dissidents that do not tow his party line or subscribe to his cult and the usual short covering.

Fuck him, he annoys me even more than Musky does.

 

[Cherico]

The Boomer's started retirements en mass last year all of that cheap investment money is being drained out of the system as we speak.

And no it is not coming back because of demographics. The era of cheap money is structurally over. And a lot of tech companies will die.

So my question is we're is all of the money going to come from to pay for all of this shit

 

[Robovski]

My boss and I joked about expanding the social media team to Meta - we aren't going to spend on the gear, let aside the wages. We do just fine covering Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Who knows, maybe someday it would be popular enough to have that presence, but everything we do is in support of a real world equipment rental business, so the virtual world will always be of severely limited utility to our business.

 

[Pocky Balboa]

I think the game was called Second Life.

That rings a bell. That could be it.

That was the first thing which popped into my mind as well.

I had an ex-gf who was quite into that.

Second Life is actually still running and has had multiple updates (I was surprised when I checked half a decade ago, after which I periodically would check on its existence just out of curiosity), with a dedicated user base. Apparently since 2017 the base has stabilized to about 800,000 to 900,000 users. You don't hear much about it aside recently (aside from the comparisons with Meta when it launched from the few places that still remembered it was a thing) since its interface isn't newbie-friendly (which drives away the normies) and the media and the 4chan/Anon-types looking for lulz got bored with it pretty quickly back when it was new.

Meanwhile the Metaverse cannot settle on whether it wants to be that, a social media for normies, or a remote work software, or a game, or wtf else gimmick their buzzword team comes up with. The technology is far from mature, its capabilities are limited, and it does require focused efforts to turn it into anything actually worth using.
In the end they may well end up with a product that technically can do everything, but in the end is good at nothing.

This. For all that its dropped into relative obscurity, Second Life is still hanging around for almost two decades now because it defined itself as a community-driven sandbox social simulator with a particular focus on user-generated content at the start of its inception. Linden Labs had a clear idea of what they were going for in the beginning.

 

[bintananth]

This. For all that its dropped into relative obscurity, Second Life is still hanging around for almost two decades now because it defined itself as a commuinity-driven sandbox social simulator with a particular focus on user-generated content at the start of its inception. Linden Labs had a clear idea of what they were going for in the beginning.

Heck, LiveJournal is still around and now Russian owned.

That's five years older than Facebook ...

 

[King Krávoka]

VRChat does a far better job. It's more free, more open, better graphics, and so on. Like Sseth said "If you want shit done, don't hire on LinkedIn; Hire on FurAffinity". Say what you will them furries have made VRChat work, they constantly make addons and avatars and keep it fresh and expanding.

Second Life was the same, in fact, I first discovered the concept of the furry community when I was reading through the Complete Idiot's Guide to Second Life during my father's SL phase.

 

[DarthOne]

The Metaverse has a good chance to work. The problem is Meta as a company is cringe and shit.

VRChat does a far better job. It's more free, more open, better graphics, and so on. Like Sseth said "If you want shit done, don't hire on LinkedIn; Hire on FurAffinity". Say what you will them furries have made VRChat work, they constantly make addons and avatars and keep it fresh and expanding. Meta, meanwhile, is stuck trying to be Fagbook with VR and blander than hospital food and shilling for advertisers and partnerships with ESG and WEF types. Not gonna fly.

Second Life was the same, in fact, I first discovered the concept of the furry community when I was reading through the Complete Idiot's Guide to Second Life during my father's SL phase.

considering the amount of groomers and deviants in the furry community that’s hardly a good thing.

 

[Sergeant Foley]

That's because it is.

One of my cousins said she noticed Facebook looked different with the new mea look.