Mark Zuckerberg's great virtual dream is floundering. According to an internal Meta document, the company has reduced their growth rate forecasts in the Facebook Horizon Worlds metaverse from an initial estimate of 500,000 monthly users down to 280,000 by the end of the year. Furthermore, Zuckerberg's personal endeavor continues to cost him billions of dollars out of his own pocket as well as the company's accounts.
Facebook Horizon Worlds is Meta's flagship project. It is a virtual reality platform, a metaverse with different virtual spaces where users can interact through an avatar. According to an internal document which was accessed by The Wall Street Journal, there are currently less than 200,000 active users. The quote "an empty world is a sad world," as stated in the aforementioned private report, sufficiently clarifies the situation.
10 billion cost per year
Although Zuckerberg himself warned that this is a project that will take a decade to fully develop, disappointment and concern are noticeable at the company's headquarters. According to CNBC, the annual cost of maintaining the metaverse costs the company $10 billion a year, and the result is well below forecasts. In fact, Meta's shares have fallen 62% year-to-date.
Beyond the ridiculousness of 200,000 users for a company that reaches almost half of the world's population (3.5 billion users) through Facebook and Instagram, the problem lies in people's behavior when accessing the metaverse. According to evidence published by The Wall Street Journal, most of those who join usually do not return within a month. In addition, the number of registered users has continued to fall since the spring.
Zuckerberg nearly over 70 billion in 2022
According to Meta's internal data, only 9% of virtual worlds are ever visited by at least 50 people. In reality, the majority of the worlds created have not received visitors.
Zuckerberg himself is feeling the reality of the situation, especially in his pocket. In 2021, he lost $5.9 billion in one day due to Whatsapp and Facebook outage. This year's stock drop is also weighing on the businessman's fortunes. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his net worth has gone from $121 billion in February 2022 to $47.8 billion today.
